I do not actually pay a regular direct debit at all. I receive two bills a year, a relatively small one in December covering mainly the summer months and a much larger one in June covering mainly the winter months. Beyond those two annual payments, nothing is taken. I do not know how long I will get away with this for!
I think those households without a Linky meter will find shortly that they will be invoiced for the twice per year meter reading by an actual physical person. That was one of the reasons EDF gave me when they asked me to change over and the thought of paying someone to read the meter was enough for me. You think how much time, petrol and distance those meter readers have to travel and you can see their point.
indeed, although the other side of the coin is, those guys used to have jobs that no longer exist.
I have just phoned the English speaking line to change my payments. Very helpful. We start paying for what we have used from the end of December. Was not able
to change it on line.
Thatās helpful, I have been online a few times trying to find the monthly actual payment option but couldnāt find it either, think a phone call to them is coming. Thanks.
Finally got through to EDF English line and they said to go to my bank and reject the 716 euro and when I get the letter from EDF to phone them back and arrange a repayment scheme, but it seems EDF have lowered my monthly payments back to what I am paying now.
Not certain if the bank has cancelled the complete direct debit, but will sort it out when I get the EDF letter and speak to them again.
have you done this ?
Yes Stella, have to wait for the letter from EDF and phone them back to sort out a payment plan.
Ahā¦ I had a horible feeling you were waiting for the letter before getting the DD cancelledā¦
phewā¦ good luck.
EDF recently emailed me saying my monthly payments were too high and provided a link that I could use to reduce them by about 40%. I have a linky and follow my consumption quite closely. There seems no way EDFās projections can be accurate, given the way my electric underfloor heating sucks up the watts in the winter. Iām going to keep my payments as they are until next spring and reassess things. A yearās payments in France for my all-electric house are considerably less than my bill in Aberdeen four years ago for gas plus electricity.
just wonderingā¦ was this really from EDF?
I pay one property monthlyā¦ and EDF contact me if they want to up or down the paymentā¦ they donāt offer a ālinkā for me to tapā¦ I can go into my accounts in the normal way.
Iām very wary of ālinksāā¦
an old reference but perhaps just as valid these days:
Apologies for deviationā¦ but I had an SMS on my mobile yesterday, telling me to tap this link āto renew my carte vitale which would expire 20th Septemberā¦ā aargh
need to be wary all the timeā¦
That was the one Ikept getting, late at night too which always makes me suspicious and we know they donāt expire!
Itās easier when these calls are made to mobilesā¦
simply block the number.
sms, emails, phone callsā¦ itās all rather a headache at the momentā¦ impossible to block 'em all it seems. They change numbers/emails/whatever and swamp usā¦
often different players who have paid for the āsuckersā list 
You still need to keep on top of it. It takes a single tap to block them on your device - whatās not to like?
Good point, Stella. Yes, Iām certain it was from EDF. The email had all the details of my account and my present monthly payment. I avoid using links on principle and always go directly to a companyās website if I want to interact with them.
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My phone, or maybe itās my provider, always treats these Carte Vitale emails as spam. I donāt even seem to be notified on my phone that one has been received, which in some ways is a bit worrying if something important is treated as spam. I only discovered the spam folder on my phone about a month ago. It had dozens of these Carte Vitale and other well known spam or scam texts in it.
Not so easy with phone calls. I get about 20 to 30 cold calls per week. The people phoning seem to have blocks of 1000 numbers that they use, as for many of them, the phone numbers are identical except for the last 3 digits. Thatās why Iām thinking of resurrecting my idea of designing a box that can be used to block numbers inot just individually, but in blocks. Probably wonāt get round to doing it, but you never know.