anyone with ebico? do you recommend them?

Vestra

Premier wrote: »

You wont necessarily get both together, but you might do. I know some people receive theirs together, whereas others get them at different times. Not sure why. It may have something to do with whoever reads the meter and tying in with their meter reading schedule. Its common that the gas meter reader is a different person to the electric meter reader. Having said that, my meter readers seem to make a special visit and read just my meter, not the whole street like they used to.

I'm not sure who actually does the meter reading. It would almost certainly be the same as whoever does it for Scottish & Southern, which may or may not be the same as your current supplier uses. It probably varies by region too.

If more than one bill with the same address is in the same printing batch they will go in the same envelope, however this rarely happens.

allan673

Cardew wrote: »

Whilst their gas is competitive, I am surprised that they are cheaper for electricity - even at that low consumption.

cheers cardew, checked electric using simply switch and got different results? ebico are the 2nd cheapest, scottish power is the cheapest for me, theres a £32 (10%) annual difference between ebico and scottish power as i want to pay on receipt of bill.

i was with scottish power in my other house but was put off them by massive rises in dd, hence the reason i want to continue to pay quarterly on receipt of bill. i would go back though and pay how i want.

scottish power is £32 cheaper on their standard tariff, or £32 cheaper on the no standing charge tariff. which scotish power tariff would you recommend even though they are the same price - any pros and cons please.

many thanks (p.s ebico still cheapest for gas on simply switch so i will defo swap gas to them )

Premier_2

allan673 wrote: »

...scottish power is £32 cheaper on their standard tariff, or £32 cheaper on the no standing charge tariff. which scotish power tariff would you recommend even though they are the same price - any pros and cons please...

With Scottish Power, you may as well opt for the non-standing charge tariff.

Why?
Well if you should happen to use less than the tier 1 limit in any quarter, you stand to make a saving vs the standing charge tariff.
If you opt for the standing charge tariff, you'll pay the standing charge in full even if you don't use any electricity.
There is no financial advantage possible by choosing the standing charge tariff.

I think SP still do a prompt payment discount for those paying quarterly which may explain why there is a difference in prices quoted by the comparison sites.
I used to be with Scottish Power for gas (until as an IGT customer, their mandatory additional standing charge became too much to bear), but found that I often failed to obtain the prompt payment discount because there seemed to be a huge delay (sometimes in excess of 7 days) between them printing the bill & actually posting it. Once delivery time & bank clearance times for payment were taken into account it was easy to miss the cut off date to obtain the prompt payment discount.
You can secure the prompt payment discount by agreeing to pay them quarterly by Direct Debit.

allan673

quidsin wrote: »

I'm not sure who reads our meters but I ring the readings through every month on their meter line. If we get a bill thats an estimate there's a bib thumbs down logo on the bill & they ask you to give them a new reading.

if this happens, do i give them a new reading and they issue a new/correct bill.

also whats the meter line tel number please.

Vestra

allan673 wrote: »

if this happens, do i give them a new reading and they issue a new/correct bill.

also whats the meter line tel number please.

You will get a new bill with the correct readings, the meterline number is 0800 220 995

KimYeovil

Remember that the new bill will be recalculated to the date that the new reading is presented. And the next quarterly bill will be bumped forward to be three months from that reading, not from the original bill.

Vestra

KimYeovil wrote: »

Remember that the new bill will be recalculated to the date that the new reading is presented. And the next quarterly bill will be bumped forward to be three months from that reading, not from the original bill.

Sorry but that is incorrect, the dates will be the same but the meter reading updated. The next bill will fall in line with the billing cycle so it will not be pushed back.

KimYeovil

Oh. Pauses to dig out some old bills. Sheepish shuffling. Shrugs.

toastiest

I switched to Ebico at the end of last year from E.On Energy for a normal gas meter and a key Economy 7 for the electric.

The change over was very easy. I filled out the form online and the cancellation process with E.On was done through them.

They will request for you to give meter readings yourself, but for me they also sent someone to read my gas reading a week or two after I submitted my reading, and their reading was what they used to start my account.

Their phone support was great and very helpful.

Even though I had selected to use DD on the online form, I called to confirm this and you actually have to set up the DD over the phone. I have never paid by DD before and it was suggested I start on 35 per month and see how that goes.

We have been trying to keep the gas usage as low as possible this winter even though this old flat seems to leak all the heat generated. We have a combi boiler for the kitchen and bathroom and another heater for the central heating, which we turn on every morning for less than an hour.

It was estimated that we used 208 units of gas, but I just got the meter reading and we only used 93 units (14th Nov - 16 feb). I've submitted the new reading using the southern-electric.co.uk login.

Just to give you an idea, on this estimated bill for 208 units, it came to 247.76 then -14.86 for DD payment. They say they give you 5% off for paying by direct debit, but I worked that out to be closer to 6% but I can be wrong.
Then plus the VAT it came to a total of 244.54.


With electric, I have not found that it has lasted longer, but recently we've started to use electric heaters so, it's hard to tell in the winter.

Overall I am very happy