EDF website, cranky as ever!

[Chancer]

I thought that I had noticed this anomoly before and after having just paid 3 bills fy télépaiement for different supplies I can confirm that its an active bug.

You have an outstanding bill for say €50, not that you can really tell its outstanding and you havnt paid it before because the bill will still be highlighted and shown as active.

Anyway you click on pay bill by telepaiment, you click on yes, use the same RIB, you then click on confirm but it doesnt tell you what payment you are confirming or any amount, but you click it anyway, then it confirms that you have just paid an entirely different amount which I now know to be the amount of the last bill that you paid which for the sake of this we will say was €75 two months ago

Then you either get one of two messages popping up, one will say that your payment has been refused as you have already paid the €75 on todays date, not the date of the actual payment you made 2 months ago.

The other message will tell you that your demand could not be aboutied (Franglais).

Confused, you bloody well should be, have you paid your previous bill twice? is the current one paid? (its still showing as active and due for payment) has nothing been paid? should you try again? Well you can and the experience will be repeated.

I have just had the above with all 3 of the bills but I think they will have been paid as last time it eventually worked out when I saw the correct amount had been debitted from my bank account, of the confirmation E-mails I got 2 not 3 one was correct, the others said that I had paid the amount of the previous bill but in fact the correct amount was debitted.

A fairly typical experience with a French web site [:(]

[NormanH]

I have given up with EDF for my flat and now use

Directe Energie

I had a hiccough at the start when they included an insurance I didn't want, but an email to my conseilleur and it was stopped.

I can't report more than that yet as it is only 3 months ago that I started, but the change over went smoothly.

[dave21478]

The EDF website is about as user-friendly and reliable as a teenagers Myspace page from the '90s.

I look after the electricity payments for one of my clients when they are not in the country and its a complete farce every month. 3 bills....two will work, one will fail EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. Failures range from just refusing to accept the payment to not even loading the "continue" button at the bottom of the page.

There is an EDF office in a nearby city so I went there once to see what the story was. I expected them to have their own portal or intranet or whatever but the dude just went through the same public site that I have to use. Payment failed for no apparent reason. "Yeah, that sometimes happens" was the explanation. And that was it....no efforts to sort anything out, just basically put up with it or piss off.

[woolybanana]

Don't these sites speak Engleesh?

[idun]

I used to be very lucky as we had an EDF office about 6kms from home and if I had a problem I would call in and get it resolved. And then they closed it about 10 years before I left France. Fortunately we had few problems after it had closed.

I never ever sent a rib for any bill in France. I used to send a cheque for the few bills I had that were not prelevements. That way I knew what I was paying and there could be no argument as to what was on the cheque. Although once the cheque has been cashed, we the account holder have no right to see what is on the verso of the cheque, ie if we have written our account number and address. So I ended up  copying both sides of any cheques I was sending before posting them.

To me, I would always prefer to use a prelevement to a RIB.

This sounds as good as British Telecom bills, which I cannot make head nor tail of. And the amounts they would say they needed to take used to be confusing to say the least. We left them when we moved.

[NormanH]

I would always prefer to use a prelevement to a RIB.

And I would always prefer a virement

[mint]

I only have one prelevement.  Everybody else gets paid by cheque.

If an organisation or person makes a special request, I might agree to a one-off virement and that's it.

[Chancer]

You might only have one prélèvement but any company with you RIB can take money as they wish as the demands for a prélèvement are never  checked against the autorisations.

I know this for sure after suspecting it because whenever I took one in it was dropped into the same discreet rubbish bin that they put everything you give to them, I now have several prélèvements none of which have I authorised and they all get deducted from my account without any problem.

The advantage that I have is that the French banks are very conscious of their negiligence in this matter and when you challenge an unauthorised deduction they refund you faster than they could possibly have taken to check.

So I have turned a fear of prélèvements into peace of mind, I believe that if EDF, my insurers or any other créanciers pi55 me off I will be able to order my bank to repay me all the amounts taken without authorisation.  

