A family of four were charged more than £80,000 a month in error by energy firm EDF.

Richard Baron, who lives with his wife and two young children in Deal, said his family entered their overdraft by £76k after appearing to rack up a huge energy bill.

Speaking to The Guardian, Mr Baron said: "It was quite amusing to begin with, until it actually happened."

Mr Baron says the trouble started when he received an email from EDF informing him that the family's direct debit payments would be going up to £80,124 a month.

Adding up to a grand total of more than £960k a year, the father-of-two initially dismissed the email as an error, although says he did contact the company to try and rectify the mistake.

At the time, the family had been in credit by £1,000 as the electricity company had already overcharged them, despite the Barons having a smart meter fitted.

When the mistake hadn't been rectified after a few days Mr Baron complained again but to no avail.

It was only when his wife received a text informing the family that they had 'insufficient funds' that he realised his efforts hadn't worked.

Mr Baron contacted Lloyds bank's fraud department which refunded the money within hours of payment, protecting the family's other direct debits from defaulting.

Despite all this, the problem still hadn't been rectified by EDF, and the Baron family faced the prospect of losing another £80k over the festive period.

"The thing that annoyed me was that I checked my bank account at the beginning of this month just to make sure everything was all lined up, and I saw EDF was proposing to take another £80,000 out of my account on Christmas Day," said Richard.

He subsequently cancelled his direct debit with EDF, breaching the terms of the contract, which has resulted in the family losing their fixed-term deal and being put on a higher tariff.

They now claim they are being charged £250 a month, £100 more per month than before the incident and that EDF hasn't offered an apology.

When contacted for comment EDF issued an apology and pledged to reinstate the direct debit at its previous level.

"We’ve been in touch with Mr Baron to apologise and agreed for EDF to apply a gesture of goodwill to his account and have reinstated the direct debit at his requested level," said the energy supplier.