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Cheap tricks and complicated billing
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arobertson1
Posts: 8 Forumite
in Energy
I am an EON customer. I have switched many times over the last ten years and to be honest I am getting fed up with this constant checking / form filling in that is necessary these days to keep things running cost effectively. However I have to say that most of these energy companies have brought this on themselves. In the last four years my energy bills have more than doubled – what do they really expect?
Recently I received a bill from EON telling me that I was not paying enough on my direct debit and they tripled the amount I pay for my gas! The bottom line is I owe them money so they hiked up my bill to compensate. My main point with this is why did they not spot this sooner? After all the meter had been read several times and I had submitted meter readings myself... Seems to me that this trick prevents you from switching because you owe them money which they would demand in full if you did try and switch.
Another crucial point here - they changed the tariff I was on and my Tesco points which my wife has on her card were not being supplied any more. I wasn't aware of this... A neat trick that many banks employ with savings accounts but not something you expect from an energy company! Sign up to something and then when you are not watching we’ll swap it for something more expensive.
So I decided to do the usual and check out the price comparison web sites. Surprisingly they all seemed to be very “similar”. This was even to the point that the information I had put in confused.com automatically appeared in gocompare.com. Odd? No! Seems that what we all consider to be choice is in fact the same results just displayed differently. Do we really get a comparison using different price comparison web sites? Well not really for gas and electricity from what I have found.
Given the fact that I was likely to be presented with a large bill by EON if I did switch to another supplier I decided to see if their website offered any alternative plans that I could be placed on and surprisingly the answer was lots. Great more choice – or is it? All of these plans vary quite considerably – some have standing charges, some don’t. Some have discounts of discounts of discounts (yes you read correctly 3 discounts). On top of that some have different prices for the first lot of kwh used and then another price of kwh used later. Really confusing now!
However, if you actually sit down and put the numbers in the results are extremely interesting. I worked out charges for my house with nine of EON’s plans which I was presented with when I wanted to switch. Here is what I found:
Energy Online: Costs slightly more than the original plan that you signed up for and EON will put you on this after the original plan comes to an end. (Sshhhh – they don’t like to tell you this as you will lose your ability to earn Tesco points on this plan). :silenced:
Save Online Standing Charge / Save Online (No standing charge): Guess what? Once you put your figures in they are exactly the same price! Funny that. Both of these plans are better than the above Energy Online. (Oh and you can earn Tesco points again – Sshhh) :silenced:
Fixonline 3: Hmmm, it boasts proudly “FixOnline 3 is our cheapest dual fuel product. Limited availability.” Rubbish!!! It worked out more expensive than Save Online. Try it for yourself (with a calculator – not a price comparison website). I assume the “limited availability” was a mistake it should be “limited understanding”.
Energy Saver 9: It boasts that it is a capped rate and won’t increase in price until Dec 2010. Except that all they have done is front loaded the charges rather than apply them later – it is the most expensive tariff available. Suddenly the “capped rate” doesn’t appeal to me anymore.
Go Green: What a joke! Seriously, I am not stupid. It sounds good but if everyone signed up to this would that mean that there would be no coal / oil burning power stations? No? Thought not. Apparently you get 500 Tesco “green clubcard points” (I thought ASDA was green). Considering this is worthless it is hard to justify the whopping hike in price as it is the second most expensive tariff.
As a side note, how can any energy company that burns stuff consider themselves “green”? What utter nonsense. This kind of advertising should be banned – it’s just an excuse to charge more so that you can sleep at night. Until there is a serious energy alternatives plan then they should be prevented from falsely claiming their “green” credentials.
Energy Discount 4: The name sounds good. I assume this for people who complain about the Energy Online Plan and the EON staff put them on this “new” tariff. It’s a shame that it is the exact same cost as Energy Online – it’s just been re-badged as Energy Discount 4. Now this I find annoying. You can have any colour you want as long as it is black!
Track and Save v2: Apparently beats British Gas – but only just beats Energy Online. You are better of with Save Online.
EON Energy Plan: Offers a “unique energy saving pack” which they charge you for and then add to the existing Energy Online plan as it costs an extra £20. Hmm let me see, a pamphlet that tells me to buy energy saving bulbs, buy loft insulation and a combi boiler. What more could I ask for £20 other than lets not bother.
Now all this was possible because I actually sat down with a calculator and worked all this out. This was a task in itself. Applying a discount of a discount of a discount is seriously entering the realm of taking the p***. Add the standing order / absence of standing order and two tiers of pricing kwh and it makes it practically impossible to work out quickly. Now, I couldn’t help noticing that EON happens to have an online energy monitor, so they must know how much kwh I am using and could have used these numbers to put into the above plans for me when I wanted to check. I wonder why they don’t? Could the answer possibly be lets confuse the customer so much with complicated billing that they won’t bother checking? I think it is about time we started campaigning for easier billing. They might not like it but then whose money is it anyway?
