An employee from the Thau basin (in the south of France) received a bill for 211,933.09 euros at the beginning of October for her home’s electricity consumption. It seems that an error in the off-peak hour index of your electricity bill caused this total mismatch in the amounts included in the notification, according to the French media. Free Midi.
Now, 10 days after the French media published the news, it seems that everything is returning to normal and that the storm in his head and in his bank account has an end. Ambre, a resident of Sète (France), had the unpleasant surprise of receiving an electricity bill of more than 200,000 euros at her home due to an error in the transcription of off-peak hours.
His bank account was frozen and he couldn’t pay his other bills.
After the error and the huge bill issued to this client, the affected person saw how her bank account was frozen because she had direct debit electricity bills. The account did not have enough funds to cover the consumption amount and, therefore, it was blocked.
This resulted in subsequent invoices or regular bank charges being declined. After 10 days of the events, everything returned to normal for Ambre. “I got a call from management in Paris and they told me they were going to issue a new invoice,” he says. “And my banker unfroze the account.”
Bank charges are still being processed
The claims were confirmed by their electricity supplier, TotalEnergiewho immediately apologized. “The case with us is closed,” commented the service provider. “After correcting the erroneous invoice, a commercial gesture was made to settle the balance of the client’s two remaining invoices.”
Now all that remains is to settle the bank charges generated by the rejection of the various direct debits. “They asked me to send them,” Ambre reported. For now, TotalEnergie explains that “the client has not provided any evidence of the bank charges generated by the situation, charges that we promise to reimburse if necessary.” Alleging a “regrettable error” and an “isolated incident”, the service provider defends itself by explaining that it is one of the providers with the lowest litigation rate according to the national energy mediator.