EDF's seasonal electricity bill greeting overcharge

Electricity doesn't come cheap, even in a country where most of it is produced by nuclear power stations.

But in a couple of cases this past week two customers of the French utility company, Electricité de France (EDF) had rather a nasty Christmas surprise.

Perhaps the energy giant was peeved by the French telecommunications company, France Télécom - Orange (FT), hogging the national headlines for presenting some of its mobile 'phone customers with astronomical bills, and although the Yuletide "gifts" it sent its two users pale in comparison to the €159,000 FT charged one of its clients, EDF almost managed to put a dampener on festive spirits.

The first case involved a retired woman in the south-western town of Orthez, who just days before Christmas Eve received a letter from her bank informing her that a payment for her electricity bill of a whopping €10,000 (and 23 centimes to be exact) had been rejected because of "insufficient funds".

An understandable shock to the woman (who wished to remain anonymous) especially as she said that her "annual consumption amounted to around €650" and made all the more unpalatable by the fact that she pays her bills by direct debit.

"Luckily I was sitting down when I received the call (from the bank)," she said.

"I started shaking and was completely disoriented," she continued.

"It's the sort of thing you see on television happening to others and all I can say is that people check their bills," she said.

Sound advice without doubt, and even though EDF has admitted there was a "rare error" in its calculations guess what?

In the very same week another customer - again in the south-west of France, but in a different town, also made the headlines when he received a bill for... wait for it...just over €69,000.

It was an annual bill but one that nonetheless surprised Matthieu Moulierac, a pâtissier in the town of Saint-Émilion, who said he was used to paying far less.

"On average the annual bill is between two thousand and two thousand five hundred euros," he told French news, seemingly unworried at being massively overcharged as EDF had also enclosed a letter apologising for the mistake and informing him that he would shortly be receiving an amended bill for the right amount.

As far as Moulierac was concerned, the story should have ended there, except when he took a look at this bank statement, lo and behold the amount had already been deducted from his account.

He too pays his EDF bills by direct debit and the bank had apparently already authorised the payment.

A quick 'phone call rectified the error initially made by EDF and then compounded by the bank.

But although Moulierac's Christmas and New Year were not soured by the prospect of having to battle to correct a mistake that was in no way of his making, those words of wisdom from the woman at the centre of the first tale ring rather true - and not just at this time of the year.

Happy Holidays.