[Gardian]

I really don't know what you lot are moaning about.

Isn't the general idea of a d/d that the issuer can take what you. owe? In the UK & France, I probably have 200-ish d/d transactions p.a. and there's hardly ever a problem worth fussing over.

As for EDF, I'm content with a monthly prelevement that usually sees me with a few euros to come back in the 12th month. Suits me and it works fine without any of the nonsense you're describing.

[mint]

All I can say is we must live in parallel worlds.

When we had prelevements before, for example, with FT (I know I always have to mention FT as I still smart from the injustice of it all whenever I am reminded of it), they took money out for  3 months for internet use BEFORE they installed our phone line.  I couldn't get any reply to emails, registered letters, etc (couldn't speak French in those days) to ask how I was able to have internet as I didn't even have a phone line.

I never got the money back.  After I closed my CA account to stop the prelevements, CA continued to pay out money and then wrote to say we were overdrawn.

Took me ages to get money back from the companies I had paid by cheque not realising that CA had carried on paying out money from funds which weren't there.

After that little misadventure, I only pay EDF via DD and nobody else.

 

[Chancer]

[quote user="Gardian"]I really don't know what you lot are moaning about. [/quote]

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

AKA I'm all right Jack.

[NormanH]

[quote user="Gardian"]I really don't know what you lot are moaning about.

Isn't the general idea of a d/d that the issuer can take what you. owe? In the UK & France, I probably have 200-ish d/d transactions p.a. and there's hardly ever a problem worth fussing over.

As for EDF, I'm content with a monthly prelevement that usually sees me with a few euros to come back in the 12th month. Suits me and it works fine without any of the nonsense you're describing.[/quote]

If that were the case I for one would be happy.

The problem is that a prélèvement gives the other party the right to take whatever they want, whether you owe it or not....

[mint]

[quote user="NormanH"][quote user="Gardian"]I really don't know what you lot are moaning about.

Isn't the general idea of a d/d that the issuer can take what you. owe? In the UK & France, I probably have 200-ish d/d transactions p.a. and there's hardly ever a problem worth fussing over.

As for EDF, I'm content with a monthly prelevement that usually sees me with a few euros to come back in the 12th month. Suits me and it works fine without any of the nonsense you're describing.[/quote]

If that were the case I for one would be happy.

The problem is that a prélèvement gives the other party the right to take whatever they want, whether you owe it or not....

[/quote]

Succinct (excuse me if there is one "c" too many [:-))]) and to the point, Norman.  Thank you. 

[Gardian]

[quote user="Chancer"]

[quote user="Gardian"]I really don't know what you lot are moaning about. [/quote]

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

AKA I'm all right Jack.

[/quote]

That's very unlike you Chancer and a little unworthy of you, but maybe my original response deserved it !!

All that I'm saying is that d/d's work for me, have done for donkeys years and presumably do for millions of other EDF customers.

As I said, never had a problem related to my d/d - they work. Have had a stalled meter, but that was resolved amicably and to my advantage. For me, EDF are pretty much OK.

[Chancer]

Point taken and I better understand yours now.

I dont actually have my payments taken by prélèvement in as much as in theory at least I have to authorise each one by télépaiement but I'm pretty sure that if I were to with-hold payment they would just take it anyway using the authority that they think I have given them but in fact havnt, the bank doesnt seem to give a 4x, if someone asks for payment then they just make it, there is no checking as I have and never will fill out one of the forms, it remains to be seen whether they would refund me without a fight as that would mean accepting they had made a mistake and their perception of losing face, never a successfull strategy in France.

I have never had a problem personally with prélèvements but you cannot ignore the huge volume of people in France that have had, and as such I would never say "I dont know what you are moaning about" 

I retract my comments but probably too late to delete them so they may stay for posterity [:)]

"Unworthy of you" is a lovely repost, I will have to try and create something like that in French as a face saving strategy for the other person [;-)]

[idun]

surely................... 'cette remarque n'est pas digne de vous/de toi'?[Www]