Jon Sopel’s shock after EDF invoice rises from £152 to £19,274

Broadcaster Jon Sopel ‘choked on my cornflakes’ when he found his month-to-month EDF invoice had skyrocketed from £152 to a ‘ridiculous’ £19,274. 

The ex-BBC journalist was among the many vitality agency’s prospects left livid right now when their payments surged by greater than 12,000 per cent.

Artist Grayson Perry was one other left outraged after EDF tried to take almost £40,000 out of his checking account.

Mr Sopel, who presents The News Agents podcast, confirmed to MailOnline he has a wise meter. 

‘I choked on my cornflakes after we acquired the invoice saying our month-to-month standing order was going up from £152 to £19,274 a month and that i simply surprise, like Grayson Perry, who else has had ridiculous payments like that and who has been frightened out their life due to it,’ Mr Sopel mentioned by his agent Mary Greenham.

EDF mentioned uncommon modifications to direct debit quantities can happen when an ‘faulty meter studying [is] recorded on the system’.

Has YOUR EDF invoice skyrocketed? Email [email protected]

Mr Sopel, who presents The News Agents podcast, wrote a public letter on X, previously Twitter, to the French vitality provider asking if he might converse to a human fairly than a bot about his month-to-month standing order rising from £152 to £19,274.

These tweets prompted different members of the general public to share comparable tales of EDF, saying they’d been overcharged by hundreds of kilos and acquired ‘threatening’ letters by the door for refusing the pay up.

Journalist Mr Sopel informed EDF – which raked in a file £1.12bn revenue final 12 months – that his dramatically excessive invoice ‘appears a bit steep’, earlier than wishing them a merry Christmas.

Mr Sopel wrote: ‘Dear @edfenergy, Just had a notification that our month-to-month standing order goes up from £152 a month to £19,274. Seems a bit steep. Is there a human fairly than a bot we are able to discuss to?

‘Many thanks and merry Christmas, Jon.’

Artist, author and broadcaster Grayson Perry CBE shared an analogous story this morning, as he discovered his electrical energy invoice from EDF had jumped from £300 a month to large £39,000.

He mentioned that the agency had tried to take the quantity – which might represent an annual invoice of almost half 1,000,000 kilos – through direct debit right now, and hit out in opposition to their customer support line for being ‘no assist’.

Mr Perry mentioned on social media this morning: ‘Hi @edfenergy, I’ve been making an attempt to talk to somebody to clarify how my electrical energy invoice went from £300 a month to £39,000. 

‘Your name centre has been no assist however you tried to direct debit this quantity right now from my account.’

Replying to him, EDF mentioned: ‘Hi Grayson, I’m so sorry for any concern that this will likely have brought about. Please ship me a direct message along with your account particulars and we’ll get this picked up right away.’

EDF later launched a collection of messages on its X account because the vitality agency mentioned different ‘prospects need not fear’ as it isn’t ‘associated to a wider challenge with our billing system’.

‘Unusual modifications to direct debit quantities can generally happen when there’s an faulty meter studying recorded on the system, however now we have strong interventions in place to make sure that any giant will increase in prospects’ direct debits are verified by a human examine,’ the French agency wrote. 

‘In nearly all such instances, system errors are rectified and prevented with out prospects being impacted.’

A former EDF buyer responded to Mr Grayson’s publish sharing her personal points she had with the agency after they all of the sudden raised her payments to almost £900 despite the fact that there have been simply two folks within the property.

Lindsay wrote: ‘EDF put our vitality invoice as much as slightly below £900 monthly. Only two of us in the home.

‘When I requested for assist and for them to clarify why it was so excessive the woman on the web chat was simply impolite. Switched to Octopus and to date they appear a lot significantly better.’

She mentioned that her payments had been now simply £120 monthly with Octopus.

‘I really feel sick to the abdomen on the sum of money my mum misplaced by being with EDF,’ she added.

An EDF buyer replied to Jon Sopel’s publish saying the agency is making an attempt to cost £3,000 for 2 months of utilization.

Connor Natella mentioned he can not get by to customer support and is receiving ‘more and more threatening’ letters for fee.

He wrote: ‘They’re making an attempt to get me on £3k for two months utilization, can by no means get by and simply receiving more and more threatening letters by the door!’

EDF replied to Mr Natella, asking him to direct message with a purpose to look into it additional.

A spokesperson for EDF mentioned that while they may not talk about the specifics of the instances, they confirmed they’re ‘not associated in any approach’.

They added: ‘Customers don’t want to fret – these aren’t associated to a wider challenge with our billing system and we have not made any modifications to how we course of direct debit modifications for patrons. Unusual modifications to direct debit quantities can generally happen when there’s an faulty meter studying recorded on the system.

‘We have strong interventions in place to make sure that any giant will increase in prospects’ direct debits are verified by a human examine and in nearly all such instances, system errors are rectified and prevented, with out prospects being impacted.’

Has YOUR EDF invoice skyrocketed? Email [email protected]