Both my Electric and Gas are with EDF and in January I was recommended by an adviser to set up a Direct Debit for both as it would make my monthly bill more predictable. I agreed and arranged for it to be setup. I was told the first direct debit payment would be taken in 3 weeks in line with the date I get paid. 5 weeks later I called and said nothing had been taken and was receiving letters to say I needed to make payment and I was overdue. I was told there had been an error and it was not successfully setup and it would be amended immediately. I paid upfront the overdue amount and accepted it was a one off error. The payment date came around again and once again the DD was not taken. I rang again was told there was a bug in the system and once again the DD had not been successfully setup (again no contact to let me know this had not been done). By this time my bill had gone up so I once again setup the DD and as-well as that I had to setup a payment plan for the overdue amount which I could not afford to pay at once. I was given as a good will gesture of £30. Finally I received email notification to say the DD had been setup and thought that was the last of it. Then at 12am in the morning at the end of May I received an email to say my DD for my Electric had been successfully setup. I immediately called to say this is a mistake as it was setup 3 months ago. I was then told that I Unfortunately my 3rd attempt to set the DD had not been successfully and nothing had been taken for almost 3 months. I then almost cried as I live on my own and all I was thinking was how am I going to pay up the arrears. I had received no email or letters to say my payment had not been received and when you setup a DD you have to wait every 3 months to get a bill breakdown and you can no longer view the balance owed on the app. I couldn’t believe I had not received confirmation of setup without even a curtsy call to let me know for the 4th time my DD had not been taken. At this point i needed EDF to accept the multiple errors made on their end and write off the 3 months of DD payments I was now behind on (not including the arrears I was paying because of the 2nd and 3rd time this had happened). Instead I was offered a £50 goodwill gesture which they seemed and I quote ‘We have apologised, taken the correct actions to fix things and offered an appropriate level of goodwill’ Again I have been a loyal customer for 10years since being 18 and they do not understand what 3 months of arrears does to my mental health as I now over hundreds of pounds of debit to worry about. I said £50 did not seem fair with the extent of what had happened. All I’ve tried to do is be smart and setup a DD. To which point they sent me a letter to say they will offer nothing more and attached a option to contact the Ombudsman. I would recommend making sure all DD are setup by checking with your bank as if I had never received the midnight email I would still be thinking payments were being taken. I am so disgusted with the way I have been treated. Cold and no compassion to set things right. I will now be be cancelling the DD which I don’t trust and think about what other bills I will have to miss to try an catch up