Thanks for your post. We have cancelled the direct debit and I heed your warning about Bank of France.
We chose the Red days Tarif (EJP) because we are gone at least three or four months in the winter and hardly ever experience the EJP days. We also have automatic shutoff on the fuse box when an EJP Day happens.
If you see my very recent post, the usage is astronomical, sometimes hey say 1500 KW per day, etc.
We are going to be reading the meter very regularly and we have an electrician coming.
The fact is, it is impossible for this kind of usage to be happening, and we have to get to the bottom of what is causing it.
That is completely impossible I would say. That’s equivalent to 62,5Kw consumption constant for 24 hours. It’s not possible to be provided with that level of power as a domestic consumer. Surely, EDF should be able to realise this. 35,000Kwh over 5 months is also almost impossible as you would have to draw about 9.7Kw continuously, 24 hours a day for 5 months.
Yes, it is impossible. But that is exactly what is happening.
And EDF has not responded although we told them we are basically a 2-person household with the normal appliances.
We have sent a letter to their mediation board and after 2 months still nothing has happened.
Have you or anyone else you know delalt with the consumer protection organisations in France. We were thinking of going to see them.
Maybe we have to hire a lawyer?
Any recommendations from you or anyone else are welcome.
Sorry to labour the point, but have you spelled out to them, using the figures you have, just how impossible the readings are, and did you do the same to the mediation board ?
I haven’t , but I know that several people on this site have recommended France Services before if you need help.
I am very grateful for your questions.
As I mentioned earlier, I am only taking over this situation just now and so I am in the process of getting the history of what has been done so far.
We should know more this week when the electrician comes and we then have more data to present.
I will post more soon, hopefully.
This is a good tip about French Services. I will make an appointment with the person. She`s great.
I agree, it is insane. It does sound like a rogue Linky, especially as you had previous consumption to go on. Thats me taught.
I repeat my urge for you to go over to real usage billing.
One other thing; with electricity precision is all. When you are talking about your consumption you need to refer to kilowatt hours (kWh, with one kWh being a load of 1000 Watts running for one hour) rather than just kilowatts (kW) which is just a measure of electrical load any one instant.
I check my linky every Sunday morning and record the numbers which are then translated into euros. That way I know nothing untoward is happening.
I realise that is a bit late in this context but it does stop me being alarmed personally by @Cadouin24’s experience.
I really do hope you get it satisfactoriy resolved, and soon. The coincidence with the PO scandal in the UK is worrying.
It’s Répression des Fraudes. Technically that official French Trading Standards type entity has a very recent new name but that’s what the French still call it. After 2-3 months with EDF médiateur, I wouldn’t hesitate to file a case with them mentioning the calculations you’ve been given here.
I second going to the RdF. They got Orange off our backs for insane treatment immediately after seeing one of their advisors. Take every bit of proof you have including photos, bills,dates of absenteeism from the house and even proof of travel and lodgings to build your case. Good luck but don’t try to do this alone, nor involve avocats etc, you will end up poorer.
Thank you for this tip about the PO scandal. I was not aware of it ((I am not from the UK).,I but I think there is an implication that there may also be a problem with Linky software that is not being acknowledged. But I don`t want to jump to conclusions. First things first, and getting the data straight and facts. And thanks for your well wishes for getting this solved soon. It is a huge cause of stress for us, but we are doing our best.
I read people in the UK have been having troubles with smart electricity meters and being charged thousands and thousands of pounds in error and brits in Spain having problems with smart water meters too. The first thing any utility company should do is check their appliances, they are not infallable and do go wrong, some even catch fire!
Usually due to poor installation & not a fault with the meter itself i.e. it could have happened with any type of meter if connections had not been tightened properly.
In the initial roll-out of Linkys there were many non-electricians taken on & “trained” to install them, all then working to stupidly tight schedules. Bad things happened.
To continue. We have had some water pump leaks in the past, and maybe that is something to check. Did you have Sogedo come to check the meter? I would be grateful for any help to solves the mystery of why EDF is claiming we are using thousands of Kilowatts of electricity every month, when when we were away for over six weeks recently. Our Link meter was installed in Oct. 2023.
It wasn’t me that had the issue. If you follow the link I posted it was a post by a user called linky. You can make sure a user gets a message about your post by putting an @ symbol followed by their user name. So @linky has now been sent a message, by me about my post in this thread.