To presume EDF have made a HUGE mistake.

[CremeEggThief]

I received an electricity bill for £438.51 from EDF yesterday afternoon. It covers the period 22/8/11-13/2/12. Up to now, I've been paying £52 a month by DD. They have kindly informed me they now want to change my DD to
£580 a month!

Obviously, I am presuming they have made a HUGE mistake and in fact, they mean £58.00, but my heart failed for a few minutes yesterday afternoon, before rationality kicked in. I couldn't call them there and then, as their customer services close for the weekend at 2 p.m. on a Saturday, and it was after that when I picked up the letter.

I am going to call them about it tomorrow, but I am very tempted to make a formal complaint in writing too. I am wondering if I should just cancel my DD now, and tell them I'll pay quarterly from now on, or give them until the end of the week to send out a new letter with a sensible DD amount on there. I shall update you all once I have spoken to them.

Blimey EDF are getting greedy and useless

But YABU to be getting your gas from a far right hooligan group, I mean they are good at being racist knobheads, but are less good at the utility supply business.

Is this the balance outstanding AFTER they have taken off your monthly payments, if so it could mean that they are going to clear the balance and take your usual instalment in 1 amount to clear your bill. I would contact them asap. You could cancel your direct debit and set up a standing order
so that they can only claim what you have agreed each time and then the only way they can take more is by you issuing a new standing order.

Update.
I have just spoken to an EDF advisor, after 15 minutes on hold. I put as much shock as I could muster into saying, "I've just received a bill and it's saying you want to increase my direct debit to £580! "The advisor agreed it was ridiculous and said they have had a lot of people complaining. He asked if I could pay £150 instead, so I suggested £130, which he agreed and I asked him to put it in writing during the next few days. If I don't get this by the end of the week, I will cancel the direct debit and ask for an energy card, as roulade suggested. I shall also put a complaint in writing.
Thanks for everyone's advice and support.

Assuming the bill is £440 plus your 6x£52 direct debits you are using £125 on electricity a month. That seems like quite a lot!

I can't believe you are using that much electricity either. I would be querying it further.

was this an actual meter reading, and have all the previous bills been under estimates?

Um, sounds as if they've just got you to agree to a huge increase in your monthly payment just as summer is coming!!!

Are you in the black with them? Check it out and if so insist on it going up by no more than £20 a month or you'll cancel and pay what you use instead!!

Doctordwt, my account balance is £438.51, so I'm afraid I can't be in the black. I should have clarified my DD for gas and electricity combined is £102.50, so it's not a huge increase to £130.

However, one of the reasons for the problem is probably because they didn't actually set up a DD for gas until last month, after I chased them up about it. Every 6-8 weeks, I received a letter from them saying that the opening meter reading they got from Scottish Power was incorrect and I didn't need to do anything, as they would be in touch as soon as they resolved it. So, for 6 months, they got £50 less than they should have, because they didn't set up the DD.

I've spent the whole winter worrying about the gas bill, and being the most cautious I've ever been with the central heating (in previous years, in a much warmer part of the country, I have been known to stick the heating on for a few hours most summer evenings just to dry clothes on the radiators. This year, in the north east, I've rarely had it on for more than 6 hours a day, even in that very cold snap in February), when I should have been worrying about the electricity.

The other reasons why the electricity usage may be so high (Fergoose, the meter readings are actual ones) are because there are lots of halogen lights in the ceilings downstairs and in the bathrooms (installed by the owner/landlord) and most of our appliances are old, although the only one in constant use is the 9 year old 'fridge-freezer. I only use the washer/dryer and the dishwasher 4 or 5 times a week each, generally. I was actually going to start a thread asking how much old appliances can affect your electricity bill in Good Housekeeping, as I never thought it could be as bad as it seems to be :(.

Oh sorry. Not helpful then! We have the halogen light thing - they tend to be in strips and I've taken a bulb or two out of each

That still sounds very high for a monthly bill. I had old appliances, and they didn't eat that much.

Probably worth investing in a clip-on or plug-in usage meter like some of these.

You can see how much it leaps by when the fridge clicks on, for example. If that doesn't account for your bill (and I doubt it will), turf everyone out of the house and switch off everything. If the meter doesn't drop to zero, keep looking for a device you haven't thought of. Then start switching things on one-by-one, to see how much power each device uses.

Oh that sounds good, SerialKipper. Thanks.

£130 a month, going off that being just for the electric you use during said months, i am at how expensive it is.

When i was in my student house, with 3/4 people living their all the time we paid our bills quarterly and it was probably around £60.00's each quarterly, we gave them a reading off the meter.

Unless I've got the total wrong end of the stick..

CemeEgg - We use EDF and we used to have two bills from them one gas and one electric until randomly they have now combined our bills and we only have 1 direct debit instead of the separate ones it freaked me that without any warning I got a letter informing me of new DD of £250 a month I phoned and they halved it to £125 and I am still in credit as of my recent bill. The new rates are higher than previously but according to the price comparison websites they are still cheapest

The prices here terrify me! I spend about £50 a month combined!

I too have just rung them, I received my latest bill this morning, and despite being in credit, they put mine up to £201.00 per month. Having had a chat with a nice lady, it's gone back to the £88.00 per month that it was. If this continues, I'll do what I did with British Gas, and take it off direct debit and put it on standing order. I never once ended up owing BG anything.

I hate EDF and will never use them again. I moved elsewhere and don't regret it.

It's appalling just how many of us are having problems with them. Someone who advised me on the MSE forum said with most companies, it's good to give them regular meter readings, but with EDF, it always seems to trigger higher DDs or bills.
As we are intending to move within the next 3 months, I don't think it's worth it to switch now, but I definitely intend to once we have moved. Who did you switch to, LolaJane?

Just be aware, you get a cheaper rate for being on direct debit, so although you'd have more control over a standing order or a payment card, your bill would go up even more! Not by enormous amounts admittedly, but it all counts.

I have switched from Southern Electric to nPower, and my bills have never been so low. And they leave me alone, no phone calls /emails / letters like I always had from Southern Electric. They email every 6 months asking for a reading, then email a bill, and that's it. Lovely.

£580 is your normal monthly amount plus the total bill they just sent - they want you to pay this as a one-off to bring it up to date, not every month! As people say, check it's based on an actual reading. But if it is, call them and say you can't pay it all at once and you'd like to increase monthly payments by an affordable amount to pay it off over time. Or if you cannot afford increased monthly payments, ask for an EDF Energy Trust application form - they supply grants to clear arrears if paying them would cause hardship.

The £201.00 per month they want me to pay is not a bill that they want me to clear. I'm in credit!

Like Dawn mine was just an increase in DD too I was £125 in credit at the time!

npower, hubby switched after we had a customer service nightmare.