8pm. ITV. Martin Lewis .... and economists + finance fixing of hapless souls

new_home_owner_3

1984ReturnsForReal wrote: »

Thats what I thought.

I remembered he was saying fix at the peak.

:eek:

I remember it when he said it, fix now its not too late and then in the next few months it went down, it made me laugh, when he said tell me i was right.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

new_home_owner wrote: »

I remember it when he said it, fix now its not too late and then in the next few months it went down, it made me laugh, when he said tell me i was right.

It made me cringe...... :eek:

PasturesNew

1984ReturnsForReal wrote: »

It made me cringe...... :eek:

Me too, there was a bit of a silence ....

bigheadxx

Really2 wrote: »

He wasn't though he was still banging on about fixing fuel August last year. Glad I did not we have had 2 price drops since then.

It was as informative as teletext for blind people.

He also said to fix your mortgage at the beginning of the year if I remember correctly. Could prove a costly mistake if rates stay low for another year.

PasturesNew

oh noes ... thread moved.

Plushchris

As I said in the other thread.. why doesnt Martin make the difference between capped and fixed rate deals clearer as far as energy bills are concerned.

In the program he said a fixed deal is known as a cap in the industry, but a capped and fixed rate deal are two different things, fixed rates are just that - fixed, wont go up or down, a capped rate deal wont go up but can possibly come down.

There is a big difference between the two and Martin should have explained this.

MSE_Martin

I'm rather surprised by the venomous tone above - and a little disappointed in some of the posters - at least if you want to slag a programme off you can come up with someothing better than "utter sh1te"

More so though most of the above is simply inaccurate and a mistaken timeline.

The site has constantly and still does, explained the pros and cons of capping - usually the great strength is for those who cannot afford the risk of energy prices rising. However there was a specific period in 2008 when almost certain potential prices rises meant it was likely capping would save you money.

From memory we started going stronger on capping from about Feb/March 2008. Then it was accentuated in July just before the BG price rise, then my line was that there were three cheap caps left (prices at a slight premium to the pre price rise amounts). The last of these closed the end of the week of the British Gas price rise.

After that there was we moved to a don't switch stance. If you want confirmation on this, why not have a read of this from someone else trying to slag off this site - here Im being criticised because I had STOPPED telling people to cap...

http://money.uk.msn.com/mortgages/billsandenergy/article.aspx?cp-documentid=9199612

So the period we were pushing capping (even that deliberately adding the caveat that is was best for those who wanted to prevent price rises) was pre-the BG 35% gas 9% elec for British gas (other were similar).

The caps we talked about were available for a slight premium to the pre-rise prices. Since then we've seen energy bills come down about 10% on both gas & elec and every study has shown those who capped at the time in July have gained, you'll see the numbers on that here... http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/Capped-tariff-ending-compare-gas-an (for those who say there have been two drops, actually most companies have only put prices down once, British Gas has done it twice but that just as it split it into a gas drop and an elec drop - overall its still only 10% on both)

Now if you did want to attack me and the site (and with the venom above I do wonder why you bother using it) the one thing that wasn't right was at the time I was saying industry predictions were that more price rises were likely in the following January - though quite deliberately I said "these are much less certain than the coming rises" (meaning BG 35%).

Of course those industry predictions were based on the price of energy futures, which showed prices would go up further. Yet of course the recession hit, and prices came down, but only by a small amount and sadly by no where near as much as it should have done, and not enough to stop having capped pre early august as having been worthwhile.

So while I understand you may not like me or the site (though why you inhabit it then I struggle to see) at least be graceful enough to be accurate in your slagging off.

Even better of course would be realising that we do our best on the available information and try and make what we hope are good enough explainations and information for people to be able to make the right decision. Much as I said at the end of the programme we understand that there are no perfect decisions when you're trying to second guess the future - but we do our best to try and provide the right info based on the available facts to help people make them.

Anyone Im going to leave this one here after a huge 80 week... but be fair folks please.

_____________

On a separate note, Plushchris - the fact is the common parlance in energy is to call a fix rate a cap - actual caps are very few and far between - so the terms have merged into common usage.

___________

And another note - as for the programme itself, as you'll see in my blog http://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2009/09/18/itv-tonight-should-i-fix-what-will-the-outcome-be/ what was actually included was not really my decision - i have some script editing power but in a fast turnaroudn its the producers that do this. What you have missed is that we spent a full day with the fix-it panel - with two economiss, a mortgage broker a energy analyst and they questioned all of them extensively, what you actually see in a 23 minute programme is a fraction of that.

Martin

I have moved this thread back to the forum where it started - not sure why it came here.

roddydogs

This website=Brilliant...............ML on telly or Radio...........Rubbish
We all know that by now, dont we?

Plushchris

Really2 wrote: »

He wasn't though he was still banging on about fixing fuel August last year. Glad I did not we have had 2 price drops since then.

It was as informative as teletext for blind people.

There has only been one price drop not 2

Plushchris

MSE_Martin wrote: »

On a separate note, Plushchris - the fact is the common parlance in energy is to call a fix rate a cap - actual caps are very few and far between - so the terms have merged into common usage.

Hi Martin,

No venom intended in my post, sorry if you took it that way.

I'm aware the two seem to have merged but they are still two seperate kinds of tariffs, I'm fairly sure if someone was sold a fixed rate deal having been told it was a capped rate deal it would have been classed as mis-selling and the salesman could land themselves in trouble.

It is important people realise the difference between fixed and capped and they shouldnt be merged into one.