WHEN Ann Stockley opened her morning post she was left speechless by an electricity bill for nearly £6,400.

She showed it to husband, Len, and neither could quite believe what they were seeing because the final demand for what should have been a cheap quarter was more than 60 times bigger than the highest electricity bill they had ever had.

Mr Stockley said: "This electricity bill could have been for a power station rather than our two-bedroom bungalow and we were both quite shocked.

"We thought the whole bill must be a misprint for a much smaller figure and we now hope that our supplier EDF Energy will send us a bill for the right figure."

Mrs Stockley said that their rogue bill claimed that their comfortable little home had somehow gobbled up more than 80,000 units of electricity that quarter.

She added: "I was horribly shocked, so much so that my whole body was shaking.

"I just couldn't believe that an electricity bill could be so large never mind that it was supposed to be ours.

"We only have a two-bedroom bungalow and the biggest quarterly electricity bill we have ever had in our lives has never been as much as £100.

"To get one nearly 64 times as much just took my breath away.

"If it had been an elderly person on their own then God knows what it might have done. At least Len was with me to help sort it all out."

The couple - who switched to Npower earlier this year - were so angry that they immediately rang their old supplier EDF Energy.

Mrs Stockley said: "After playing music in my ear for 10 minutes they came back, admitted they had made an error and promised me that they would send a fresh bill to us in 10 days' time. They said we should ignore this one, as if we were somehow going to take it seriously!"

A spokesman for EDF said today: "We would like to apologise on behalf of EDF Energy to Mr and Mrs Stockley for the incorrect bill issued to them.

"The Stockleys left us in April and a new revised final bill will be issued to them shortly.

"The reason for the high bill was that a new meter was installed on March 14 and the final reading was incorrectly based on the new meter reading rather than the old meter reading.

"As a gesture of goodwill, the Stockleys will be issued with a bill for electricity used only through the old meter, giving them a month's free electricity.

"EDF Energy has more than five million customers across the UK. We regularly lead the energywatch league tables in customer service and for the least number of complaints."