EDF Energy Feed in Tariffs - We are making some changes

mmmmikey

Hopefully just an issue with the transition and normal (excellent) service will be resumed for September's payment. Been away for a few days, hopefully there will be a cheque waiting for me when I get home - not seen one of those for years, definitely a blast from the past. Will chase them up if it's not received today.

lotus26

The latest response from EDF:

"Unfortunately, we are unable to do a BACS payment for this quarter. However the cheque has been issued so this is on its way to you. We do apologise for the delay this month, we do understand that you have had to wait longer than normal. It can take up to 28 days for your cheque to be received this is due solely to the volume of cheques we have issued and we are sorry for the wait. Please do be aware that we do have 90 days in order to make payment although we have always overdelivered on this timescale and we do aim to return to BACS payments in September which will be a much quicker process."

Poor.

mmmmikey

lotus26 said:

The latest response from EDF:

"Unfortunately, we are unable to do a BACS payment for this quarter. However the cheque has been issued so this is on its way to you. We do apologise for the delay this month, we do understand that you have had to wait longer than normal. It can take up to 28 days for your cheque to be received this is due solely to the volume of cheques we have issued and we are sorry for the wait. Please do be aware that we do have 90 days in order to make payment although we have always overdelivered on this timescale and we do aim to return to BACS payments in September which will be a much quicker process."

Poor.

To be fair, upgrading a system like this is a major undertaking and it is true to say that they have always massively over delivered on their payment commitments in the past. You only have to look at the complaints we see on this forum from SSE customers to realise that EDF have consistently stood head and shoulders above much of their competition for a number of years. So although it's frustrating their response does seem reasonable.

Somewhere in the background you can bet there will be regular folks just like you and me who are run ragged trying to sort things out - having worked in IT I've been there many times myself.

inspectorperez

mmmmikey said:

lotus26 said:

The latest response from EDF:

"Unfortunately, we are unable to do a BACS payment for this quarter. However the cheque has been issued so this is on its way to you. We do apologise for the delay this month, we do understand that you have had to wait longer than normal. It can take up to 28 days for your cheque to be received this is due solely to the volume of cheques we have issued and we are sorry for the wait. Please do be aware that we do have 90 days in order to make payment although we have always overdelivered on this timescale and we do aim to return to BACS payments in September which will be a much quicker process."

Poor.

To be fair, upgrading a system like this is a major undertaking and it is true to say that they have always massively over delivered on their payment commitments in the past. You only have to look at the complaints we see on this forum from SSE customers to realise that EDF have consistently stood head and shoulders above much of their competition for a number of years. So although it's frustrating their response does seem reasonable.

Somewhere in the background you can bet there will be regular folks just like you and me who are run ragged trying to sort things out - having worked in IT I've been there many times myself.

Interesting to read comments from someone who has IT experience.

My FIT account was added (presumably by EDF IT team) to my EDF mobile app about 4 weeks ago but none of the relevant data fields have been populated yet apart from the account number. I'm using this as a benchmark rightly or wrongly to give me a clue as to when my own details have been migrated to the new system.

As a non IT person, I am however puzzled as to how such a migration process can take so long when presumably the key part is to create a map moving data from A to B then simply pressing a button to move across. Clearly my simplistic view of such matters is unachievable in the real world.

BarelySentientAI

inspectorperez said:

mmmmikey said:

lotus26 said:

The latest response from EDF:

"Unfortunately, we are unable to do a BACS payment for this quarter. However the cheque has been issued so this is on its way to you. We do apologise for the delay this month, we do understand that you have had to wait longer than normal. It can take up to 28 days for your cheque to be received this is due solely to the volume of cheques we have issued and we are sorry for the wait. Please do be aware that we do have 90 days in order to make payment although we have always overdelivered on this timescale and we do aim to return to BACS payments in September which will be a much quicker process."

Poor.

To be fair, upgrading a system like this is a major undertaking and it is true to say that they have always massively over delivered on their payment commitments in the past. You only have to look at the complaints we see on this forum from SSE customers to realise that EDF have consistently stood head and shoulders above much of their competition for a number of years. So although it's frustrating their response does seem reasonable.

Somewhere in the background you can bet there will be regular folks just like you and me who are run ragged trying to sort things out - having worked in IT I've been there many times myself.

Interesting to read comments from someone who has IT experience.

