EDF customers have been left outraged after their energy bills rose to as high as £39,000. Some UK-based customers, including journalist Jon Sopel and artist Grayson Perry, saw their bills reportedly rise by up to 12,000 percent.
Writing on X, Mr Sopel said his standing order had risen sharply from just over £150 to nearly £20,000 while Grayson Perry said the company tried to direct debit nearly £40,000 from his bank account.
Celebrities weren’t the only customers seeing sky-high energy bills as people replied to the pair saying they had also seen skyrocketing energy bills.
Following the cases, EDF said they could not discuss the specifics of any cases which they claimed were not related to each other.
Writing on X, former BBC journalist Mr Sopel wrote: “Dear @edfenergy Just had a notification that our monthly standing order is going up from £152 to £19,274.
“Seems a bit steep. Is there a human rather than a bot we can talk to? Many thanks and Merry Christmas. Jon.”
Artist Grayson Perry added: “Hi @edfenergy I’ve been trying to speak to someone to explain how my electricity bill went from £300 a month to £39,000. Your call centre has been no help but you tried to direct debit this amount today from my account.”
Responding to Grayson, the Mail reported that an EDF spokesperson said: “Hi Grayson, I’m so sorry for any concern that this may have caused. Please send me a direct message with your account details and we’ll get this picked up straight away.”
GB News reported that fellow social media user Connor Natella claimed the firm tried to charge them £3,000 for two months’ worth of energy.
Another customer wrote on X: “EDF put our energy bill up to just under £900 per month. Only two of us in the house.
“When I asked for help and for them to explain what was so high the girl on the online chat was just rude. Switched to Octopus and so far they seem much much better.”
Speaking to the publication, a spokesperson for EDF said: “Customers do not need to worry – these are not related to a wider issue with our billing system and we’ve not made any changes to how we process direct debit changes for customers.”
They added: “Unusual changes to direct debit amounts can sometimes occur when there is an erroneous meter reading recorded on the system.
“We have robust interventions in place to ensure that any large increases in customers’ direct debits are verified through a human check and in almost all such cases, system errors are rectified and prevented, without customers being impacted.”
