EDF - what are they like?

[Dick Smith]

Just had a very frustrating hour...

I got a notice from EDF on Saturday that I had failed to pay a bill last December. In fact I hadn't, they just don't have it. That may be their incompetence or Royal Mail's or La Poste, who knows? Anyway, the bill hasn't been paid according to EDF. It's a very polite letter, but the bill hasn't been paid nonetheless.

So I came home a bit early from work today to phone them up.

No phone numbers on the bill, except 1 local-rate number for France. No use to me, I'm in England. So I visited their website to see if they have any contact details.

None. The facility to find a local office doesn't work.

So I signed up for the Agence En Ligne. Went through all the rigmarole, that doesn't work either, although at least this time I got an apology message.

I tried to confirm using the URL they sent me in their confirmation email. Guess what? That's right, does not exist...

Now, this is the question; I shall send off another cheque tonight and get them to sort out a refund later, but how do I get them to accept payment by prelevement? The last time I sent a cheque and RIB they ignored it (leading to this mess). What do I need to do? All the other utilities were very easy to deal with in comparison.

[Richard-R]

Why not phone and pay with your CB card?

[Unknown]

Dick

I have a DD set up with our electricity supplier.

Dotty

[Bugsy]

Do you know if they have cut you off Fluff, all utilities are very quick around here to disconnect you if you don't pay promptly.

Can you get a french neighbour to sort it out for you ?

Apart from that I don't know what to suggest. You could always use it as an excuse to come over, of course.

[Dick Smith]

Apparently I have 8 days to send them the spondulicks, which I shall do, and then try to sort out the double payment later.

Do I just add an RIB to the cheque to be included in prelevement? As far as I recall that's all I did for phone, water and taxes.

[LanguedocGal2]

Fluffy Kitten,

I really wouldn’t panic unless they are particularly efficient in your region.

EDF/GDF ‘separated’ their payments in 2006 and there seems to be regular mess ups since then. From what I can work out, the ‘separation’ simply means that they issue different telephone numbers and waste paper sending two bills. It’s daft because cheques are still made out to EDF/GDF and sent to the same address in Nice.  I’m assuming that this changeover must be causing problems.

I pay by CB but this did not stop them from sending me loads of reminders between June and October for bills (EDF & GDF) that had been paid by CB and showed on my bank statements. To make things worse, because of overestimation, they owed me money!  Bear in mind that I had been paying by CB for over a year without any problems.

It got even more ridiculous after speaking to staff  (who assured me not to worry) to discover that the payments were on their system but it was not showing up on the ‘tresorerie’ computers.

They finally resolved matters in November and sent me revised bill.  Had they acted on their reminders, I would have been disconnected but, in MY experience, they seem to like sending reminders without acting on them.

I would still try the CB route though if you cannot pay on-line.  If French is an issue, write the individual digits and dates down in French before you call them. 

Re the telephone numbers: they appear to be region specific but why not try pages jaunes for a general number in NICE as that’s the address for those paying by cheques.

 

[Dick Smith]

Thanks for that, the French isn't the issue, except for those French who are!

It's all so bl**dy difficult when it could be easy!

[Miki]

Dick,

Keep on trying to open an account online with EDF, I can help if anything gets sticky, well I say, I will help but, it may be difficult at distance but anyway.....

We always pay EDF and all our France Telecom factures (3) online but our Water supplier will only accept any other payment but that system. Taxes,  online but some in person, we have our Tresor just 7 minutes away and we pass it regularly.

EDF is a silly difficult site to traverse but like anything else, once sussed, not too bad, it is remembering it all,  as it is every two months for us but I have got the hang of where to go now. I get the feeling, that a pay here button on the front page might just be a good idea [;-)]

[Dick Smith]

Ha!

It's all come back online and it took 2 minutes to make the payment online!

What a palaver! Especially the bit about printing off the payment details and sending them to my bank - what is all that about?

