Equigas

melbury

Voyager2002 wrote:

That is what I thought. But in fact they give me a discount for paying by monthly direct debit. In my case, their service is administered by Southern Electric and has been fine since I switched to them nearly two years ago.

Why do people say then that Ebico is only really beneficial if you are a low to medium user? Don't understand this, surely their cheap price is beneficial to everyone.

speedyjoe

melbury wrote:

Why do people say then that Ebico is only really beneficial if you are a low to medium user? Don't understand this, surely their cheap price is beneficial to everyone.

Because the per unit cost of Ebico is apparently relatively high it may pay a high use customer to take a deal with a supplier who charged a standing charge or a high rate for the first units of energy used and then a low cost for susbsequent units.

melbury

speedyjoe wrote:

Because the per unit cost of Ebico is apparently relatively high it may pay a high use customer to take a deal with a supplier who charged a standing charge or a high rate for the first units of energy used and then a low cost for susbsequent units.

But I haven't seen anyone with rates as low as this - even with the two tier system!

Xbigman

Essentially you are saving a set amount by not paying a standing charge vrs paying a small (1 to 2 pence) extra amount per unit. Obviously the more units you use the more of your saving on the standing charge shrinks. Eventually you will actually pay more.

But this all depends on what you are comparing Ebico's prices to. I came off of the PowerGen dual fuel online tarif and at the time their day rate electric cost 7.55 per unit. Equipower was 9.68 so over 2p dearer. However, I still saved money because of not paying the standing charge and being a low user. That PowerGen tarif has since gone up a lot. Also, PowerGen never gave me the discounts for that tarif without my prompting them, so good riddance all round. If you compare Ebico to the current best electric unit prices the gap has shrunk even more so medium users can save money too. This is especially true for prepayment meters, which tend to have higher per unit charges. Ebico's flat rate policy almost always results in a saving. Likewise, if you are in a crap area or don't have internet access to get online prices, they can work out cheaper.

Ebico's gas price is more competitive, hence why some people get recommended Ebico for gas and another company for electric.

A few words regarding payment methods. Southern electric let Ebico customers pay by DD for a 6% discount but they charge you 6% more to balance it out. If on a prepayment meter you buy electric at southerns higher prices and get a rebate to bring it in line with Ebico's prices. So Ebico is truly flat rate.
Regards



X

Xbigman

On the subject of transfers. They all take a couple of months unless transfering within the same company (say SWEB to London electic) so criticism of Ebico for time of transfer is a bit unfair. You also need to realise that it is not only Ebico taking the transfer that could be held up, the other company also has to hand it over.

Last lecture for today (honest). When I switched to Ebico Uswitch listed Powergen as 5 star service. What a joke. They were even on the telly apologizing for their poor service and problems. The service ratings are a joke, ignore them.
Regards



X

Wig

Voyager2002 wrote:

That is what I thought. But in fact they give me a discount for paying by monthly direct debit. In my case, their service is administered by Southern Electric and has been fine since I switched to them nearly two years ago.

You are not getting a discount for DD, they are initially charging you a higher rate than the standard Ebico rate (check it if you don't believe me) then they give you a discount on the artficial rate which brings you down to the standard Ebico rate.

Just multiply your kwh usage by the standard Ebico rate per kwh and you will find the answer is very close to what your bill says, it may be a few pence above (what your bill says) because of rounding down restrictions. So you do save a few pence.

Wig

melbury wrote:

But I haven't seen anyone with rates as low as this - even with the two tier system!

That's because Ebico really tries hard not to increase prices even when every other company is increasing theirs. Ebico will have to increase later this year but they will keep it as low as they can.

melbury

shammyjack wrote:

Are you running a Hotel ?

If not I think serious economies and energy saving + effective insulation needs to be implimentated !

That amount of KWh will run my house for 6 years !

shammy

Have just been reading another thread further down and it says on there that the average gas consumption for a 4 bed detached house is 38,000Kwh per annum, which makes me feel a whole lot better. I just wish we could get away with using only 6,000Kwh per annum - very envious!

Stuart_W

JohalaReewi wrote:

However, watch out if considering CC payments because although Equigas charge the same for CC, Southern Electric add on a 1.5% handling fee for CC payments. Other Equigas agents may do something similar.

I manage to pay my Ebico bills by credit card without a surcharge! My local Co-op store (https://www.arcs.co.uk) are part of the Paypoint scheme, and I can visit the tobacco kiosk and make a paypoint payment and pay with a credit card.The Ebico bill does state paypoint is for cash only - but my local co-op choose to also accept credit cards. I guess this is up to them. They must still make a commission, albeit a smaller one, or they wouldn't accept credit cards.

Worth checking with your local Paypoint agent? I guess it is less likely for independent newsagents and the like, but maybe other co-ops around the country would accept it. Worth a try... (and as it's a co-op dividend credit card that's another few pence saved!).

I am a another happy Ebico customer, too. After being in huge credit with Powergen and them refusing to give me my own money back, actually getting a bill every 3 months for exactly what I had used was a novelty. The one time they didn't actually read the meter I used their simple 0800 meter reading line and got a revised bill within 48 hours (Powergen took about 48 days - and that's if I was lucky).

Shaanbles

I have only just recently switched to nPower, in fact the gas part won't be transfered til 1st August. However they put their prices over within a week or so of my transferring.

Question - I'd like to awitch to Ebico now, but should I wait a couple of week til nPower have done the switch from scottishpower? Also will I have to give the £15 back to SimplySwitch?