Cost of living: Pensioner, 90, 'shocked' as monthly energy bill tripled in price

A 90-year-old widow was left "shocked and worried" after her energy bill direct debit increased by almost three times without her knowing.

June Jones, who lives alone in a small terraced house in Blackwood, usually pays around £250 per month on her EDF energy bills.

However, when her son, Brian - who helps manage her finances - told her she had been charged £704 for her latest bill, she "couldn't believe it".

"When he (June's son) told me I couldn't believe it. It is a worry because most of us older people don't like debts and just want to carry on," June told ITV Wales.

Brian explained: "I was asked to do this by means of an email towards the end of April, and to my astonishment, when I came to put those readings on the webpage, I found on there that they had made her bill massively higher than it had ever been over all those years.

"To give you an idea, she was initially paying £76 per month before the latest increases, the latest increases trebled her amount to £250 - which we more-or-less were expecting because everyone's bills were rising and what I found was that they had decided to change that monthly amount to £704.

He added: "They'd trebled it initially to allow for the increase in the gas and electricity prices, and then they'd trebled it again."

Brian said he was "very alarmed" upon his discovery and so contacted EDF to get answers.

"The operators who I spoke to could only apologise and investigate this as a complaint," he said.

"I subsequently made another four phone calls and each time I was told there was nothing they could do about it, it would be investigated and I would be told what the outcome was as soon as possible."

Feeling like he wasn't getting anywhere, Brian then decided to take his story to the media and informed his local MP.

"I've now had two phone calls from the complaints department at EDF assuring me that the situation is being put right and that a refund will be made.

"I shudder to think if my mother hadn't had this support, how she would have dealt with the situation. In fact she wouldn't have known about it until noticing her bank account was empty presumably.

He continued: "I'm very worried about the fact that it was very clearly a miss-reading of the meter, but nothing about EDF's system warned them to alert anyone that this change was about to take place.

"It was a shock in several ways and I think what really bothered me is that I didn't seem to be getting anywhere, even though I regard myself as quite capable of dealing with these situations, I was just coming up against a brick wall with the organisation and in fact to this day I've got nothing in writing to tell me about the outcome of what this complaint was."

Fortunately, Brian was able to help his mother resolve the issue, but he said he's concerned other single older people may struggle.

"I have had some history of social work with older people as part of my job, and I know that many people would have been absolutely terrified at that situation and I wonder what extreme measures they might take as a result of all that worry.

"This worry has been with us for this month until earlier today when I received the second phone call saying things would be put right.

"I would fear for the majority of older people who are living on their own, just suddenly getting a notification like that."

He added: "I'd hate to think that EDF just saw it as a wrinkle in the system and unavoidable because in my mind it is so serious and you'd like to think that the organisation could learn from this example, but nothing in any conversation I've had with EDF staff has indicated that, it's just 'oh we've out it right, isn't that a good thing', well it is a good thing but what about all those other situations that are likely to be cropping up when you have hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of customers."

In response, a spokesperson for EDF said: "We’re sorry to hear about the challenges Mrs Jones has been facing with the cost increases on her energy bills and that an incorrect meter reading wasn’t picked up sooner. Having investigated Mrs Jones’ account, we can see an incorrect meter reading supplied by the customer in August 2022 led to the Direct Debit increasing.

"Having liaised with Mr Jones on behalf of Mrs Jones to rectify this, we have now corrected the charges and have agreed to credit the account, so that Mrs Jones is not financially impacted by the correction of the readings. We’re also installing a new smart meter for the customer which should reduce the need for manual meter readings in the future."Unfortunately, the cost of energy to households has increased significantly over the past year due to increases in global wholesale costs. We remain committed to helping as many customers as possible, including providing debt relief and installing energy efficiency for those in fuel poverty."