Anyone dealt with abnormal final bills?

Hotwired

Hotwired

Hotwired

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Joined
17 Aug 2009
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Short story is that EDF has come to the conclusion that I owe them about 4k more than I expected for a final bill.

Long story is that 2 years ago I put in the reading for the final bill, they didn't issue a bill, instead they said it was too high and their system rejected it, send a photo, I sent a photo and they never replied and I forgot about it.

Now 2 years later I find a debt collection agency sent a letter to my old address for about £400 naming EDF as their client.

Ok, that must have been that final bill that never got settled, contact EDF, send them the exact same meter photos I sent 2 years ago, this time they decide ah yes I owe them 4000 for the period of 2016-2021 and they'd quite like it if I paid that in 14 days.


I'd probably have been fine with paying 400 even though that seemed quite high but this seems like they're taking the ****.

Rummaged about and found this: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/n...be-banned-from-backbilling-beyond-12-months-/

Well this is well over a year ago that they failed to bill me and I didn't try to avoid being billed, does this apply?
 
I can't help much but do you have proof you sent the information they asked for? (the photo), IE an email or something similar as that could help you a lot.

I'd also be asking exactly how that £400 is now £4k, as at the very least it sounds like they've failed to send you the bill properly and have either added a load of charges or messed up repeatedly.
 
I would say backbilling applies and they cannot chase it, even if it was only for £400

I had similar problem with British Gas who didn’t do a meter check for years and then tried to bill us for around 4K aswell.

Was a bit of a pain and BG tried their hardest to apply pressure to get us to pay. If you don’t get anywhere with supplier contact the energy ombudsman (check rules think you have to give supplier opportunity to solve it first, from memory think it’s 12 weeks for them to try to resolve it, let supplier know you will be contacting ombudsman)

Sometimes the supplier can be stubborn even when they know back billing applies. British Gas refused to budge so in our case had to contact ombudsman. Think each case going to ombudsman also costs them extra aswell, which is a bonus!
 
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Werewolf said:
I can't help much but do you have proof you sent the information they asked for? (the photo), IE an email or something similar as that could help you a lot.

I'd also be asking exactly how that £400 is now £4k, as at the very least it sounds like they've failed to send you the bill properly and have either added a load of charges or messed up repeatedly.
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I have the email saying the reading was rejected and that was replied to with the photos of both meters and I vaguely recall talking to someone on a webchat or maybe phone.

They seem to have been estimating ever since since they installed a smart meter which I could have sworn half the point of which was to send them automatic readings.

I have an email from 2 years back saying the final reading of about 11000 cubic metres was rejected by their system because the old reading was 100 cubic metres. And the meter is outside the property not inside so it's not even possible for them to have been denied a reading between 2016-2021.

Anyway I have no calculations at all to see how they arrived at this final bill, my online account was closed 2 years ago and they say they've sent a paper copy.

But I think I need to make a proper complaint because it feels like I'm talking to front line staff who's bunged in the numbers and issued a bill and no authority to do anything like cancelling or looking into an issued bill for 4k. Also they stopped replying since saying they've sent a bill on Wed.
 
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Hotwired said:
I have the email saying the reading was rejected and that was replied to with the photos of both meters and I vaguely recall talking to someone on a webchat or maybe phone.

They seem to have been estimating ever since since they installed a smart meter which I could have sworn half the point of which was to send them automatic readings.

I have an email from 2 years back saying the final reading of about 11000 cubic metres was rejected by their system because the old reading was 100 cubic metres. And the meter is outside the property not inside so it's not even possible for them to have been denied a reading between 2016-2021.

Anyway I have no calculations at all to see how they arrived at this final bill, my online account was closed 2 years ago and they say they've sent a paper copy.

But I think I need to make a proper complaint because it feels like I'm talking to front line staff who's bunged in the numbers and issued a bill and no authority to do anything like cancelling or looking into an issued bill for 4k. Also they stopped replying since saying they've sent a bill on Wed.
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Start issuing invoices for every reply to them
 
As it’s EDF, go on strike with a yellow jacket on and smash their head office up and burn the place down.
 
DB_SamX said:
Yes.

Closes my 3 account last year, they owed me £2.96. They credited me back £2.97 at the time, and I've owed them 1p since so they sent me another bill this week saying i need to pay up this month.

Farce.
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Even the tax man won’t chase you for a 1p debt :cry:
 
DB_SamX said:
Yes.

Closes my 3 account last year, they owed me £2.96. They credited me back £2.97 at the time, and I've owed them 1p since so they sent me another bill this week saying i need to pay up this month.

Farce.
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If they included a return payment envelope or an address to send payment to, send them a cheque. so they have to pay the handling fees :p
 
Had this exact issue with E.ON.

Final bill of £6k, which was incorrect due to an issue with them inputting a meter read wrong their end.

Revised bill with correct digit was £1k.

The whole thing was written off, because no bill had been issued for two years, either electronically or on paper, despite regular readings being provided.

There is a piece of legislation which means the bill is not enforceable if a bill has not been issued for a certain amount of time - I am not totally sure what the length of time is, but on the basis there hadn't been one issued for 2 years they conceded that they were obliged to write off the entire bill and did so accordingly.

You may want to investigate this route....
 
Ok they sent me a fat wad of bills going back to 2016(!)

Electricity looks normal, difference between estimated and my final read was a couple of quid.

Gas is a circus with clown honking their nose. First bill of 2018 they set the actual and estimated gas reads to 0 and this continued to start of 21 :eek:

First bill of 21 they decide hmm lets estimate 10,000m3 gas on but that can't be right since I never paid a massive bill back then and from then on they seem to estimate it normally until I turn up with a final reading of 11,000.

