Add your feedback on energy supplier Powershop

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  • Powershop_UK
    Powershop_UK Posts: 18 Organisation Representative
    edited 21 July 2017 at 6:56PM
    Hi Hengus,

    Thanks for the post.

    In a sense you are correct. The only tariff which "exists" is standard and then the Powerpacks are represented as a % discount off your standard value. Powerpack discounts apply to your entire bill not just your usage charge (p/kwh).

    Here's a worked example (all figures are for illustration only).
    • Standard quote £360 per year total: made up of £300 usage and £60 standing charge.
    • Lowest achievable rate quoted at £300 per year total: made up of £240 and £60 standing charge.
    • Over the year Powerpacks appear in your shop at a minimum of £300 standard value discounted costing you only £240.
    • This is how your quote is made up and what we reflect on the Tariff Comparison Label.
    • However, we actually make more than £300 of discounted Powerpacks available across all types: Top-up, Future, and Specials.

    All figures in the app and on the web are represented including the standing charge so you can see total cost.

    Hope this helps!

    -The Powershop Crew
    Official Company Representative
    I am the official company representative of Powershop UK. MSE has given permission for me to post in response to queries about the company, so that I can help solve issues. You can see my name on the companies with permission to post list. I am not allowed to tout for business at all. If you believe I am please report it to [email protected] This does NOT imply any form of approval of my company or its products by MSE"
  • System
    System Posts: 178,076
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    edited 21 July 2017 at 7:34PM
    Hi Hengus,

    Thanks for the post.

    In a sense you are correct. The only tariff which "exists" is standard and then the Powerpacks are represented as a % discount off your standard value. Powerpack discounts apply to your entire bill not just your usage charge (p/kwh).

    Here's a worked example (all figures are for illustration only).
    • Standard quote £360 per year total: made up of £300 usage and £60 standing charge.
    • Lowest achievable rate quoted at £300 per year total: made up of £240 and £60 standing charge.
    • Over the year Powerpacks appear in your shop at a minimum of £300 standard value discounted costing you only £240.
    • This is how your quote is made up and what we reflect on the Tariff Comparison Label.
    • However, we actually make more than £300 of discounted Powerpacks available across all types: Top-up, Future, and Specials.

    All figures in the app and on the web are represented including the standing charge so you can see total cost.

    Hope this helps!

    -The Powershop Crew

    I return to the point that I keep making, you are giving the impression via PCWs and on website quotes that Easy Saver is a tariff. It isn’t a tariff in any sense of the word; it is a ‘target’ discount on PS’s standard variable tariff. If you want PS customers to help you sell this unique offer, then the use of the word tariff and TILs for something that doesn’t actually exist is just plain wrong. The problem you have got is that consumers who use UK PCWs expect to see tariffs in terms of standing charges, unit prices, term and discounts. I am surprised that Ofgem is allowing you to portray your offer in this way.

    FWiW, my understanding is that discounts should only be applied to the standing charge. Hence, if a customer breaks the terms of the deal (for example, by cancelling a DD mandate) then the discount should be removed from the standing charge without impacting the unit price. The maths behind the prices/discounts are interesting but it does not form part of the contract that PS has with its customers.

    In sum, you are not selling this product very well. You are trying to be too clever to get a good position on PCWs.
  • fewkeste
    fewkeste Posts: 534
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    @Powershop, thanks for confirming the standing charge is paid for by the pot of Powerpack discounted credit. Reading Hengus's earlier post, I was doubting my memory of my conversation with H (your very patient CS colleague) a couple of weeks back. Glad that's all cleared up.

    Looking forward to seeing how big the December Future Pack discount will be.:)

    Out of interest, even if you maybe can't disclose what % future discounts will be for marketing reasons, can you say what month or months will feature the highest discounts? - i.e. will % discount peak in one month or more than one month? ( I could hazard a guess but that's all it would be - a guess.)

    Is there an industry standard way to estimate a monthly distribution of power usage that you then use to calc. your % Future Pack discounts throughout the year? If there is - how would it share 8000kWh (my annual consumption) between the months out of interest?
  • geoffW
    geoffW Posts: 181
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    Does anyone know if you haven't got enough packs to pay for your electricity but you have some future packs can they they be used early?
  • fewkeste
    fewkeste Posts: 534
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    geoffW wrote: »
    Does anyone know if you haven't got enough packs to pay for your electricity but you have some future packs can they they be used early?

    Hi, no they can't unfortunately
  • fredandwilma
    fredandwilma Posts: 1,251
    Chutzpah Haggler I won, I won, I won! Rampant Recycler Debt-free and Proud!
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    geoffW wrote: »
    Does anyone know if you haven't got enough packs to pay for your electricity but you have some future packs can they they be used early?
    fewkeste wrote: »
    Hi, no they can't unfortunately

    This was what I've been trying to work out from all those t&c's, and I'm not reading them all again, so i'll take your word, for it.

    Any power pack or offer purchased, can only be used for the "relevant" month?

    As it's impossible to calculate the exact amount of energy you will use in advance, at any given time, in any one month you may:

    a) Pay for some energy use at Standard Tariff rates

    or

    b) Buy an additional power pack to "top up", (rates available at the time).

    Which means if you opt for option (b), or using power packs, you are never, ever, going to use the exact amount of energy you have paid for in advance.

    As i understand all this, you can't "carry" a power pack from one month to another, leaving you potentially, with a surplus of energy you have paid for, but can't use.

    You will have to factor this in to any potential savings you are going to make.

    It seems to me, there is only going to be one winner?
    Fred - Where's your get up and go?

    Barney - It just got up and went.



