EDF. In the nick of time

As I’ve mentioned on several previous occasions, I’ve found EDF here in France to be the most inefficient, badly managed, uncommunicative and generally bloody awful organisation that I’ve ever had to deal with. They’ve been a thorn in my side ever since I came to France, for over 15 months at the time of writing, and still my problems with them grind on and on 🙁

I talked about what happened when 400 volts was fed into my house in a previous post HERE which is something I still hold EDF responsible for. But despite my sending EDF several detailed letters containing a number of pertinent questions about that incident, events prior to it and what I view as their responsibility for it, after more than 4 months I have still not received any kind of substantive reply from them. In fact after much delay I recently did receive a reply from their ‘customer service’ department but it was totally bland and made no reference to any of my previous correspondence.

I made a financial claim in respect of my possessions that were destroyed by the electrical overload, which EDF have never acknowledged. After the incident during which my house could easily have caught fire and been destroyed I insisted on EDF switching my electrical supply from 400 volts 3-phase to 220 volts single. Afterwards, they imposed a charge for having done so which I have refused to pay on the grounds that if they had told me my house was connected to a 3-phase 400 volt system in advance of my taking out a supply contract, I would have declined and they would have had to switch it over to 220 volts, a job that only took an engineer about 25 minutes when it was done.

So we reached an impasse and if EDF employed sensible people in customer facing roles, you’d have thought that they would have been in touch to see what could be done about it. But of course, this has not happened as the only language that EDF understands under such circumstances consists of bullying and threats. And so it was that on Friday of last week, I received a message saying that unless I paid the disputed charge, they would send along an engineer to cut off my supply. I immediately phoned customer services who told me that if I had a dispute with EDF, I should pay the disputed sum and then claim it back off them. I was gobsmacked and just laughed back in their face – if they would not communicate with me when I ‘owed’ them money, what would be the chance of their doing so if I paid it and the boot was on the other foot? I also said that as this ridiculous situation had now gone on for so long and EDF obviously had no intention of acting in good faith to resolve it, I now had no choice but to refer it to the ‘le médiateur national de l’energie’, which I would do as soon as possible.

‘Le médiateur’ acts when there is a dispute between an energy supplier and one of its customers to independently consider all aspects of the dispute, including legal, and make a recommendation that can be binding on both parties. It can be ignored if either party still wishes to continue with eg a legal claim, but usually it is in the interests of both parties to accept it and act accordingly. The thing about ‘le médiateur’ is that once a matter has been referred, it is automatically frozen and actions on both sides, including punitive ones by the energy company, must be frozen.

I didn’t have this in mind particularly when I spent hours yesterday writing yet another letter to EDF and then preparing the detailed dossier of correspondence etc in relation to my claim that ‘le médiateur’ requires. As EDF customer services had told me on Friday that there was no date set for my disconnection, I had originally intended to prepare the dossier for submission over the next couple of days, but I decided that I might as well get it out of the way so I could at last turn my full attention back to the 56NE. And lucky that I did!

The first thing this morning I got a call on my mobile, which was fortunately switched on, from EDF, or more precisely, an engineer from ERDF, asking me if I would be at home this morning. I said that I would and in the meantime, after I’d breakfasted, took the opportunity to pop down to Plazac to send both my latest letter to EDF and the dossier to ‘le médiateur’. On my return, there was a ERDF van waiting outside with, as it turned out, the engineer inside who had previously carried out my change-over from 3-phase to single phase. He was highly apologetic as he said that as there was an unpaid bill, he’d come to disconnect my supply. I asked him about the outstanding amount and told him that it related to the work he’d done to switch over my electrical supply, which I had no intention of paying and as EDF had failed to provide me with an effective response over a period of more than 4 months (‘le médiateur’ actually specifies a period of 2 months) I had now referred the matter to ‘le médiateur’. This turned out to be my trump card! The engineer is a very nice chap and he looked quite relieved as he typed this information into his hand-held and said that in that case, he would take no further action. We chatted for a few more minutes before we shook hands and he drove off.

So like all bullies, EDF have shown themselves to be nasty and spiteful as well. Having told me that no date had been set for disconnecting my electricity, this turned out to be a lie. It was already in train and was set to happen immediately. They didn’t care about my personal situation, the food in my fridge and freezer or anything else. All they were concerned about was achieving their own objectives by whatever means, whether they are in the right or wrong, with absolutely no consideration for their customer and no recognition whatsoever of their customer’s rights. What an appalling organisation they are and it’s about time that something was done about it. My own campaign against them may be insignificant in itself, but if that’s what everyone thought and did nothing, then nothing would ever change. And that’s why I’m keeping on keeping on 😐