Beware Ebico...

Factchecker

Hi XBigman, Actually, I want to put in as few posts as possible and make my decision and get on with the non-energy obsessed part of my life. The "small company" fears I got from other postings here and energyhelpline but I realise the latter have a vested interest in slagging off Ebico cos they don't make any commision if you choose them. I strongly approve of Ebico's non-profit status and their bias to people on low incomes and more importantly their stewardship of resources by having no standing charge of any sort, but it's purely personal that I am an agnostic and prefer not to have dealings with christians.

Factchecker

Just in case anyone is interested, I think I've decided not to change suppliers. Basically, the EBICO price rises made them more expensive than npower for me, although over the course of the year they would probably work out a bit cheaper. BG click energy was going to save me 34 quid but then I would lose a third of my annual 65 quid npower discount being 4 months into the year. So it isn't worth it to risk BG's premium lines, although I like the paperless bit. I was so angry with npower I wanted to get out but not if it's again going to be more effort than justifies the saving. Especially since in the chaos that is the current energy market EDF changed my electric meter over and haven't bothered to tell npower about it. I can only see myself being hammered for the 50,000Kwh difference if it gets too complicated. I am a bit of a freak case though, only using 1,000 Kwh Gas a year so the npower dual fuel and direct debit discount virtually pays my gas bill. I may join your forum again in 9 months time or sooner if npower really hammer me.

alared

"I am a bit of a freak case though, only using 1,000 Kwh Gas a year"

Nothing to stop you just getting gas from EBICo.

The wisest decision you`ve made is not switching to those crooks at BG

Alienfingers

Just had my phone call from Ebico telling me my changeover date to them is 21st Sept (I applied a few weeks ago before the increases were announced knowing that the rise was imminent but confident that they would still be cheap for me-which they will be still!)
Strange thing the caller advised me though was that as I have opted to pay by direct debit, i will be getting a 6% discount on my bills?? I thought the whole idea of Ebico is that these discounts for payment methods didnt apply. Has she got it wrong or can I look forward to saving even more money do you think?

alared

The Ebico website will answer the DD question.
I can`t remember offhand but the discount will be adjusted along the way to bring you into the correct prices.
So no you won`t save even more.

Factchecker

Hi Alared,(alienfingers below)
Actually I just recalculated my Gas usage and when I reduced my estimate from 2000 to the actual 1100 (the more they put up prices the less I use) it made EBICO 2 quid worse than npower rather than 9 pound better. I wasn't expecting that, because they have no standing charge of any sort, but the reason is that all the gas saved is at npower's higher rate. I'll consider Ebico & BG again next year. I don't really like to be caught in the end of year 63 quid payback thing with npower in particular and BG at 25 pound to a lesser extent.

Oh yeah and I just went into energyhelpline with DD and quarterly billing and the EBICO rate doesn't change .Their site also seems to indicate the one rate idea.

Factchecker

>>>Nothing to stop you just getting gas from EBICo.
Hi again allared,
Sorry I missed the JUST in above posting. I pay 4.51 from npower and 2.55p from EBICO. So at 1000Kwh/annum I would save about 20 quid with EBICO but I get 21 quid off for paying npower gas by DD and a further 21 for dual fuel so in my admittedly freakish case I'm 22 quid better off getting my gas from npower.

alared

Factchecker
Everyone must (as you have )weigh everything up for themselves,but it ain`t easy.
The suppliers deliberately make it immpossible to compare like with like,with so many tariffs and discounts.
It`s all one big con.
How do they get to be the next cheapest in the switching sites?
They invent a new tariff for "new customers only",con people into changing to it and after a few months raise their prices or tell you all their customers are being put on the same prices because "it`s only fair everyone pays the same"
(which means an increase for their latest batch of "new customers")
The switching sites couldn`t give a monkey`s because they win no matter who they recommend switching to.
These sites get paid by the power companies about £50 for everyone they can con into switching.
They don`t recommend EBICo because they are not bribed by this company.
No wonder these sites can give £15 cashback or a bottle of cheap fizz.

Factchecker

Thanks Alared,
That was exactly the experience I had with npower. I thought it was a one-off con. It shouldn't be allowed because the switching companies tell you how much you'll save in a year but you only save it for a couple of months. I think my conclusion would now be for most customers to go with EBICO as what you see is what you get. EBICO doesn't look too cheap now but if they continue to only raise their prices once a year (Did they promise not to raise them for a year again?) best to make the comparisons around March or take 10% off their September prices. Making comparisons by reducing current EBICO prices by 10% doesn't do it for me personally due to being a low gas consumer and with a 63GBP annual payback, I only get one chance to leap each year and I've missed it this year. The worries with EBICO would be if they are now introducing 6% premiums for non-DD payers as Alienfingers seemed to find and problems with inaccurate bills like Derek_A mentions.

alared

FAQ

http://www.equipower.co.uk/en/open/pages/faqen.php#mybill

My bill says that I’m getting a discount for paying by Direct Debit – but I thought the whole point was that everyone paid the same on EQUIGAS and EQUIPOWER?
In some circumstances billing procedures automatically deduct a percentage from the bill for Direct Debit payment. In these circumstances the work-around we use is to ADD a percentage to the bill first so that when the deduction is made it comes back to the correct EQUIGAS or EQUIPOWER bill. Sorry, we know it sounds a bit daft, but that’s computer systems for you! We are working to remove this oddity.