Alert – Grayson Perry slams EDF after energy firm emptied his bank account when his bills surged from £300 to shocking £39,000 a month – as he slams ‘system error’ which saw customers including Jon Sopel overcharged

Sir Grayson Perry today revealed EDF had emptied his bank account after his energy bill suddenly skyrocketed from £300 a month to an astonishing £39,000 a month.

The artist received 15 different bills ranging between £200 and £6,000 and was told that the money would be taken by direct debit for all of them at once yesterday.

Sir Grayson, 63, was then unable access his bank account because EDF was trying repeatedly to take that money out – and they emptied the £2,500 which was in it.

He also credited a article about his ordeal – and a similar fate suffered by broadcaster Jon Sopel – with receiving a ‘very apologetic’ phone call later from EDF.

Sir Grayson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning: ‘I suddenly out of the blue got a whole sheath of about 15 bills which added up to about £39,000.

‘They said they were going to deduct the money by direct debit for all those bills on the same day, which was yesterday. I just thought it was so bizarre. I tried on Friday, I spent about three hours at least trying to get some sense out of a call centre.

** Have you been hit by a massive EDF bill? Please email: [email protected] ** 

Sir Grayson Perry at the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery in London on June 20

‘But you’re talking to a computer really, so it was very frustrating. They just sort of said well it says £39,000, that’s how much we’re going to take. But it’s a bizarrely huge amount of money for my electricity bill. They said that’s what it’s estimated.’

Sir Grayson said the saga was an ‘interesting fable of a technological age’ which began when EDF installed a smart meter at his ‘country studio’ despite him pointing out to the engineer there was no phone signal in the area.

He continued: ‘So they never had a record of how much I was using. And then when the bill comes, it’s just an estimation by a computer, I imagine there’s an algorithm that works it out.

‘Then we have the facelessness of the call centres. And then I feel frustrated because it’s taking this money automatically from my bank. And then the final chapter of the technological saga is I used Twitter to get a response.’

He said that he was not fond of celebrities using their ‘Twitter power’, but noticed that many other people online had suffered the same problem.

Sir Grayson added: ‘I just thought, what is it like if you’re some vulnerable person and this happens to you? I’m somebody who’s got a fair bit of cash or whatever, but it absolutely freaked me out.

‘It was just the injustice and completely surrealism of it that was kind of really, really upset me. Because call centres are guaranteed to make you frustrated, I think.’

Jon Sopel at the British Podcast Awards 2022 at Kennington Park in London on July 23 last year

Speaking about the 15 different bills, he said they ‘varied between sort of a few hundred and £6,000, but they were all being deducted on the same day’.

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Sir Grayson said: ‘That was a sort of suspicious thing in the first place. And they emptied my bank account yesterday. They took about £2,500 out of my bank yesterday.’

Asked whether he had got the money back today, he said: ‘Well I don’t know, I haven’t checked yet. But I will be trying.’

He was also questioned over whether he had actually spent that money, but said: ‘The studio which the bills are for, I hardly use it. And that’s the weird thing.

‘These bills are much, much bigger than my main studio which I use all the time. So it’s not that I have used that much power. I haven’t burnt my way through £39,000 of electricity.’

As the interview drew to a close, presenter Nick Robinson then said: ‘Grayson, I’m delighted to see thanks to the benefit of Zoom or whatever application you’re on, that you’re staying warm by talking to us in bed.’

Sir Grayson replied: ‘Exactly, I’ve got the central heating turned right down now.’

Robinson then added: ‘Do you think you can turn this into a piece of art, this whole experience, Grayson?’

But Perry said: ‘No. I just wanted to say, EDF, the power of Twitter, I was on the Daily Mail website by lunchtime and then I got a phone call from EDF who were very apologetic. So I bear them no real ill will. But I think it’s the technology.’

It comes after Sir Grayson tweeted yesterday morning: ‘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.’

French energy firm EDF said unusual changes to direct debit amounts can occur when an ‘erroneous meter reading [is] recorded on the system’

Replying to him, an EDF customer services representative said: ‘Hi Grayson, I’m so 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.’

Meanwhile broadcaster Mr Sopel said he ‘choked on my cornflakes’ when he discovered his monthly EDF bill had skyrocketed from £152 to a ‘ridiculous’ £19,274.

The former BBC journalist was among the energy firm’s customers left furious today when their bills surged by more than 12,000 per cent.

Mr Sopel, who presents The News Agents podcast, confirmed to he has a smart meter.

‘I choked on my cornflakes when we got the bill saying our monthly standing order was going up from £152 to £19,274 a month and i just wonder, like Grayson Perry, who else has had ridiculous bills like that and who has been frightened out their life because of it,’ Mr Sopel said through his agent Mary Greenham.

EDF said unusual changes to direct debit amounts can occur when an ‘erroneous meter reading [is] recorded on the system’.

Mr Sopel, who presents The News Agents podcast, wrote a public letter on X, formerly Twitter, to the French energy supplier asking if he could speak to a human rather than a bot about his monthly standing order rising from £152 to £19,274.

These tweets prompted other members of the public to share similar stories of EDF, saying they had been overcharged by thousands of pounds and received ‘threatening’ letters through the door for refusing the pay up.

Two customers claimed their EDF energy bills surged massively to £900 and £3,000 a month

Mr Sopel told EDF – which raked in a record £1.12billion profit last year – that his dramatically high bill ‘seems a bit steep’, before wishing them a ‘merry Christmas’.

Mr Sopel wrote: ‘Dear @edfenergy, Just had a notification that our monthly standing order is going up from £152 a month 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.’

EDF later released a series of messages on X as it said other ‘customers don’t need to worry’ as it is not ‘related to a wider issue with our billing system’.

The company wrote: ‘Unusual changes to direct debit amounts can sometimes occur when there is an erroneous meter reading recorded on the system, but we have robust interventions in place to ensure that any large increases in customers’ direct debits are verified through a human check.

‘In almost all such cases, system errors are rectified and prevented without customers being impacted.’

A former EDF customer also responded to Mr Grayson’s post, sharing her own issues she had with the firm after they suddenly raised her bills to nearly £900 even though there were just two people in the property.

Lindsay wrote: ‘EDF put our energy bill up to just under £900 per month. Only two of us in the house.

‘When I asked for help and for them to explain why it was so high the girl on the online chat was just rude. Switched to Octopus and so far they seem much much better.’

She said that her bills were now just £120 per month with Octopus. ‘I feel sick to the stomach at the amount of money my mum lost through being with EDF,’ she added.

Another EDF customer replied to Mr Sopel’s post saying the firm is trying to charge £3,000 for two months of usage.

Connor Natella said he cannot get through to customer service and is receiving ‘increasingly threatening’ letters for payment.

He wrote: ‘They’re trying to get me on £3k for 2 months usage, can never get through and just receiving increasingly threatening letters through the door!’

EDF replied to Mr Natella, asking him to direct message in order to look into it further.

A spokesperson for EDF said that whilst they could not discuss the specifics of the cases, they confirmed they are ‘not related in any way’.

They added: ‘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 changes 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 such cases, system errors are rectified and prevented, without customers being impacted.’

** Have you been hit by a massive EDF bill? Please email: [email protected] **