Just noticed EDF not taken direct debits since July 😢

EssexHebridean

chocky1 said:

Haven’t contacted yet … been filing tax return today !

On that one, bear in mind that you can do your return any time from about the second week of April. When I saw self employed I always made a point of just getting mine done to get it out of the way and know sooner what I was paying and when - it’s also often easier when things are fresher in your mind from the relevant tax year! 

On the checking of bank statements, it’s probably worth setting aside a specific couple of hours once a month to do a full check over banking and budgets - an awful lot of folk have had similar issues to you at some stage (at one point years ago it became apparent we’d been paying someone else’s water bill for 6 months!)  and it’s a steep, but effective learning curve! You will definitely be more cautious about checking in the future won’t you! 

With luck EDF will acknowledge their part in your current situation and be happy to help you arrange a plan for repayment. 

matelodave

Ectophile said:

matelodave said:

I still find it hard to believe that people don't check their bank accounts for six months or more. Mine gets checked every couple of weeks, especially if theres an extra payment to be made and it gets reconciled every month when the statement is issued. Same with my credit cards and leccy bills. Apart from cash taken out as pocket money I know where every penny gets spent.

I can understand being lazy about energy bills but I do like to know whether my salary/pension is going in as it should be,  and I'm even more interested in who is taking money out and whether they are taking out the correct amount.

I would have thought that most people would notice something like £100-£150 or more a month isn't being taken or that the balance is increasing by that amount. By my reckoning six months at say £100-£150 a month should leave a healthy excess balance of between £600-£900 more than I'd expect.

Perhaps its just me but I'd be a bit worried if my account was increasing at that sort of rate, unless there's so much cash floating around that an extra hundred or so a month is just lost in the noise. 

I check all my bank statements.  If I see payments to the usual companies, that's OK.  Or if it's places I regularly shop.  Everything unusual gets checked.

But what I would never notice is something that isn't there.

The naive assumption being that if one would normally notice a balance deficit then they should also notice a surplus .

I'm sure I'd notice if something wasn't there that should be - especially an electricity, gas or council tax bill etc. Likewise an incoming missing payment like my salary, pension or other amount that I was expecting. In fact I look forward to February and March when I get a respite from the council tax (it gets taken in 10 monthly payments) so my account balance is  £200 better off in each of those two months. I am aware why it's there and I know I can spend it if I so choose because I know where its from.

I'd certainly wonder what was happening if my account balance was increasing at an unexpected rate of around £100-£150 a month as I could be nigh on a grand better off after a fairly short while and personally I'd be try to identify where it all came from.

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EssexHebridean

This is all wonderful from a position of hindsight though - those of us preaching the benefits of checking are all doing for from an informed position - we have either fallen foul of not doing so in the past, or have simply been taught or come to an understanding from our own research that routine checking of bank accounts is a good thing to do. Nobody can be expected to do something they aren’t aware is necessary! The OP does indeed now however fall into that position of knowing, and understanding and I very much doubt they will make the same mistake again, so I’m unconvinced of the benefits of simply repeating the same lecture over and over.