Southern Electric warning!

Jamesy89

I feel Southern Elec have just tried to pull a bit of a fast one. They have switched to 6-monthly billing using the excuse it is greener not to send 4 bills a year (even though we only view bills online anyway).

At the same time, they have ramped up our direct debit based on winter usage (even thought we're not likely to use central heating for the next six months). So I could have ended up going massively into credit without realising it until November.

If like me you'd prefer to keep your money in your own bank account (and perhaps put some aside for hefty winter fuel bills) rather than the fuel company's, keep any eye on your bill. If you ask, they will switch you back to quarterly billing.

The best bit? After laughably going on about cutting down bills to save on paper (when actually it's just going to keep customers in the dark), they're now posting me out confirmation of the direct debit change I've just asked for - and I'll probably get one letter for elec and one for gas! Brilliant.

Rant over!

1carminestocky

I think the regulator should step in and stop this migration to 6 monthly billing as it's pretty disgusting TBH. Only problem being the regulator is OFGEM. Oh well....

lee12_2

Hi we had a similar problem years ago with NPower putting our direct debits up because of a over estimated bill .When we asked them to reduce it they refuse saying we might use it , so we went to the bank and canceled the direct debits and have never looked back.NPower didn't like it but tough it our chose.I put aside a little each month , witch stays in our account until its needed . We are with SE as well and have been for a few years and to be honest they have alway been helpful and quite frankly the best we have been with ,and quarterly bills are no problem.The only thing I wish is that they did not send around meter readers I near answer the door so they never get in anyway ,but where my parents live they can do read your own meter.They just get a card in the post every time its due and no meter readers call.

Magentasue

Jamesy89 wrote: »

At the same time, they have ramped up our direct debit based on winter usage (even thought we're not likely to use central heating for the next six months). So I could have ended up going massively into credit without realising it until November.

If like me you'd prefer to keep your money in your own bank account (and perhaps put some aside for hefty winter fuel bills) rather than the fuel company's, keep any eye on your bill. If you ask, they will switch you back to quarterly billing.

Quarterly billing suits some people. Mostly people who can easily afford high winter bills or who are disciplined enough to save for them.

Personally, I prefer monthly DD. I am happy to build up a credit balance over the summer and see it eroded by higher winter usage. Switching frequently makes it more difficult, but if you know how many kwh of each fuel you use a year, you can calculate what your DD should be to achieve a zero balance in spring.