Confused about energy bill hike

[Jadefeather7]

Wondering if someone can help me with this. I’ve always paid around £70 a month for gas and electric for my house. I change provider every year using money saving expert. I’ve recently been on mat leave and at home all day so expected my bill to rise. My quarterly bill puts me £33 in debit. I would expect my bill to rise by £10-20 but my energy provider (Edf) has increased it by £50 a month. Does this make sense or should I dispute it?

They have a habit of increasing monthly payment and then having to put it back down or pay excess back (they have a policy of bringing you back to a zero balance when you get to the end of your annual billing period). They refunded my mum her excess balance then wanted to increase her payment to cover it .

You can contact them and negotiate a different payment amount as long as what you pay will cover your usage

At this time of the year you should be well in credit- you're paying a monthly average so most providers aim for you to build up a credit through spring and summer then use it up over the colder months.

If you have used more than your DD from August to October then the deficit in the winter months will be a lot higher

Your last quarterly bill was more than you three monthly payments now you are home more?

Assuming it was August/September/October?

November/December/January are obviously going to be higher in terms of gas and electric usage, so sounds reasonable for them to bump your monthly payment up to cover that to me.

They refunded my mum her excess balance then wanted to increase her payment to cover it hmm.

Eon did this to me too, it seems crazy but it's maybe a legal requirement to refund the excess paid then recalculate the estimated amount for the coming year?

They (EDF) are weird. I got a bill in September at which point they refunded me my £121 credit balance to bring me to £0. For once they didnt then bump my payment up as they'd already put it up to £145! A few months before. It has gone down to £123 instead

I’ve been with them since July. I agree that the bill should go up, I just think £50 a month is a lot given that I’m in debit of around £33 I wouldn’t expect it to go up by more than £30 a month but maybe I’m just not getting it :(

I've been with EDF a couple of times and every single time they do batshit things to my billing and direct debit. Who knows what they're up to with you.
I vastly overpay now so I don't end up in debt with them .

They will expect you to use even more in the next few months than you were already using and what you were paying wasnt covering it. You can speak to them (think they do online chat) and say you will pay £20/£30 extra and then assess in a few months if that is enough to cover usage

I’ve been with them since July. I agree that the bill should go up, I just think £50 a month is a lot given that I’m in debit of around £33 I wouldn’t expect it to go up by more than £30 a month but maybe I’m just not getting it

You know it’s darker and colder in the winter than it is in the summer right?

I've successfully complained to edf when I changed tariff and they kept me on the same DD (£135) Then they randomly increased it to £250! Apparently when someone changes tariff they should recalculate but they didnt. Anyway, the relevant part of this is that they asked me what I wanted to pay and changed it to that.

Just work out what you need to cover your bill so you don't get in debt or build too much of a surplus and ask the dd to be changed to that instead.

Your usage over winter will be a lot higher than summer though. To give you an idea, my monthly payment is 154. Over the last year my usage has been

November (2018) - 199
December - 247
March - 210
May - 154
July - 71
September- 113.78
October - 156.70

I've only given a random selection there, but for me my summer bills are under half of my DD so I build up a big credit. May and October are about DD amount. November to April are all higher. So if I was 30 in debit at this point I would be hundreds short over winter and my DD would have to go up a lot.

My credit is currently about 300 (charges deducted monthly) and that will get used up over winter.