Energy company ENGIE promised pensioner refund then sent debt collectors after him

Pensioner Bill Nedeff was stunned when he received a letter from energy giant ENGIE telling him he had been overcharged $10,763.

What made the large credit even more surprising was that the 85-year-old had left ENGIE three months earlier due to his increasing bills.

“I really thought I was up there with the fairies,” Mr Nedeff told 7.30.

“It makes you wonder how many other people [are] being caught.”

The June 2025 letter from ENGIE stated the energy provider had “identified an error that resulted in (the) account being overcharged … we apologise for the inconvenience please be assured it’s now correct”.

Mr Nedeff, who lives in Encounter Bay south of Adelaide with his wife, was told to request a refund.

The letter from Engie showing Bill Nedeff had been overcharged $10,763.27. (ABC News)

But before he could apply more letters from ENGIE arrived and the amount Mr Nedeff was owed started being reduced.

Then in August Mr Nedeff was told his credit had become a debt and he actually owed ENGIE $1,120.

“I was having a few sleepless nights over it and that wouldn’t be just, say, tonight and tomorrow night, it was over a number of weeks,” Mr Nedeff said.

Adding to Mr Nedeff’s stress, a debt collector also started sending him letters on behalf of ENGIE, demanding payment.

“I’ve had a rough time of it … when you’ve got a company as big as that trying to hammer you into the ground,” Mr Nedeff said.

Confused and increasingly worried, Mr Nedeff and his daughter Fiona Han took the issue to the South Australian Energy and Water ombudsman, and by November 17 the debt had been reduced to $280.

Mr Nedeff considered paying but his daughter continued to ask for more information from ENGIE about the bills.

“I just thought that there was more to it than this,” Ms Han said.

“I’d seen that email from June that said they owed him $10,500 … I felt that was an admission that, you know, they know they had done something wrong.”

Together they began going through shoeboxes full of old statements from ENGIE, previously known as Simply Energy, to try to understand what had happened.

They couldn’t understand how Mr Nedeff could owe money, particularly as he had 30 solar panels on his roof to reduce his bills.

“I got to the stage where I thought, I don’t owe them any money and I’m going to sit on my digs and say I don’t owe you that money,” Mr Nedeff said.

Fiona Han accused ENGIE of “taking advantage of people”. (ABC News: Lincoln Rothall)

On December 9 ENGIE conceded Mr Nedeff was correct.

He didn’t owe the French-owned company money. In fact he had been overcharged $2,470.

Ms Han alleged the company acted unfairly.

“They’re quite ruthless … they’re obviously taking advantage of people,” Ms Han said.

“You can see that it’s kind of taken a toll on him.

“I think he was quite worried that it would reflect poorly on him, that he had all of a sudden got a bill that he hadn’t paid, and that’s not him.”

In a statement to 7.30, ENGIE, which has customers in all mainland states except Western Australia, apologised and said an error had been made while adjusting Mr Nedeff’s account.

“While rare, from time to time we do need to adjust customers’ accounts, and this involves issuing new bills,” the statement said.

“We have found an agent has made manual data entry errors in the process, resulting in incorrect bill amounts being sent to Mr Nedeff and one other ENGIE customer.

“We’re very sorry for the confusion this caused and are working with the ombudsman and customers to refund the correct amount and resolve this issue.”

‘Absolutely disgraceful’

Ms Han said she believes ENGIE had been taking advantage of her parents for a long time

After going back through her father’s bills, she discovered the company had increased their electricity rates by over 70 per cent in 2022 and they had been paying extremely high rates ever since.

Last August ENGIE was forced to adjust the bills of up to 3,000 customers in South Australia after admitting they were overcharged. (ABC News)

According to Mr Nedeff’s ENGIE bills, his peak rate went from 43c per kWh in June 2022 to 75c per kWh in July 2022, and then reached 83c per kWh in 2024/25 before Mr Nedeff left the retailer.

“I think they’ve probably taken advantage of a certain level of ignorance,” Ms Han said.

South Australian Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said ENGIE had let Mr Nedeff down.

“It’s absolutely disgraceful,” Mr Koutsantonis said.

“When they get it wrong, you lose faith in the entire system.

“Now this pensioner is thinking to themselves, ‘Well, what do I owe? What am I being charged?’

“How can anyone … who’s a customer of this company have any faith in their bills?”

South Australian Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis says what happened to Mr Nedeff is “absolutely disgraceful”. (ABC News: Lincoln Rothall)

In August last year ENGIE was forced to adjust the bills of up to 3,000 customers in South Australia after admitting they were being overcharged.

And in late November ENGIE was fined $1.2 million by the Essential Service Commission in Victoria after an investigation found the company had failed to reply to customers complaints about bills in a “timely manner”.

In a separate statement to 7.30 ENGIE conceded it did not meet customer expectations “for a period of time last year”.

“We’ve made meaningful changes to staffing, training and key customer processes and seen a significant improvement in service performance as a result,” the statement said.

Mr Koutsantonis said ENGIE’s conduct undermines community confidence in the electricity market.

“I think what it shows is that there are some companies that aren’t prioritising customer services, they’re prioritising corporate profits and, in some respects, they’re incentivised to do that,” Mr Koutsantonis said.

“The truth is these retailers rely on our apathy to get away with stuff like this.

“I want Australians to get angry about it, I want Australians to get fed up with it.”

‘Loyalty tax’

The former chair of the Essential Service Commission in Victoria, Professor Ron Ben-David, who now works at Monash University Business School, believes customers are charged a “loyalty tax”.

“And what that means is that as a customer if you show loyalty to your energy company, in other words, you don’t shop around very often and you just stay with the same company, the company slowly increases your prices, often without you really noticing, but after two, three, four years, you can really be on a very high price,” Professor Ben-David said.

He said the electricity retail market is failing consumers as it’s based on a “buyer beware” principle.

“In other words, customer, you shop around and you’re responsible for finding the best deal. If you don’t, bad luck, it’s your responsibility.

“I don’t believe that model works in the energy market.”

The ACCC Electricity Inquiry Report from 2025 found 73.3 per cent of Australian households aren’t on the best deal possible.

Professor Ben-David has been advocating for a “consumer duty” that would force energy companies to “act in the best interests of their customers”.

“We know over the past 20-25 years governments and regulators have just created more and more rules, more and more regulations to try and protect customers and they haven’t worked,” he said.

ENGIE has conceded it did in fact overcharge Bill Nedeff $2,470. (ABC News: Lincoln Rothall)

“Under a consumer duty, or what’s called a best interest obligation, the energy company would be responsible for working with a customer to find out what are the customer’s circumstances? What sort of contract would best suit a customer?

“Rather than just trying to sell the customer whatever makes the most money for the energy company, it’s actually finding the best contract for that customer.”

Ms Han said her parents’ case shows it is too easy for vulnerable customers to be taken advantage of.

“We definitely need better laws because it seems like the carrot hasn’t really worked … they might have to come with the stick.”

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