Scottish Power - New Inceases - Scandalous!

alg44666

I am currently on a 'capped' scheme with Scottish Power (and have been for several years) which entails online billing and meter entry and variable direct debit payments.Scottish Power have excellent customer service (in my view) and a very easy-to-use-website

They announced today their new capped scheme (From Nov 2008 - May 2009) on their website which will automatically replace the old one. I have spent quite a long time working out the increases:

Old
Electricity - Daily standing charge 9.18p Price per kWh 7.543p
Gas - Daily standing charge 9.99p Price per kWh 2.118p

New
Daily standing charges- unchanged
Electricity - Daily standing charge 9.18p Price per kWh 10.602p
Gas - Daily standing charge 9.99p Price per kWh 3.569p

My family are quite heavy energy users; annual Gas usage 22,000 kWh and annual Electricity usage 13,000 kWh.

Recalculating some of my previous bills has shown that the overall price increases are:
Gas 57%
Electricity 36%

While it is evident that we are living in an age of commercial monopolies I was absolutely amazed that the increases are indeed that high!

I have until 1st November to find an alternative supplier, but I am not interested in free champagne or cashback, wary of British Gas who seem to be trying to trap new customers with their ClickEnergy scheme before they raise their prices and force customers to pay cancellation fees.

Is there anybody out there who has any sound advice as to how to escape these scandalous increases?

1carminestocky

There are NO cancellation fees on Click 5. Plus there is up to £60 cashback available if you switch to Click 5 Dual Fuel through Quidco or the like. Why wouldn't you be interested in that? I don't understand..

alg44666

My experience of British Gas over many years has been generally awful. Incorrect billing, bad customer service.
If there is no cancellation fee on ClickEnergy5 then I will take that back.
But I believe that I am correct in saying that they haven't increased their prices for that plan yet, that is why it is appearing as the best plan on all the comparison sites.

1carminestocky

alg44666 wrote: »

My experience of British Gas over many years has been generally awful. Incorrect billing, bad customer service.
If there is no cancellation fee on ClickEnergy5 then I will take that back.
But I believe that I am correct in saying that they haven't increased their prices for that plan yet, that is why it is appearing as the best plan on all the comparison sites.

If you check out my previous posts you will find I'm no apologist for BG in any way (there are enough BG employees posting on here without the need for another apologist, lol). You are entirely correct, they are a truly appalling company but I'm happy to give them my business for a few months on the Click 5 tariff then I will be away for cashback (I tend to switch 4 times a year and normally pocket around £250 towards my fuel bill).

You are also correct in saying they haven't increased Click 5 yet, they tend to leave it 6 weeks before they do as they cynically look like an incredible deal compared to the others. But, like I said previously, there are NO exit fees with Click 5 and it's traditionally been a very comeptitive tariff (probably subsidised by the lemons on their standard tariff who really should be on Click 5!). I have previously received 2 cashbacks from BG in one year by swirching to another supplier then switching back. £140 in total from BG alone. Play them at their own game would be my mantra...

neil40

Anyone had trouble switching gas companies?.I tried to switch to SP from Scottish Hydro.Electric was switched straight away but still waiting 2 months later to be billed for gas!.They say my property has not been registered by scottish gas networks and there is a backlog of properties.Cant give me timescale.I got final bill from old supplier early July!!

alg44666

......You are entirely correct, they are a truly appalling company but I'm happy to give them my business for a few months on the Click 5 tariff then I will be away for cashback (I tend to switch 4 times a year and normally pocket around £250 towards my fuel bill).

I generally thought that a lot of energy suppliers had cancellation fees to stop people moving suppliers regularly.
Is that not the case?

1carminestocky

alg44666 wrote: »

......You are entirely correct, they are a truly appalling company but I'm happy to give them my business for a few months on the Click 5 tariff then I will be away for cashback (I tend to switch 4 times a year and normally pocket around £250 towards my fuel bill).

I generally thought that a lot of energy suppliers had cancellation fees to stop people moving suppliers regularly.
Is that not the case?

Nope, it's only usually the fixed/capped deals that have exit fees. Some cynical people (not me, obviously :rolleyes: ) would say they usually under-estimate the DDs they ask for in order to get you a debit balance run up pretty quickly which effectively stops you switching so easily...