can i stop edf energy overcharging me on my direct debit?!

[shelsco]

Signed up with edf in September for online billing etc and haven't heard anything from them since. Have been paying £100 monthly direct debit, which i knew would be a bit low but expected them to change it once i started entering my readings.

Contacted them today as still no paper bills and saying no billing information online. Was told that an error meant no bills were showing up for me but actually I had used £875 energy and had only paid £600 odd so owed them £269. I expected that, so went to pay outstanding balance online only to find they had upped my direct debit by £134 to £234 monthly!

By rights my bill over past 6 (winter) months should have been £145 per month so that i would now owe nothing. now summer is coming my energy use will go down anyway but when i argued this with them and said i was only prepared to pay £145 monthly as this would still overpay for the summer they said the best they could get it down to was £180! i eventually said i would pay the outstanding balance then cancel the DD unless they agreed so they did. Just been online and they've only reduced it to £220 per month, meaning I'm going to overpay by at least £890 a year (and that's if i continue to use the same amount in the summer as the winter!)

Have emailed them to complain but i know it takes them ages to reply. what would you do? Ofcom don't seem interested until complaint has been made to company.

Do you have the facility to submit meter readings online? If so, submit as many as you can, one a week if they'll let you, so they can have no excuse for inaccurate estimates.

OfGen might be able to help too.

Well that might work against me cos it would still be Winter readings which would be about the same as I've been putting in but thought i might leave it a bit until the summer months when heating not on then start submitting them then. that way would hopefully reduce bill. Just don't want and can't afford £220 until then!

Why not do as you suggested, pay the balance and move.

Well there will be penalty pyments for moving (£70ish I think and why should we pay it when we've done nothing wrong?) as we're fixed in and the annoying thing is that their prices are reasonable compared to other companies as we fixed at a good rate. its just that we are paying more than we actually owe them. That's what is driving me mad!

This is why I wont pay by DD. Do you have to pay by dd? we put money by and pay quarterly instead.

No but we get a 6% reduction if we do so its sort of worth it (?!) E-mailed edf yesterday and said would cancel DD and just pay as we were billed. Also pointed out that as they haven't yet billed us at all it may be up to ofgem to sort out.
Within 2 hours i had 2 emails from separate people saying my DD had been reduced not only providing me with bill but also offering to ring me (if i emailed them the number) and talk me through it all! obviously ofgem is the magic word!! worth remembering for next time!

Just saw this. For anyone else..

They did similar to me last month when I owed a tiny bit (after moving in september so obvious!!) You can MAKE them drop the payment down, but if when the next bill comes in you are still in debt it will need to be paid. No need to threaten or anything just ring them up and they will do it. The caveat from them is you will need to settle it immediately if the bill is more.

Npower tried to add £250 to my monthly DD bill for a £4.50 debt!!!!

They point blank refused to back down so I cancelled the DD and changed suppliers immediately

I do think that you have to keep switching until you find the right company for you. We have always paid quarterly with BG and submitted meter readings and have never paid more than £230 a quarter (2 bed elec only house). We put the money aside each month and then anything left over goes towards winter if needed. I would rather the money was in our account earning us interest rather than theirs. I'm not sure that I understand the benefits of paying monthly, I hear so many problems from people.

Phone them - they will reduce the DD.

I have just moved to EDF from Eon - eek.
anyway I don't have direct debit as I had this problem with Eon - I submit regular meter readings and pay monthly making sure generated bills are not estimated bills but meter read
If EDF does not work out I will move on.

Eon keep trying to raise my direct debits, despite the fact that I am in credit, I have to phone them each time to get it put back down again.

Ring them. I get this every year or so because of changing energy use, prices going up etc.

Person on the end of the phone has always looked at my last 12 months usage, said 'That's a ridiculous DD amount' and then changed it to something we agree on.

I've been with them 5+ years and always had it changed with a phone call.

Cancel the DD and pay by SO. You then have the control. I did this for a bit and realised I didn't like them earning interest on my money so put the same I was paying aside and pay when billed. I'm not paying anything near the DD amount I was

I always take a meter reading on the 1st of every month, then pay a few days later. Never again will I pay by direct debit. Apart from being robbing bastards, paying by dd makes you consume more energy IMO. Lulls you into a false sense of security!