EDF have changed billing from quarterly to monthly

I am the same as you quarterly bills send in readings when I get it pay straight away. When I got email to say they were changing to monthly I got a following one saying my smart meter is ready to install please arrange a date.... no way hosea

EDF did the same thing to me with a letter this Monday, from Kirsty Woodward, an Operations Manager, saying that only monthly billing was possible in future, as they have just installed a new Customer Management and Biling system called Kraken, which they say cannot work with quarterly billing cycles - however, other suppliers use Kraken software and they do provide quarterly billing - EDF only has the 'vanilla' build of this Kraken software and doesn't seem to know how to configure it to help customers save-up over three months for their £2000 energy bills in Winter. I send quarterly meter readings to keep bills accurate, but monthly payments of £700 during the cold months are completely unreasonable!

EDF did the same thing to me with a letter this Monday, from Kirsty Woodward, an Operations Manager, saying that only monthly billing was possible in future, as they have just installed a new Customer Management and Biling system called Kraken, which they say cannot work with quarterly billing cycles - however, other suppliers use Kraken software and they do provide quarterly billing - EDF only has the 'vanilla' build of this Kraken software and doesn't seem to know how to configure it to help customers save-up over three months for their £2000 energy bills in Winter. I send quarterly meter readings to keep bills accurate, but monthly payments of £700 during the cold months are completely unreasonable!

I am sure they know, but don't want to. They want the money in their account not theirs.

Then move elsewhere... .... but most no longer offer quarterly billing

I send quarterly meter readings to keep bills

But are doing the same by submitting quarterly readings and then paying in full the accurate bill for £2100 that quarter?

Why is it that utility companies seem to be unable (or unwilling) to offer quarterly (or even monthly) billing of what you have *actually* used that month/quarter, rather than an estimate of what they think you might use. I don't want to end up in credit/debit. I want to pay for what I've used.

One company only offered it if they sent you a bill which you then had to remember to pay by cheque or BACS: they couldn't do it in conjunction with direct debit.

I know why they *want* to do it: it means that they always have some of your money (amount varying depending on time of year), but why do the watchdogs *allow* them to do it? I know, all watchdogs have had their teeth surgically removed so they have no bite (ie sanctions to non-complying businesses).

Mine does. I pay Octopus by monthly direct debit for the gas and electricity that I've used. It may be you have to have a smart meter - I have, so I didn't ask.

https://octopus.energy/

Thats odd. There does have to be a notice sent 10 days in advance of the collection days, but that does not sound hard.

The watchdogs prefer this sort of billing because it smooths the payments and forces people to save for their winter bills.

Dave

they've done it to everyone, they also switched people to paperless billing at the same time. So I've received an estimated bill, for a billing period I wasn't aware of (one month after i paid for the last quarter) that is higher than it should because its estimated.

I asked to be put back onto Quarterly paper billing, and for them to issue a new bill using the correct readings which I have given them.

So far, I'm back to paper billing but they insist the monthly billing is for my benefit - it isn't, it's for EDFs cashflow. Looks like I'll be switch suppliers soon.

Me too. I paid my quarterly bill on 31/5/23 and suddenly they have sent me a bill dated 4/7/23 with an estimated reading, without sending out the usual email asking for a meter reading before date dd/mm/yy.

Did they agree to revert you to paper billing ?. If everyone demands this they will be annoyed. You cannot send them cheques any more too I believe. You have to pay in the Post Office or presumably a bank.

They seem to have sneakily removed the words "quarterly/cash" from the standard variable tariff details. Luckily I still have my SEEBOard paper bills going back to the 90's where the word "quarterly" is shown on the bill.

It doesn't "smooth the payments" it gives the energy company the ability to help itself to more of your money than it needs and earn interest on it.

With base rate now heading North, I wonder how much they are making on all those credits ?.

Best of luck finding one that will accept NEW customers on anything other than monthly bills, DD and paperless billing.

Has anyone else had problems making a BACS payment since EDF changed their account numbers?

Regards

David

I've only had to make one payment so far, just under a month ago. As EDF haven't got back to me about it, I assume it went through without problem.

If you have an on-line account set up with them, it may be worthwhile checking to see if it has actually been credited to your account.

I made a BACS payment about 2 weeks ago - no payment recorded by EDF.

I contacted EDF and their reply was that there is a delay in processing BACS payments.

In the past my BACS payments to the old account number went through and were showing on my EDF on-line account within a few hours.

They may have a delay in their system but 2 weeks is excessive. I now wondering if it has been "lost" in the EDF system. I have asked my bank to verify that the payment was credited to the EDF account.

A mint. I don't know their precise figures, but if you take a estimate of their customer numbers and multiply it by the, say, £200 per person of your money in their accounts instead of yours, you can work out a rough guide to the excess profit they are making even if they only make 5% from it.

It didn't matter so much in the days when prices were lower and interest rates were negligible, but now we can get a modest return (only modest, thanks to the banks' greed - currently under investigation), it's very important to switch to paying only the minimum that one has to.

I paid by BACS on 10 June, and EDF have it as a payment in MyAccount on

Unusually, I paid their estimated bill last time as it was only a little over what the actual readings were. I appear to be £19 in credit at present, although EDF haven't yet put my latest bill online (for some reason they've only referred to electricity use in the last month; there's nothing about my gas usage), so I haven't needed to pay them anything - yet. If I do get a bill it should be within the next few days.