EDF re-issuing 'statements' using quarterly billing to customers on monthly bills

[Andrew]

Just had an email from EDF titled "FYI: Your energy statement" where they have recalculated all my *monthly* bills on a quarterly basis (using some estimated readings with decimal positions) starting from when they moved me to monthly billing and then reversed out all the monthly payments already made and replaced them with a new total for this period -

Charges Electricity 31 May 2023 - 30 June 2023 £75.00 Electricity 1 July 2023 - 30 Sept. 2023 £204.94 Electricity 1 Oct. 2023 - 31 Dec. 2023 £276.58 Electricity 1 Jan. 2024 - 2 Jan. 2024 £7.08

But this adds up to £20.15 more than the total of all the monthly bills that I have paid. The monthly bills use the actual readings that I am asked to supply before the 3rd of every month yet every bill shows them estimating the reading for the 1st of the month and then correcting it with my actual reading. For the life of me I cannot see where the discrepancy is coming from because the quarterly amounts shown above are not all based on my ACTUAL readings, while the monthly bills do all use my actual readings and are paid almost immediately.

I have gone through all the individual bills and there were 2 in july 2023, one on the 4th with a balance of 97.50 that was based on their estimated reading of 62234.6 on 4/7/23 when my actual reading for 4/7/23 as 62180 and there was a drop in the unit rate on 1/7/23).

Then 2 days later another bill with a "balance on your last bill £81.72 " (where did this come from ?). immediately under was this -

Credits Reversed account charge 6.72 (what for ?) Electricity 2 Jul - 3 Jul -13.43 (overestimate used wrong rate)

Your new balance 61.57 (which I paid)

Curiously, 6.72 plus 13.43 is £20.15, but the bill dated 6/7/23 shows this £20.15 as a correct correction to their estimated reading on 4/7/23 that was 44.6

Since they have made a mistake on the 2nd bill dated 6 Jul 23, do they have any legal right to demand a back payment ?

Andrew

[alan_m]

They probably have the right now, or in the near future, to put you on a pre-payment meter if you don't pay.

[Theo]

Is this something to do with the price cap changing on 1st July/Oct/Jan? On the same day they presumably adjusted their tariffs, and they want to bill you in accordance with the tariff in force in each period. Since your meter readings weren't perfectly aligned with the changes in tariff, they have to estimate what your meter reading would have been on the first of those months.

Perhaps the bills you paid weren't correctly adjusted for the tariff changes, and so they went back to recalculate?

Theo

[Davey]

OVO do something similar. I have been getting monthly bills, based on the readings I send in, then they send a summary for the previous three months. Readings that fell due between their accounting periods are estimated, to three decimal places, and the final tally differs from what the original bills said. Since the difference tends to be in my favour, I don't argue. But I could not explain their reasoning. What doesn't help is that their dates of asking for readings are exactly half a month off from the date they change the tariff, so providing an instant confusion point. Just as described in the OP.

[alan_m]

The joys of not having a working smart meter :)

[Davey]

Since their re-writing of the readings is to my benefit, I'll happily stay without a 'smart' meter.

[Andy Burns]

Yes they do that on my account, say "give us readings before X" and when I go there on X to enter readings, they've already generated an estimated bill a couple of days before that ... yes they do regenerate it with my actual readings.

When I moved (or rather I got moved) to EDF they only wanted readings twice a year, sometimes it was worth giving them more frequently readings at price-cap change dates, but I don't remember they changing T&C to monthly readings ... maybe make manual readings more inconvenient so people will go for smart meters?

[Jeff Layman]

FWIU, EDF have been very slow to implement a tariff for direct monthly readings from smart meters. Most of the meter readings - even on smart meters - are from customer readings within a time period specified. I have a standard meter, and every month I get an email with an estimated bill attached, but it asks for an accurate reading within several days. I usually submit that the same day, or at latest the next day, and then get the revised bill by email based on my reading. That's been going on for 6 months. I haven't received a quarterly bill like the OP.

Last week I got my usual letter from EDF offering me a smart meter, which I ignored as usual. Perhaps EDF (and OVO?) are trying a new "confuse-a-customer without a smart meter" tack to get them to install one.

[alan_m]

But when prices go down, when we all have that free energy from wind, they may rewrite the readings for their benefit :)

[Tim+]

They have up to a year I believe. After that they can’t “claw back”. They might try, but you can tell ‘em to b*gger off. ;-)

Tim

[Davey]

I'll cross that windy bridge when I come to it.

[Jeff Layman]

Perhaps EDF uses Fujitsu accounting software...

[Brian Gaff]

Yes they did this on my smart meter the other way around. Started to charge monthly without notice and I finally told them they could not alter the contract until it ran out and that is this coming September. They ended up having to pay me back as they could not even get the metered bils right on a fixed tariff. The excuse? A government payment was made to all people to subsidise the costs, and it was not done on the bill due date so they had to estimate it. Does anyone actually know how to use a calculator or are they using an abacus? Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Which is what they told me, but they still got it wrong. Kind of makes one wonder whether anyone actually checks this. I imagine that nobody designed this into the software and so its having to be done manually. Still they told me we are all going to see things change in the first quarter of this year as they are using new software. Lets hope its not been made by the folk at fujitsu. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

What about standing meter rental charge? Brian

[Davey]

When I was working in China, watching people in the market using their abacus was unbelievable.

[alan_m]

Yep, flick the counters around at high speed and then just charge you a random amount that sounds about right. :)

[Davey]

What they would do was to quote a price for, say, a joint of meat, then weigh it, and then want a higher price. They had not come up against my wife and her friends, known as 'Shoppers Inc', who knew how to walk away when the price was wrong. They all had those strange see-saw weighing devices.

[Tim Streater]

You mean a balance? What is so strange about a balance?

[Andrew]

No, it seems to be associated with the two bills dated 4/7/23 and

6/7/23 where the amount due on the earlier bill is not the same as the brought forward amount on the bill 2 days later !. And these were the first two bills that their new billing system generated. It is clearly their fault.