My FIT account was added (presumably by EDF IT team) to my EDF mobile app about 4 weeks ago but none of the relevant data fields have been populated yet apart from the account number. I'm using this as a benchmark rightly or wrongly to give me a clue as to when my own details have been migrated to the new system.

As a non IT person, I am however puzzled as to how such a migration process can take so long when presumably the key part is to create a map moving data from A to B then simply pressing a button to move across. Clearly my simplistic view of such matters is unachievable in the real world.

That's assuming that the data is all correctly laid out, formatted the same, without gaps etc at A (and is all actually at A, not some bits at C, others at D, some in a spreadsheet that only Eric has access to,...) , and all needs to go exactly across in a consistent pattern without modification into B.

inspectorperez

BarelySentientAI said:

inspectorperez said:

mmmmikey said:

lotus26 said:

The latest response from EDF:

"Unfortunately, we are unable to do a BACS payment for this quarter. However the cheque has been issued so this is on its way to you. We do apologise for the delay this month, we do understand that you have had to wait longer than normal. It can take up to 28 days for your cheque to be received this is due solely to the volume of cheques we have issued and we are sorry for the wait. Please do be aware that we do have 90 days in order to make payment although we have always overdelivered on this timescale and we do aim to return to BACS payments in September which will be a much quicker process."

Poor.

To be fair, upgrading a system like this is a major undertaking and it is true to say that they have always massively over delivered on their payment commitments in the past. You only have to look at the complaints we see on this forum from SSE customers to realise that EDF have consistently stood head and shoulders above much of their competition for a number of years. So although it's frustrating their response does seem reasonable.

Somewhere in the background you can bet there will be regular folks just like you and me who are run ragged trying to sort things out - having worked in IT I've been there many times myself.

Interesting to read comments from someone who has IT experience.

My FIT account was added (presumably by EDF IT team) to my EDF mobile app about 4 weeks ago but none of the relevant data fields have been populated yet apart from the account number. I'm using this as a benchmark rightly or wrongly to give me a clue as to when my own details have been migrated to the new system.

As a non IT person, I am however puzzled as to how such a migration process can take so long when presumably the key part is to create a map moving data from A to B then simply pressing a button to move across. Clearly my simplistic view of such matters is unachievable in the real world.

That's assuming that the data is all correctly laid out, formatted the same, without gaps etc at A (and is all actually at A, not some bits at C, others at D, some in a spreadsheet that only Eric has access to,...) , and all needs to go exactly across in a consistent pattern without modification into B.

I absolutely accept what you say when it comes to organisations which are not necessarily sophisticated in their IT operations. But EDF FIT team to the best of my knowledge is a centralized office and one would have imagined that all FIT accounts would therefore have been held on one central database which presumably would have had a uniform structure.

The picture now emerging in my mind is a team of operators manually inputting data into a new system, hence the extensive time being taken for the project.

BarelySentientAI

inspectorperez said:

BarelySentientAI said:

inspectorperez said:

mmmmikey said:

lotus26 said:

The latest response from EDF:

"Unfortunately, we are unable to do a BACS payment for this quarter. However the cheque has been issued so this is on its way to you. We do apologise for the delay this month, we do understand that you have had to wait longer than normal. It can take up to 28 days for your cheque to be received this is due solely to the volume of cheques we have issued and we are sorry for the wait. Please do be aware that we do have 90 days in order to make payment although we have always overdelivered on this timescale and we do aim to return to BACS payments in September which will be a much quicker process."

Poor.

To be fair, upgrading a system like this is a major undertaking and it is true to say that they have always massively over delivered on their payment commitments in the past. You only have to look at the complaints we see on this forum from SSE customers to realise that EDF have consistently stood head and shoulders above much of their competition for a number of years. So although it's frustrating their response does seem reasonable.

Somewhere in the background you can bet there will be regular folks just like you and me who are run ragged trying to sort things out - having worked in IT I've been there many times myself.

Interesting to read comments from someone who has IT experience.

My FIT account was added (presumably by EDF IT team) to my EDF mobile app about 4 weeks ago but none of the relevant data fields have been populated yet apart from the account number. I'm using this as a benchmark rightly or wrongly to give me a clue as to when my own details have been migrated to the new system.

