Hello, I am guessing I am going to have to speak to citizens advice bureau about this but I was just seeking some input here as you lot are a clever bunch some of you with heaps more life experience than yours truly. Fistly - I am on a Duel Fuel plan. So, EDF didn't send us a bill for a whole year, when they finally did, we owed them 1400 quid, or there abouts. Fine - we couldn't pay it, I entered into a repayment plan to pay it back over 6 months, fine. Though - they implied in this that the repayments I was making would include my forecast over the next 6 months so I wouldn't be paying off this debt while amounting different debt - but, that didn't happen, and they also didn't send us a bill during this 6 month repayment. So last week, I got a bill for 700 quid, which is fine as I assumed I had just not heard something correctly and I didn't specifically ask that question pre going into that repayment plan. This morning - got a bill for 1,700 quid... Which was a bit of a shock! and didn't make sense in my head. Then a collections agent from EDF came round to my house and spoke to my housemate, took meter readings etc. and we sorted out another repayment thing, that would be a certain amount over the next TWO YEARS which was a repayment for the debt and an estimate of our usage going forward. I wasn't privvy to any of this as I am at work but my housemate was at home and relayed it onto me - he isn't that good at this though, but anyway I was going to set up the direct debit as I get paid monthly where as he doesn't as he works freelance so it would just make more sense - and I kept saying to him, where has this additional 1000 quid come from and he didn't really know he kept saying that was how much we owe, and I pointed out to him that that amount is £1000 more than it was last week. So I called EDF to find out where this money had come from and to set up the direct debit etc. Now - apparently, even though we are on a dual fuel plan, and we had been under the impression we had been paying gas and electricity, they actually haven't billed us for Gas for about 16 months - and that is where the extra £1000 has come from. The only reason we get behind on our payments, is because they don't bill us for months and months on end and then they do bill us for enormous bills which are normally 6 - 9 months worth of bills (and not quarterly like they should be) - but then I don't get how they have not billed us for Gas for nearly 16 months, when we are supposed to be on a duel fuel plan. My account is currently on hold as when I called in the person on the other end of the phone was perplexed by it to and it now has to go to A.N.Other department to see if they need to make adjustments. Having spend some of my youth working in callcentres I imagine it's gone over to resolutions to find a resolution for this prior to it being a problem. I am not in the wrong there for not paying it am I? (I mean up until now) I appreciate, I can chase them for bills, but it takes usually 25 minutes of hold to get through to someone and I have done this before and they still haven't actually sent a bill through. I think I am going to try and get them to waive some of that 16months - as, we didn't know about it until this morning, and up until this morning we had believed we were paying all our bills and not just bills that had issued and not the ones they hadn't issued for over a year.
It does sound a bit strange that they didn't charge for the gas quarterly. I'd dig through your initial paperwork to look for any specific mention about payment dates and such. Don't be afraid to start using threats of getting the Trading Ombudsman involved either, but only if EDF start getting aggressive themselves. Best of luck .
I've had various issues with gas/electricity companies over the years, and found it notoriously difficult to get sense out of them when things go 'awry'. The best thing to do is to go through all of the paperwork and see what's what with regard to billing dates/billing terms, and whether your billing was supposed to be online only - this particular nugget is very useful, because they should let you know when a new bill is available. It's unreasonable that they failed to bill you in a timely fashion. Are these bills based on estimated or actual readings, by the way?
Don't let any bailiffs in your house/open the door to them until it is sorted out, btw. Probably over paranoid but you need to be careful.
They were nice to me on the phone. I don't get how they have neglected to bill us for one when they have the other and we are on a duel fuel plan. Nah, none of it is paperless or an online account. It's all supposed to be paper mail. Hmm, estimates some of the time, readings if the guy comes and reads it, which up until today hadn't happened for some time. But now the meters have been read it's all accurate. Too late! he was in earlier, which I guess gives him right of access - but I don't actually think he was a bailiff, he was just someone trying to get the account in order. Though maybe that's how they doll it up these days. I have told my housemates this on a number of times but they are more naive than me I think.
who`s name is on the bill? yours or your house mates? if its your then no` deal` can be done with your housemate at all - makes everything currently `arranged` null and void. as for readings , they actually don't have to each quarter (or even yearly - the legal limit is 2 years). which is why I do my own quarterly readings , online . at myedf (yes were on dual fuel with them as well. Had our own share of cock ups , with not only EDF but npower and EON as well, so if I can do a lot myself I will.
This is very important. On a more general note, it's worth making a timeline of bills/meter reads/correspondence with EDF. I ended up having some fairly 'heated' exchanges with folk at EON (and British Gas some years ago) before things ended up with me writing fairly sh*tty legalese correspondence, and at that point things all started to go a bit more swimmingly. It's worth checking out what the legislation says, and what the terms of your supply agreement are. Energy companies in my experience are, unfortunately, a little unscrupulous and then start to get a bit heavy-handed when things don't go too well for them. I got regular 'phone calls from EON even though things were a) disputed; and b) clearly wrong...
