A bug in a Linky meter triggered an astronomical bill of 4,000 euros and a standoff with Engie.
A bill of 4,000 euros for electricity that you did not consume. This is what a Yvelin couple experienced in 2024. The cause: a malfunction of the Linky meter. For weeks, they disputed, called, contacted their supplier Engie. In vain. It will take more than a year and a half of battle and the intervention of a consumer association to win the case.
It all starts in spring 2024. The couple doesn’t know it yet, but between March and May, their Linky meter stops transmitting its readings. Deprived of real data, Engie then establishes an invoice on the basis of an estimate… An estimate which will prove to be off the mark. The worst part is that this was only the beginning of the problems. For the month of May alone, Engie is asking for 4,000 euros.
In May 2024, due to lack of payment, Engie terminated the couple’s contract. The supplier also cuts off their access to the online customer area, thus depriving them of their own invoices. Soon, a court commissioner will be mandated by the supplier to order the couple to pay.
It was only a year later, in May 2025, that the husband contacted Adéic, a consumer association. “This member increased the number of exchanges with the various Engie services, without ever obtaining satisfaction. He only came to see us once all appeals had been exhausted and with, as a bonus, a justice commissioner on his heels,” summarizes Matthieu Bertrand Neuser, lawyer within the association.
As soon as it was referred, Adéic went on the offensive. The association sends a letter in due form to Engie, demanding details of the billing data and requesting an immediate end to the procedure of the justice commissioner. The supplier accepts.
“We have the advantage of having a dedicated address at Engie,” explains Matthieu Bertrand Neuser. “That changes everything: they respond to us and pay attention.” A formal notice on the association’s letterhead is also sent with, implicitly, the threat of contacting the DGCCRF if no satisfactory solution is found.
A long procedure then begins: Engie approaches Enedis, the manager of the electricity distribution network, to try to understand the origin of the malfunction. The months pass. We will have to wait until November 2025 for Engie to finally return to the table with a first proposal and February 2026 for it to be definitively accepted.
In the end, “the new bill was no longer 4,000 euros, but 3,000 euros”, says the lawyer. Enedis had agreed to cancel the last contested reading and to re-invoice on the basis of a new reading, i.e. a correction of around 700 kWh. “There was a discount on their part, and an ‘exceptional gesture’ of 300 euros,” continues Matthieu Bertrand Neuser. In total, on this invoice, “we get 1,000 euros discount.” As for the remaining balance, the couple agreed to pay this bill in 30 monthly installments of around 100 euros.
Why did the meter stop working? The question remains unanswered. “We don’t know,” admits Matthieu Bertrand Neuser. What he does know, however, is that a “Malfunctioning Linky meter happens, but it remains exceptional.” Today, the Yvelin couple changed their meter and their supplier.
