BBC star hits out as his monthly energy bill rises from £152 to £19,000 a month
Former BBC newsreader Jon Sopel has hit out at energy supplier EDF after his bill appeared to jump from £152 a month to a staggering £19,000.
Jon, 64, took to social media to express his fury in response to artist Grayson Perry's post which berated the energy supplier for exactly the same thing. The Turner Prize-winning artist took to X, formerly known as Twitter, in a desperate bid to try to resolve what seems to be an error on EDF’s part.
The 63-year-old wrote: “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.”
In response, Jon penned: "Same has just happened to us. Ridiculous. We’re now sorted. They wanted to raise ours from £152 to £19k. Wonder how many others have had this - @edfenergy can you shed light please on what is happening.” In another post directed at EDF specifically, he said that he had grown tired of not being able to speak to a real person.
Jon Sopel hits out at EDF for extortionate monthly bill (S Meddle/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)He 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.” Apart from Jon, Grayson's post was flooded with comments from members of the public who had also found themselves in a similar position.
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One fan joked underneath: “I know you’ve left the BBC Jon, but a cannabis farm is not the answer.” Another chimed in: “Sopes has a weed farm in his loft. Scoop for @TheNewsAgents [podcast he presents with Emily Maitlis and Lewis Goodall]” to which Jon saw the funny side and replied: “Busted!”
Others accused the French energy company of trying to take huge sums of money without prior warning in bills that clearly appeared to be wrong. While some followers claimed their elderly relatives had been threatened with bailiffs if they didn’t pay up.
Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry revealed EDF had tried to increase his energy bill by £38,000 (Getty Images)“The #EDF dept that sends threatening letters with promises of bailiffs entering your home is very efficient. When me elderly and recently widowed mother didn’t pay a neighbour’s EDF bill sent in error to her, it’s what they did to her,” one follower said.
Another commented: “Elderly, frail and totally stressed and worried parents keep getting erroneous bills for thousands and sorting them out is a farce. Good luck.” A third wrote: “They tried to charge me an insane amount too. Their tactic appears to be to refuse to use meter readings (that we had provided) and instead use estimated numbers (which happen to be much higher of course). It’s essentially attempted theft on an industrial scale in my view.”
A fourth made the point: “Who in the billing department put that bill in an envelope without stopping to think that £39,000 seemed a bit steep for a residential property. You’d have to have several kilns on full blast constantly for a whole month to rack up that much usage!” While a fifth advised: “The only way to get energy companies to respond is to email them with the word OMBUDSMAN in the title. They’re very responsive all of a sudden once you threaten to escalate.”
Underneath Grayson’s tweet, a member of the EDF customer service team responded: “Hi Grayson, I’m 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. Thanks.”
When the Mirror contacted EDF, they said they couldn’t comment on individual cases but 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 charges for customers. 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 cases, system errors are rectified and prevented without customers being impacted.”
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