SP unexpected price rise!

ShadowRiders

We used to be with NPower paying £86 per month for elec and gas. Scottish Power rang us out of the blue, offering to fix us up with a guaranteed monthly payment of £68 so we jumped at it... changed immediately.

We have just given our first meter reading to them for both electricity and gas; and received an email from them telling us that our monthly payment for both would be increasing as from 16 June, to £101 ! We were sure when they offered us the deal it was going to be at that price for 12 months.... and anyway, we have only given them one meter reading since joining them... so that does not take into account the months of the year where our consumption is obviously lower - if these things average out over the year why are they pouncing now, to increase the price?

We have complained but they just say that our consumption over the past 12 months (NPower must have handed over our records) mean that the price should be set at £101 - £33 per month higher than what they offered us and £15 more than we were paying originally to NPower.

We feel we have been duped into joining them and wonder if anyone else has had this done to them and what - if anything - we can do about it...

We live in a small 2 bedroom bungalow.

Any comments or help/advice gratefully received.

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

You are 100% correct, you have been duped into joining SP

To be fair to SP, their salesmen(or agents) are no different to most other companies. They are driven totally by commission, and will pitch the monthly payment as low as necessary in order to get you to switch and they get their commission.

If you now contact a BG/EON/EDF/NPower salemen, and say you are paying £68, they will all offer a lower payment.

Your monthly payment is useless as an indicator of gas and electricity price - you need to know the price of each unit(kWh) and discounts.

The ONLY way to work out the cheapest supplier is to find out your consumption in kWh and enter that into one of the comparison websites.

Apart from moving to a new company there is little you can do about this scam, you have just joined the millions who have been similarly deceived.

beingjdc

Did you get anything in writing when you switched?

KimYeovil

Remember, though, at that sort of useage Scottish Power is likely cheaper than nPower. (Depends on your region and mix of gas and electric etc.)

Whether you've misunderstood or were deliberately misled about what was fixed (payments vs cost per unit) you would still be due to pay for your actual useage sometime.

kippen_noedel

M brother works for another energy company and he's told me that he regularly hears from people regularly being offered "cheaper DDs" to entice them to switch. The only accurate way to get a decent price comparison is to know your actual usage in kwh and ask for cost for the year including and excluding discounts. Remember discounts can be changed/removed easier than unit prices. I always switch in March and use the previous 2 years usage average to get set my DDs on. This way I can balance the hard winters with the mild ones.

allan673

i hate direct debits - had a lot of trouble with bg constantly increasing it even though i was £250+ in credit.
i ditched n power and bg, and ive gone with ebico for both fuels, paying quarterly on receipt of bill. i feel more in control now. and by using my meter readings i can work out my own bills and usage now.gas is 3.675p per kwh, elec is 13.14p per kwh both inc vat.
i was ignorant to it before and just paid whatever, i didnt understand cost per kwh etc and people here have helped me, thus saving me money.
i check my readings every week so i know what its costing me weekly.