Incidently, EON, if you are reading there is an error on your bills. To calculate the gas meter readings to kwh you multiply by 11.3 not the 1.02264 value you print. This number appears in tiny print so I assume you really didn’t want people to be able to work out your bills manually. Trading standards anybody?
It is a shame when slight of hand and devious tactics are now being employed by all the energy firms. I may have picked on EON here but the truth is they are all just as bad as each other. What I really want is fair prices for the energy I use. Not cheap marketing gimmicks to clean my wallet out. Come on EON you can do better than this!
Alan
Recently I received a bill from EON telling me that I was not paying enough on my direct debit and they tripled the amount I pay for my gas! The bottom line is I owe them money so they hiked up my bill to compensate. My main point with this is why did they not spot this sooner? After all the meter had been read several times and I had submitted meter readings myself... Seems to me that this trick prevents you from switching because you owe them money which they would demand in full if you did try and switch.
Another crucial point here - they changed the tariff I was on and my Tesco points which my wife has on her card were not being supplied any more. I wasn't aware of this... A neat trick that many banks employ with savings accounts but not something you expect from an energy company! Sign up to something and then when you are not watching we’ll swap it for something more expensive.
So I decided to do the usual and check out the price comparison web sites. Surprisingly they all seemed to be very “similar”. This was even to the point that the information I had put in confused.com automatically appeared in gocompare.com. Odd? No! Seems that what we all consider to be choice is in fact the same results just displayed differently. Do we really get a comparison using different price comparison web sites? Well not really for gas and electricity from what I have found.
Given the fact that I was likely to be presented with a large bill by EON if I did switch to another supplier I decided to see if their website offered any alternative plans that I could be placed on and surprisingly the answer was lots. Great more choice – or is it? All of these plans vary quite considerably – some have standing charges, some don’t. Some have discounts of discounts of discounts (yes you read correctly 3 discounts). On top of that some have different prices for the first lot of kwh used and then another price of kwh used later. Really confusing now!
However, if you actually sit down and put the numbers in the results are extremely interesting. I worked out charges for my house with nine of EON’s plans which I was presented with when I wanted to switch. Here is what I found:
Energy Online: Costs slightly more than the original plan that you signed up for and EON will put you on this after the original plan comes to an end. (Sshhhh – they don’t like to tell you this as you will lose your ability to earn Tesco points on this plan). :silenced:
Save Online Standing Charge / Save Online (No standing charge): Guess what? Once you put your figures in they are exactly the same price! Funny that. Both of these plans are better than the above Energy Online. (Oh and you can earn Tesco points again – Sshhh) :silenced:
Fixonline 3: Hmmm, it boasts proudly “FixOnline 3 is our cheapest dual fuel product. Limited availability.” Rubbish!!! It worked out more expensive than Save Online. Try it for yourself (with a calculator – not a price comparison website). I assume the “limited availability” was a mistake it should be “limited understanding”.
Energy Saver 9: It boasts that it is a capped rate and won’t increase in price until Dec 2010. Except that all they have done is front loaded the charges rather than apply them later – it is the most expensive tariff available. Suddenly the “capped rate” doesn’t appeal to me anymore.
Go Green: What a joke! Seriously, I am not stupid. It sounds good but if everyone signed up to this would that mean that there would be no coal / oil burning power stations? No? Thought not. Apparently you get 500 Tesco “green clubcard points” (I thought ASDA was green). Considering this is worthless it is hard to justify the whopping hike in price as it is the second most expensive tariff.
As a side note, how can any energy company that burns stuff consider themselves “green”? What utter nonsense. This kind of advertising should be banned – it’s just an excuse to charge more so that you can sleep at night. Until there is a serious energy alternatives plan then they should be prevented from falsely claiming their “green” credentials.
Energy Discount 4: The name sounds good. I assume this for people who complain about the Energy Online Plan and the EON staff put them on this “new” tariff. It’s a shame that it is the exact same cost as Energy Online – it’s just been re-badged as Energy Discount 4. Now this I find annoying. You can have any colour you want as long as it is black!
Track and Save v2: Apparently beats British Gas – but only just beats Energy Online. You are better of with Save Online.
EON Energy Plan: Offers a “unique energy saving pack” which they charge you for and then add to the existing Energy Online plan as it costs an extra £20. Hmm let me see, a pamphlet that tells me to buy energy saving bulbs, buy loft insulation and a combi boiler. What more could I ask for £20 other than lets not bother.
Now all this was possible because I actually sat down with a calculator and worked all this out. This was a task in itself. Applying a discount of a discount of a discount is seriously entering the realm of taking the p***. Add the standing order / absence of standing order and two tiers of pricing kwh and it makes it practically impossible to work out quickly. Now, I couldn’t help noticing that EON happens to have an online energy monitor, so they must know how much kwh I am using and could have used these numbers to put into the above plans for me when I wanted to check. I wonder why they don’t? Could the answer possibly be lets confuse the customer so much with complicated billing that they won’t bother checking? I think it is about time we started campaigning for easier billing. They might not like it but then whose money is it anyway?