Both our names are on it! but when I called them up and spoke to them the woman basically said that that plan was void as it had to go to this other department for them to make adjustments. It's like, the woman who I called up, realised how up on it's head this was. Hmm I guess will have to see how this all plays out!
Go straight to the horse's mouth on this one imo. Write to customer services asking for details of your billing breakdown for your contract since inception, what is currently outstanding as used, and what their projections are based on your current gas and electricity usage. Very often the front-line call centre folks get very little info and will either guess and go faster, or tell you nothing of interest.
http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/engla...you_havent_had_an_energy_bill_for_a_while.htm IF you have made a verifiable effort to contact them about the bill , then you will be covered by the back billing code. I would even ask them about back billing - and please , this is the 21st century - get your online account sorted! they even have an app for it
Tell them to **** right off with this stuff, for what it's worth. My previous flat mate had the electricity (we have no gas) in his name and closed the account when he left. Our electricity usage here is about £500 a year, and when I opened a new account a few months ago the person on the phone tried to tell me that the estimated electricity usage for this property over the last two years was expected to be £1100 a year - more than double. He was massively foot-in-mouth when I kindly advised him I knew to the penny what the bills were for the last two years as I was here, and that he could kindly reduce his 'suggested' £100 a month direct debit to £40, which he then promptly did while making up some excuses. They intentionally try to over-bill you; so make sure you question any 'estimated' plans - if you have the data and £ to hand. A friend of mine in the midlands was over-billed by nearly £2000 by NPower over 5 years when she came to close her account, and she had no idea. It's £ she could have done with in her pocket many times.
Grab the oldest non-estimated bill you can find, and work out for yourself exactly how much you've used and should be paying; it's not unheard of for threes to turn into eights, or sevens into nines...
having read the bills - turns out we haven't been billed for Gas since November 11 - So it's over 2 years of not paying gas - which is why I guess they gave my housemate that two year payback plan due to the back bill protection thing Harlequin pointed out above. And I think the other department where it has been sent for "adjustments" is actually to have the bill redone for the readins as we are actually over on their esitmates by 1,000 odd units. Which is going to make the bill more like 2000 quid, 850 odd for the electricity over the last 6 months or so, and then over a grands gas as they haven't billed us for over 2 years. Obviously I am going to be paying EDF money for a long time My problem is, I don't mind paying the f'ing bills, or at least sorting them - if they never send them through, and I don't have the time to call and chase their workforce just to send out a bill - and then suddenly stump us with a massive one it is not terribly fair! I get to a certain degree it's my responsibility to pay my bills, and I obviously realise over prolonged periods that I haven't paid a bill that I probably should, but I don't think I should always be the one chasing this stuff when it's in their interests!
If you remain reasonable, there's a chance you might get some 'goodwill' discount, and let's be honest - they've f'd up by not invoicing you for gas supplied some two years ago. It's also not really for you to be calling up on a daily basis to request bills. It's their responsibility to bill you appropriately, and now definitely the right thing to do for them to be flexible with you regarding repayments. You want to ensure that they are charging you at the appropriate unit rate dependent upon when that unit was used, too - prices have changed somewhat in the last two years...
I've always found edf decent to deal with. They have an 0800 number too (which is a ballache as I don't have a landline) so they tend to answer fairly quickly. Always been a call centre up north. Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
back billing means , if you have asked them for a bill in the last 2 years - and they haven't supplied one , they cant bill you for more than the previous 12 months
I've only scanned the replies here so apologies if I'm repeating what someone else has said already, but you will be covered by the code of practice for accurate billing with regard to back billing. If the debt is more than 12 months old and they've made no attempt to collect it until now then you shouldn't have to pay. A similar thing happened to my brother a while back with British Gas, they under charged him for a few years, he was paying bills but they were just lower than they should have been. He had no idea the bills were wrong and simply paid them in good faith. When they realised their mistake they sent a demand for around £1500 and wanted immediate payment in full. He spoke to them on the phone and got told a load of b*ll*cks by some idiot, so he asked me to look into it and write a letter to them on his behalf. I did, and he got an apology from a senior manager and the bulk of the debt waived. I believe the rest was repaid over time to suit him, not up front. If you need any help dealing with them let me know, I'll be happy to do a bit of research again and dig out the letter I sent to British Gas. Bypass the call centre and front line staff, raise the issue as a complaint through the director's office. Going forward I suggest you pay by direct debit as that's usually cheaper. Also consider moving to a better supplier. I'm helping my parents move from npower at the moment, they've done a similar thing with them as EDF have with you, no bill in over a year, although in my parents' case they've been taking monthly payments by direct debit (overcharging too, not reviewing as they should) and just hoarding the money. I gather that's common practice with npower. Addendum Here's a link you should find useful http://www.energy-uk.org.uk/customers/energy-industry-codes/code-of-practice-for-accurate-bills.html
