Bonkers energy billing situation.
Discussion
We own a number of residential properties where we pay the energy bills on behalf of the tenants. Because the supplies are for domestic properties, we have always paid VAT at 5%. The properties are owned by two limited companies and a partnership.
We have just reached the end of a fixed-term contract with Eon Next (who became awful to deal with the moment that "Next" was added to their name). So, we got in touch with a firm called Bionic, who are a business switching service, and they put us with EDF for gas and electricity.
The moment Bionic had won the business, things went wrong. Their customer service staff don't understand anything at all about billing it seems and just pass messages to EDF.
We've written them and to EDF several times without response.
The problem is, EDF are sending us crazy bills. A gas bill for a 3-bed terraced house has just hit my desk and they are asking for a pro-rata sum of £38,000.00 per year!
Bionic was meant to submit VAT declarations for all sites, but apparently have not.
Not all our properties have been switched.
Estimated readings are being used, when smart meter reads or actual reads are available.
Rather than having all sites accessible via a single online portal, they seem to be treating them in separate batches.
No one at EDF or Bionic is contactable by phone.
I am receiving a pile daily about an inch thick of bills, amended bills and other bumph from EDF plus about 20 emails.
We've had to cancel our Direct Debits because EDF was going to take about 10 times what they should have been.
It's a mess and is quite stressful.
In the absence of a response from Bionic or EDF we are going to make an Ombudsman's complaint. However, we want to ensure that we don't expose ourselves to negative credit file entries, legal action or anything of that nature.
We have considered sending a monthly payment of an estimated sum "on account for all sites supplied by EDF" by way of goodwill. But on the other hand we wouldn't pay any other supplier if they couldn't invoice properly.
We really don't know quite how to handle it. Does anyone with experience of this have any wise words please?
We have just reached the end of a fixed-term contract with Eon Next (who became awful to deal with the moment that "Next" was added to their name). So, we got in touch with a firm called Bionic, who are a business switching service, and they put us with EDF for gas and electricity.
The moment Bionic had won the business, things went wrong. Their customer service staff don't understand anything at all about billing it seems and just pass messages to EDF.
We've written them and to EDF several times without response.
The problem is, EDF are sending us crazy bills. A gas bill for a 3-bed terraced house has just hit my desk and they are asking for a pro-rata sum of £38,000.00 per year!
Bionic was meant to submit VAT declarations for all sites, but apparently have not.
Not all our properties have been switched.
Estimated readings are being used, when smart meter reads or actual reads are available.
Rather than having all sites accessible via a single online portal, they seem to be treating them in separate batches.
No one at EDF or Bionic is contactable by phone.
I am receiving a pile daily about an inch thick of bills, amended bills and other bumph from EDF plus about 20 emails.
We've had to cancel our Direct Debits because EDF was going to take about 10 times what they should have been.
It's a mess and is quite stressful.
In the absence of a response from Bionic or EDF we are going to make an Ombudsman's complaint. However, we want to ensure that we don't expose ourselves to negative credit file entries, legal action or anything of that nature.
We have considered sending a monthly payment of an estimated sum "on account for all sites supplied by EDF" by way of goodwill. But on the other hand we wouldn't pay any other supplier if they couldn't invoice properly.
We really don't know quite how to handle it. Does anyone with experience of this have any wise words please?
Edited by Louis Balfour on Thursday 19th January 19:03
Acorn1 said:
So who are Bionic and how did they win the business?
You could have negotiated a good deal directly with any supplier you like if you're bringing multiple properties to them.
They used to be "Make it Cheaper" who we used before and they were good. They won the business by making a lot of promises that they have not fulfilled. Basically they claimed they would deal with the switch and ongoing account management. They also secured a deal that was better than the incumbent was offering.You could have negotiated a good deal directly with any supplier you like if you're bringing multiple properties to them.
If you've managed multiple energy accounts you will know that it is very hard work. When we switched we were looking at around 40 accounts.
I can't help, other than suggest you open a complaint and/or go to the Ombudsman. It's a bigger version of what happened with me - a clusterf
k of errors from Scottish Power which gave me seven invoices in a week, all different, and then Shell suddenly putting my (domestic) DD up to £900+pcm - just because THEY got two numbers the wrong way round. I couldn't get any response from them so had to cancel my DD, and that bounced me into more expensive tariff.... matter ongoing.
It's down to too much competition, too many computers, 'systems' and management's insatiable desire to replace humans with software, websites and 'FAQs'. Human vs computer - expect more in future. The amount of wasted man hours trying to sort out st like this is one reason productivity's fallen off a cliff. Just wait until everyone has EVs...
k of errors from Scottish Power which gave me seven invoices in a week, all different, and then Shell suddenly putting my (domestic) DD up to £900+pcm - just because THEY got two numbers the wrong way round. I couldn't get any response from them so had to cancel my DD, and that bounced me into more expensive tariff.... matter ongoing.It's down to too much competition, too many computers, 'systems' and management's insatiable desire to replace humans with software, websites and 'FAQs'. Human vs computer - expect more in future. The amount of wasted man hours trying to sort out s
t like this is one reason productivity's fallen off a cliff. Just wait until everyone has EVs...Gassing Station | Business | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff