Yes the French company EDF have increased prices, (gas prices by 6.5% and electricity prices by 7.5% from 2 March 2011),you can hardly blame them they have only reported a net income of €3.9bn (£3.4bn) for the full financial year.

They are also the first company to reintroduce the dreaded standing charge to all there tariffs, so they even get your money when using no fuel.

www.saynoto0870.com will find a free or standard call number.

I think your find they just did announce increases.

The "always busy" phoneline is due to their success in luring large numbers of people on to their fixed tariffs since the latest round of increases started. They are now the only Company who have not announced increases for this period.
There are many people on other forums who are tearing their hair out at the inability of EDF to answer phones (or emails) in a timely fashion!!!!

AVC:

It looks like they must have changed all their accounts and not told anyone.

I am glad I am not the only one. I also think the always busy phone line is some sort of ploy.

I too just went to pay my account online and noticed that none of the stored details tied up with the Giro Credit slip details on the bill.

I rang my bank knowing that they would answer immediately, which they did (thank heavens for First Direct) but they were as puzzled I was. They even offered to contact EDF to find out what was going on, but I said I’d do that. It looks like they must have changed all their accounts and not told anyone.

I paid online using the old details.

I rang EDF and just got a rubbish message about being busy, due to the high volume of calls (never not enough people to answer) and that they were changing systems. Presumably all the callers are trying to work out how to pay.

With a rubbish supplier like this it’s little wonder I refuse to use direct debit.

I’ll probably send them a cheque next time.

Ferd:

..Yes the bank did say I could enter EDFs sort code and bank account number but guess what thats a 7 digit number and it should be 8....

If you are confident that the EDF bank account number has 7 digits, perhaps becasue you are reading it from a bill, then it is p*ss poor performance from the bank adviser not to be able to convert 7 digits to 8 digits.

What is the source of the 7 digit number?

I checked my NatWest online banking, and guess what, they do not yet have a template for the new 67 account numbers (though one of the existing templates will accept 12 digit account numbers).

You are right to highlight these problems. People are paid good money for new systems. Our money. Whether this is a bank or Edf problem I am not sure.

Yes the bank did say I could enter EDFs sort code and bank account number but guess what thats a 7 digit number and it should be 8.

I have had my EDF bill sitting here for nearly two weeks so if the banks were informed of the change then they should have done it by now.

It's just a big ploy by EDF to get you to call them so they can make money out of it.

As I said it took them 15 minuets to answer.

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Ferd:

I even called my online bank and they only took a few minuets to answer the phone (nice one) but they could not help

Regarding your discussion with your online bank there must have been a misunderstanding. They must accept your instructions to have a payment arrangement comprising an account number, sort code and a customer reference of up to at least 16 characters. How to achieve that is your bank's problem, not Edf's.

From previous experience I know that a new payment arrangement sometimes cannot be created online with the same sort code and account number as an existing payment arrangement and sometimes the customer reference on an existing payment arrangement cannot be changed online. Also sometimes the template for a particular supplier is not up to date. Possibly the problem in this case. These are bank system's limitations (defects) for which there is an obvious workaround.

You have received very poor service from the particular bank person you spoke with. Go back to the bank with the supplier's sort code, account number and your new 12 digit Edf customer reference and insist on a payment arrangement being setup manually, if that is what you want to achieve.

Regarding Edf, my advice would have been to wait until you were informed of a change. If the supplier screws-up your payments to the old number without informing you, kick ass via their complaint's procedure.

Hi

I pay my bill online and noticed they had changed my account number. So I deleted the old payee and started to enter the new details only to find that the new number is only 12 digits long and the old one was 13.

So my online bank would not let me set up a new payee.

I called EDF and after 15 minuets waiting for them to pick up I was finally talking to someone to see if they could help.

But you guest it No not a hope

I even called my online bank and they only took a few minuets to answer the phone (nice one) but they could not help either.

Apparently they have changed all the reference numbers so how many other people are going though this.

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