[Miki]

When you pay by credit card, which naturally, I guess you must have done ? They will give you a ref number in which you would use if neccessary to confirm payment. As for the thing to a bank, never seen that I don't think. Ignore it and just keep hold of the ref number, which I can't be sure, but don't they, just like FT,  email you further confirmation ?

Yes it is a plaver, running around the site to pay when a straight button to pay would cut out all the piddling about.

[Dick Smith]

Yes they have emailed me a confirmation - I used the info from an RIB, worked fine. I was just being idle, the RIB was closer than my wallet...

Yes - a 'pay now' option would be easier. But hey, let's not get EDF to court before it can promène..

[Teamedup]

So far I have found book keeping techniques in France to be very iffy.

I was threatened with the baliffs for a bill I had paid months before, what a job I had with that. I was actually in credit with that company.

 Last year I paid our water bill in advance as we were going to be away. The Tresor Public didn't actually credit our account with all the money, they took part of it and then credited themselves with the rest. The next bill came in our absence, which we didn't need to pay as we had overpaid already. They then sent another bill with a percentage fine on it for not paying. Yet again, I had quite a job sorting that little lot out.

The moral of this is keep every little bit of evidence of payment, don't trust anyone where money and bill paying is concerned.

[Miki]

Amen to that TU.

I learned a long time ago, to walk in to an office and ask to see the boss only please but remembering at all times to keep the smile on the face whilst giving as good as I got from the oh so smiley fonctionaire, who all along wanted to fob me off with a load of tosh !

I once got €250 from our water company for destroying  a lot ofour Daughters clothes, when yet another fracture in the pipe line sent in dirty muddy water to the washing machine. After weeks then a month or more, I finally tracked down boss man, who after supposedly receiving two recomendées and staff repeatedly telling me he was dealing with it, told me he knew nothing about it . He sat and listened and asked us to compile a list of the clothes, bring them in and he woul deal with it personally. This he did and sent us a cheque for said amount and had a driver bring the clothes back to us to deal with how we wished. From that day, whenever we get a fracture which affects us, they send a man around to warn us and also to purge the muddy water from a local stand pipe to ensure it does not get in our system any more than neccessary.

It pays to take the effort to see the top man, the others will tend to waffle................. as ever, it's all part of the game [;-)]

I reckon we have receipts going back many, many years, well you just never know !

[verviale]

You think you have problems with bills,I have been trying to get my tax d habitation and fonciere right for ten years,I have had my house for 15 years, mum and dad have had theirs for 12 years and my sister 3 years all in the same village,my sister and I have our maiden name on our deeds which is the same name naturally as my father,well all was well until my father bought his house , he got all the bills,well that was o.k. we just passed them round,when my sister bought hers,it got a bit more complicated, so we all went to the tresor public and they suggested we had direct debit, so we gave our bank details and the next year my Dad had his bank account debited with all three habitation and I was debited with all the fonciers, so we added , deducted and refunded each other.So we decided to cancel that option we all paid 10 euros at the bank for doing so and I spent an hour last spring with the maries assistant,who said I would have to photocopy all the deeds and send them with the plot numbers individually to the main department in Limoges, she said send them in seperate envelopes as  all three arriving together might confuse them.So I got back to England did as she said paid £15.00 to post them all,and yes you have guessed,I have received one bill only ,minus the audiovisual, that I had paid the year before, My dad has not received any and my sister did get hers.But she is not sure if they are hers or my Dads,we do not really know where to go from here, I think we were best just swapping them round in the first place.I  have not got the strenghth to tell you about the year I changed my buildings insurance, but lets just say I ended up 160 euros out of pocket because the insurance company would not accept I wanted to swap despite a letter from my notaire, I got court papers at one point, I will say no more.And EDF well thats another story,they got my payment but sent a letter saying they had not but that only took a week to sort out.The trouble is, these problems are difficult to sort out sometimes when you are in England,but hey ho all good fun.

[Teamedup]

I have every bill we have ever had since 1981. I just daren't chuck them.