Incidently, EON, if you are reading there is an error on your bills. To calculate the gas meter readings to kwh you multiply by 11.3 not the 1.02264 value you print. This number appears in tiny print so I assume you really didn’t want people to be able to work out your bills manually. Trading standards anybody?
It is a shame when slight of hand and devious tactics are now being employed by all the energy firms. I may have picked on EON here but the truth is they are all just as bad as each other. What I really want is fair prices for the energy I use. Not cheap marketing gimmicks to clean my wallet out. Come on EON you can do better than this!
Alan
0
Comments
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Eh!?
..... no you don’t! What about the volume correction factor? And the calorific value of the gas in the area (set by ofgem on a daily basis).[FONT="]To calculate the gas meter readings to kwh you multiply by 11.3[/FONT]
Your lack of knowledge leads me not to trust all your other calculations... I’ll stick with the price comparison sites thanks.Sunny in Southampton.0 -
Welcome to the forum.
The thrust of your post about 'confusion marketing' in the gas and electricity supply industry is absolutely correct and is the subject of many threads on MSE.
The companies are also introducing penalty clauses to prevent people like yourself who have "switched many times in the past 10 years"(the so called rate tarts) - not that there is any implied criticism of taking advantage of a system that allows such practice.
You comment that your Direct Debit was set too low and state that it is a deliberate tactic to put you in debt so you can't switch(again!!). The main culprits for this situation are the comparison sites/call centre staff/salesmen who set initial DDs very low as an inducement for people to switch.(and they get their commission)
However there are as many posts on MSE(and a article by Martin) complaining about DDs being set too high and customers having large credit balances. A lose/lose situation for the companies.
You are incorrect in this statement:
Incidently, EON, if you are reading there is an error on your bills. To calculate the gas meter readings to kwh you multiply by 11.3 not the 1.02264 value you print. This number appears in tiny print so I assume you really didn’t want people to be able to work out your bills manually. Trading standards anybody?
Firstly I would be very surprised if EON do say 1.02264 as the only multiplication value. That is the correction factor.
Secondly there are two types of gas meter - Metric and Imperial. Whilst your figure of 11.3kWh is approx correct for your Metric meter in your area, for an Imperial(cu ft) meter it is 2.86 times more.
However both readings depend on the calorific value of the gas supplied to your area at any given period. That can vary between 37.5 and 43.0 in the calculation.
So with your metric meter, to get kWh you multiply the no of units by the 1.02264 then calorific value(which can be between 37.5 and 43.0) and divide by 3.6.
So 1 unit can be between 10.65kWh and 12.21kWh.
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Yes. "confusion marketing" is really out of control now. We need something like the "Crystal Clear" mark to reign these practices in. Too many people are being taken as mugs and getting legally robbed.0
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Hi arobertson, welcome to the boad.
There's a few different points you make, some of which I'd agree with.
(For reference I work for British Gas, so please be aware of that when reading my response. Any views I express are my own, and not necessarily those of BG).
Firstly, I'd be more worried if the comparison websites were giving different answers- for a given tariff and consumption, the sites should actually all give the same answer (otherwise the site's not working properly). Since the sites have pretty much total coverage of the tariffs of the major players, there shouldn't be much of a difference between sites.
The tariffs that Eon are offering are probably all pretty close in cost because there really isn't all that much room profit-wise for the supplier to play with. Each incremental customer will only add a small additional £ profit to the bottom line, so unless the option you're taking from them actually makes a cost saving, the price they charge can't really vary all that much.
What sort of tariff were you on before it was changed? Was it a fixed-term contract? If so, then changing the terms of it once the tariff ends can be justified (commodity costs will be different compared with when the contract started). However, I agree that there is potential for abuse here, if you're signed up to a tariff that isn't comparable in principle to the one that you were on.
The size-of-direct-debit point is a tricky one. On the one hand I agree with you- companies shouldn't allow large debt (or credit!) balances to build up. On the other, you're also responsible as a customer to make sure that this doesn't happen.0 -
They were deleted and he was PPR, he made 4 posts
Cheap tricks and complicated billing - MoneySavingExpert.com Forums
4 posts - 4 authors - Last post: 2 hours ago
andys3xy from utility warehouse. If you see spam please click the spam button don't ignore it. I reserve the right to amend /edit and delete my post. ...
forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p... - 2 hours ago - Similarandys3xy joined today and has made no posts according to his profile, unless post(s) has been deleted????
Spam from one of UW's 25,000 independant distributers? whatever next!!0 -
They were deleted and he was PPR, he made 4 posts
Cheap tricks and complicated billing - MoneySavingExpert.com Forums
4 posts - 4 authors - Last post: 2 hours ago
andys3xy from utility warehouse. If you see spam please click the spam button don't ignore it. I reserve the right to amend /edit and delete my post. ...
forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p... - 2 hours ago - Similar
PPR ??? translate please.
Are you saying that he used 4 user names and you traced him from his IP address?
Well done anyway!0 -
Post Privileges Removed Cardew he was another UW spammer
He used one username but posted same web site 4 times in various threads on here0
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