I think they've cooked the book to make it all appear in the last year since I would have automatically paid that first bill of 21 by DD and by end of 21 when I put in my final 11,000 reading the person on the other end said it was wrong because their last reading was 100.

They also sent a separate letter suggesting contacting their complaints department or the ombudsman. Huh.
 
They got back to me.

All they've done is send out another bill and instead of the 0 usage they had recorded, they've written in estimates going back to 2017 with comedy fluctuations of over 40,000kwh because it's all made up and they don't know where to pretend the usage happened.

Morally I probably did use that gas but the rules say I should be billed correctly and timely not years later with completely invented estimates.
 
I was in a similar position with Thames Water many years ago. As someone who will fight tooth-and-nail against these incompetent prats, I naturally didn't take it lying down and emailed the CEO. This might give you some inspiration:

Good afternoon,



My name is Diddums, I live at Diddums Manor. I am in the rather unfortunate position of having to rely on you for my water supply. You’ll see on my account that I refused a direct debit of £203.54. I’d like to know where a company such as yourselves get such big balls because I’m clearly missing out. Allow me to explain. In January this year (so almost a year ago, let’s keep that timescale fresh in our minds for the sake of this story, it’s quite spectacular) you decided to increase my monthly direct debit from £40 a month to £65 a month. That’s an increase of over 50%. How you managed to come to this conclusion without wondering if we’d suddenly started an illegal underground fish fighting ring or a car wash on our balcony really does allude to how easy it is for you to stiff your customers without even batting an eyelid. If I was on your end, alarm bells would be ringing, not least because you could’ve developed a leak, but obviously that entails being competent so we’ll leave that out of this story for your convenience.



I rang up and asked why this increase happened, the person on the phone said that our meter readings were taken and the increase reflected the new reading. Now obviously aware of our water usage profile I decided to investigate, and found that you had taken the wrong reading. At this point I was still rather calm and patient, mistakes happen, I’m not an unreasonable person, I’ll simply ring up with the correct reading and rectify the situation. Except that this wasn’t to be, you “had to send someone out to investigate”. Then all went quiet on your end. Not a letter, not a phone call, nothing (don’t be silly, we’re under the rug now aren’t we?).



June. Time to chase you up. I get a new meter reading (bear in mind we’re now six months on from your last meter reading, which according to yourselves was taken in December) and call you. Turns out that you can in fact take a meter reading over the phone, contradicting what you told me in our conversation six months prior. Again we’ll leave that out for convenience sake, let’s not confuse matters. Turns out that the meter reading that I took in June was lower than the reading you took in December (six months, I quite like this whole six months thing) and you said you’d send out an engineer to investigate and you’d freeze my direct debit until further notice as my account was obviously considerably overpaid. Fair enough, I’ll wait.



We’re now in December (another 6 months, do you guys only work for a couple of weeks every six months or something?) and I got a letter which basically went like this:



“water monies pls, £203.54 k thnx” and that was it.



I then saw that you decided to take the whole amount, with no consideration to our prior discussions, two weeks before Christmas. Thanks to you, I will be eating beans on toast and my son will be getting a cardboard cutout of the scalextric track I was going to get him. Our Christmas bubbly will be Lambrini and our choccies will be smarties put in an old Celebrations tin from last year. Well, this would be the case if I wasn’t savvy to your ability to want to ruin Christmas. Or if I had a son (I added him for dramatic effect, hope it worked).



Anyway. I’m venturing from the story now. What it boils down to is this: You messed up. You overcharged us. You fobbed us off over and over. You lied to us. Then a year later you figured things out on your end and decided to just help yourselves to our money without even wondering if we were in the position to pay it. I’ve refused because your actions are ridiculous.



Please explain to me how you’re going to fix this, because until you do, I won’t be paying a penny.
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Hotwired said:
They got back to me.

All they've done is send out another bill and instead of the 0 usage they had recorded, they've written in estimates going back to 2017 with comedy fluctuations of over 40,000kwh because it's all made up and they don't know where to pretend the usage happened.

Morally I probably did use that gas but the rules say I should be billed correctly and timely not years later with completely invented estimates.
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"Dear EDF,

On <METER READING DATE HERE> I provided a meter reading for a final bill. You failed to issue this bill until <INSERT DATE BILL ISSUED HERE>, which is <INSERT NUMBER OF MONTHS HERE> later.

Under Ofgem Back-Billing rules, you are unable to charge me for energy used more than 12 months prior. Using some simple maths, I was able to determine that <INSERT NUMBER OF MONTHS HERE> is greater than 12, therefore under aforementioned Ofgem Back-Billing rules, I am not liable for any payment.

I now consider the matter closed, and other than confirmation that this is the case, I do not expect to receive any further communication from you regarding this matter - any further communication I do receive will incur a £30 administration fee, to be paid within 28 days. Continuing to contact me regarding this matter will indicate acceptance of these terms.

Yours sincerely,

Hotwired"
 
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Have you done a formal complaint yet, OP? A CEO complaint as Diadems suggests would be good, mention contacting the local press.
 
I moaned at CS on the phone and they said they'd look at it, but some weeks later they just rebilled me with more inventions.

I will have to write it up properly and be more specific about how it's a load of BS.
 
Hotwired said:
I moaned at CS on the phone and they said they'd look at it, but some weeks later they just rebilled me with more inventions.

I will have to write it up properly and be more specific about how it's a load of BS.
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Yeah, email the CEO ASAP and mention the Ombudsman.
 
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