    Carpe diem
  • System
    System Posts: 178,076
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    This was what I've been trying to work out from all those t&c's, and I'm not reading them all again, so i'll take your word, for it.

    Any power pack or offer purchased, can only be used for the "relevant" month?

    As it's impossible to calculate the exact amount of energy you will use in advance, at any given time, in any one month you may:

    a) Pay for some energy use at Standard Tariff rates

    or

    b) Buy an additional power pack to "top up", (rates available at the time).

    Which means if you opt for option (b), or using power packs, you are never, ever, going to use the exact amount of energy you have paid for in advance.

    As i understand all this, you can't "carry" a power pack from one month to another, leaving you potentially, with a surplus of energy you have paid for, but can't use.

    You will have to factor this in to any potential savings you are going to make.

    It seems to me, there is only going to be one winner?

    Once again, you make some very good points. This level of detail is missing from the PS offer. When I started with PS, I purchased the packs that were available for June and the App was showing a gap of of about 9 days of unfunded energy. I concluded that I needed to buy 2 x £10 (minimum spend) packs of Top Up energy at the SVT rate. This immediately rang alarm bells that I wasn't going to achieve the Easy Saver tariff. Helpfully, PS came back with a response that I should just wait until the next set of packs were released at the beginning of this month and they refunded my £20. These packs did in fact cover the gap.

    The other problem I have an the moment is the App's assessment of my usage is all over the place. Last weekend, we were away from home. When I entered a meter reading on return, the App reported - correctly - that I have not used the predicted amount of energy and it changed all the future estimated paid for usage.( i.e.; the paid for energy date moved to the right). Yesterday, however, was a dark and cloudy day so my PV output was low and my energy consumption was about 1kW higher than the previous day. For some reason the App suggests that I used 2kW more than it anticipated and the forecast usage all changed again.
    My conclusion is that the App is of very little use when it comes to gauging how much future energy to buy, and I would question whether this impacts on the discounted offers that are made? I can see parallels with other suppliers that I have been with where their assessment of usage is based on kWhs used/weeks billed x 52 = Annual consumption without any appropriate seasonal usage weighting. I appreciate that estimating annual consumption is very difficult; fortunately, I have 10 years of monthly actual usage figures to draw on.
  • neilsedaka
    neilsedaka Posts: 396
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    MSE_Laura wrote: »
    Hi neilsedaka,

    I've checked this from our end and it looks as though Powershop is still displayed on the Cheap Energy Club results page.

    You'd need to make sure you were just comparing electricity-only tariffs, as this supplier doesn't supply gas. It could also be that based on your usage, the tariff is more expensive than others and so appears further down the list of results.

    Hope this helps.
    MSE Laura

    Hi MSE Laura, sorry I am late in this reply because I did not receive any notifications until yesterday that this thread is still active. I now see that the thread is very active :)

    I initiated my switch to Powershop on 11th June because Powershop were at the top of my list of results on Cheap Energy Club on that day and I fancied trying something new and innovative. The switch activated on 12th July.

    Now when I do a new comparison, I am electricity only, Powershop are nowhere to be seen in my list of 148 results.

    Another anomaly. When I set my current tariff in Cheap Energy Club there is only Powershop "Early Saver Promise July 2017" and "Standard" to pick from, not my "Early Saver Promise June 2017".
  • System
    System Posts: 178,076
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    neilsedaka wrote: »
    Hi MSE Laura, sorry I am late in this reply because I did not receive any notifications until yesterday that this thread is still active. I now see that the thread is very active :)

    I initiated my switch to Powershop on 11th June because Powershop were at the top of my list of results on Cheap Energy Club on that day and I fancied trying something new and innovative. The switch activated on 12th July.

    Now when I do a new comparison, I am electricity only, Powershop are nowhere to be seen in my list of 148 results.

    Another anomaly. When I set my current tariff in Cheap Energy Club there is only Powershop "Early Saver Promise July 2017" and "Standard" to pick from, not my "Early Saver Promise June 2017".

    This might be down to the fact, as posted earlier by Laura, that the MSE Compliance Team have Powershop’s offer under review. To be pedantic, Powershop only has one standard variable tariff. The original concern was about the Easy Saver projected cost; to achieve this level of discount, unlike all other ‘tariffs’ on PCWs, ongoing action is required by the consumer. Square pegs and round holes come to mind.
  • fredandwilma
    fredandwilma Posts: 1,251
    Chutzpah Haggler I won, I won, I won! Rampant Recycler Debt-free and Proud!
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    Hengus wrote: »
    Once again, you make some very good points. This level of detail is missing from the PS offer. When I started with PS, I purchased the packs that were available for June and the App was showing a gap of of about 9 days of unfunded energy. I concluded that I needed to buy 2 x £10 (minimum spend) packs of Top Up energy at the SVT rate. This immediately rang alarm bells that I wasn't going to achieve the Easy Saver tariff. Helpfully, PS came back with a response that I should just wait until the next set of packs were released at the beginning of this month and they refunded my £20. These packs did in fact cover the gap.


    Yes, i remember thinking this, back then.

    You were fortunate to be given a refund, but then it's an example of exceptional customer service in a public domain?

    Another question to the Powershop team, (I still haven't had my previous question answered):

    Will Powershop be refunding every customer who makes, in effect, an "over payment" (or who has purchased surplus energy,) every month?

    Somehow, I can't see this happening.

    I'm sure you're correct in saying this level of detail isn't mentioned in the t&c's.

    I wonder why? :whistle:

    This 'old dog' is getting far too cynical.................:D

    Maybe i'm a ferret, (minus the pungent smell)? :rotfl:
    Fred - Where's your get up and go?

    Barney - It just got up and went.



    Carpe diem
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