As a non IT person, I am however puzzled as to how such a migration process can take so long when presumably the key part is to create a map moving data from A to B then simply pressing a button to move across. Clearly my simplistic view of such matters is unachievable in the real world.

That's assuming that the data is all correctly laid out, formatted the same, without gaps etc at A (and is all actually at A, not some bits at C, others at D, some in a spreadsheet that only Eric has access to,...) , and all needs to go exactly across in a consistent pattern without modification into B.

I absolutely accept what you say when it comes to organisations which are not necessarily sophisticated in their IT operations. But EDF FIT team to the best of my knowledge is a centralized office and one would have imagined that all FIT accounts would therefore have been held on one central database which presumably would have had a uniform structure.

The picture now emerging in my mind is a team of operators manually inputting data into a new system, hence the extensive time being taken for the project.

When I did recording of solar installations for one of the DNOs in the past (appreciate that's the operator not the supplier), it was a spreadsheet on my local computer.

That wasn't just a fun little project - that was our official record of what was installed in the network.

mmmmikey

inspectorperez said:

mmmmikey said:

lotus26 said:

The latest response from EDF:

"Unfortunately, we are unable to do a BACS payment for this quarter. However the cheque has been issued so this is on its way to you. We do apologise for the delay this month, we do understand that you have had to wait longer than normal. It can take up to 28 days for your cheque to be received this is due solely to the volume of cheques we have issued and we are sorry for the wait. Please do be aware that we do have 90 days in order to make payment although we have always overdelivered on this timescale and we do aim to return to BACS payments in September which will be a much quicker process."

Poor.

To be fair, upgrading a system like this is a major undertaking and it is true to say that they have always massively over delivered on their payment commitments in the past. You only have to look at the complaints we see on this forum from SSE customers to realise that EDF have consistently stood head and shoulders above much of their competition for a number of years. So although it's frustrating their response does seem reasonable.

Somewhere in the background you can bet there will be regular folks just like you and me who are run ragged trying to sort things out - having worked in IT I've been there many times myself.

Interesting to read comments from someone who has IT experience.

My FIT account was added (presumably by EDF IT team) to my EDF mobile app about 4 weeks ago but none of the relevant data fields have been populated yet apart from the account number. I'm using this as a benchmark rightly or wrongly to give me a clue as to when my own details have been migrated to the new system.

As a non IT person, I am however puzzled as to how such a migration process can take so long when presumably the key part is to create a map moving data from A to B then simply pressing a button to move across. Clearly my simplistic view of such matters is unachievable in the real world.

A perfectly reasonable assumption, but the chances are they're doing a couple of things as well as simply moving the data:

1. They're doing some kind of data cleansing to remove and or complete / tidy up old data, such as deleting duplicate accounts, validating email addresses and phone numbers and so on. Depending on how meticulously this has been maintained in the past and where the data came from this could take some time.

2. If they're trying to align FIT accounts with energy supply accounts, that can be quite challenging. For example, is Mr. A Smith who has a FIT account the same person as Tony Smith who has an energy supply account? How do you handle addresses where FIT account is in one partners name and energy account is in spouses name? And if you're trying to match addresses is Plot 4 now 24, Acacia Avenue? How does it work when a house has been split into flats? And so on and so on and so on.....

To complicate things further, the data includes financial information in the form of bank account details so there will be stringent security policies to follow.

So on the face of it quite straightforward but can quickly become a nightmare.....

jennifernil

lotus26 said:

Still no payment from EDF. Telephoned on Monday and was advised "cheque in post" - not heard that one for a long time!

Apparently sent second class (can you believe that?) on the 24th and I needed to wait 10 working days before I could chase them.

Still nothing received either in the bank or post as of July 4.

I'll be wasting another half hour on the 'phone later then.

Not great.

How have people found the experience of moving their accounts? Presumably this doesn't mess the original contract/FIT rates up?

We moved everything from EDF to Octopus after trying just to move our export payments which EDF claimed would be too complicated for them.
The process with Octopus was well managed but held up by EDF not agreeing to the switch promptly, presumably because of what is being discussed here.

A switch date of 16th April was set by Octopus, but it took EDF almost 2 months to agree.  However Octopus took over all payments to us from 16th April, at the correct existing FIT rate, and we went immediately onto Outgoing Octopus at 15p per kWh instead of 50% deemed export.

mmmmikey

Cheque received in the post this morning