Is email from French electricity supplier Enedis a scam?

To the Editor,

I recently received an email from Enedis saying that my online account has been made inactive due to 18 months of inactivity, and that it will be deleted later this year unless I log in again.

The message refers to data protection rules and asks me to reset my password via a link.

I am unsure whether this email is genuine or a scam, especially as we have chosen not to install a Linky meter. Instead, we have always submitted our meter readings manually every two months and receive confirmation from Enedis each time.

Should I be concerned about this message, or is it a legitimate communication?

T.S, by email

Reader responds

To the Editor,

No, the letter is not a scam. 

You received it because you opened an online account at Enedis, which you have since not had much use for, and Enedis wants to cancel it on grounds of inactivity. 

You may not remember having opened such an account, but if you had online dealings with Enedis, which you must have done to arrange a dispensation from the communicating meter, it is certain that you did open one. 

That is how Enedis tracks correspondence with you. 

This is not an account in the financial sense: it simply provides you with login credentials for the Enedis website. 

You almost certainly have accounts at Google or Microsoft or Apple that are accounts in the same sense. 

I also received such a letter a while after arranging with Enedis to have the address of my meter brought up to date. 

The letter says that if you do nothing, all that will happen is that your account will be closed, and that you can, if you wish, reopen it later. 

It also explains that closing the account is required by the GDPR regulations about unwarranted data retention. 

The email does not threaten you with anything bad: it is not a hardship to have an account deleted, that you don’t even remember opening. And it also gives you six months to react. 

That is quite different from what you might expect from a scammer, who would urge you to act within hours or days, to avoid some dreadful (and imaginary) consequence. 

But if you still don't trust it, then visit enedis.fr and click on the Mon compte button. 

It is well to remember that Enedis manages the electricity grid, the physical cables in the ground that connect you to it, and the meter at your house. It is not your electricity supplier. 

Most electricity consumers never need to contact Enedis directly, because their supplier generally acts as intermediary. 

But the supplier has no control over the meter or the data associated with it, which is why you have been in direct contact with Enedis.

P.K. by email

Have you received a similar email? Let us know at letters@connexionfrance.com