BEWARE Gas and Elec Switch Lower Direct Debits

RobbieD_3

There's a lot available online about what to do if your energy direct debits are too high and a lot of support available.

However, if your payments are too low because you've potentially been mis-sold the savings based on lower monthly payments BEWARE.

After only 9 months, I now find myself in debt with Atlantic Electric and Gas to the tune of £908.57 which is apparently the cost of having lower monthly payments. The result is that my payments are about to increase by £200 per month so that I can clear this debt in the next 12 months.

Not an easy figure to afford and very very worrying. I will be as public as I possibly can about this to warn others of the potential dangers of switching with uSwitch and the way Atlantic deal with estimated billing.

HELP!

Antispam

Good point and one that has been said many times when people then post, I owe utility company £600 because I didnt tell them of my meter readings and was told they could cut my DD down. Yes until the bills catch up on you and then bite you

renegade

I am very happy with Atlantic as my supplier of both gas'elec.
They allow me to adjust my dd according as to how my usage is going.I do my own meter reading periodically , they inform how much I owe, I then increase either one or both dd to cover the cost, I also reduce the dd if I am in credit. They do an official reading every 4 -5 months.
No surprise big bills at the end of the year thus enabling me to clear both accounts with the money given to me by the Government, and start afresh each year.

espresso

RobbieD wrote: »

After only 9 months, I now find myself in debt with Atlantic Electric and Gas to the tune of £908.57 which is apparently the cost of having lower monthly payments. The result is that my payments are about to increase by £200 per month so that I can clear this debt in the next 12 months.

There are meters in your property and you can see how much energy you are using, calculate the cost and make sure that your direct debits are enough to cover your actual usage.

Meters are not just for meter readers you know!

LoopyPrune

This is an industry wide practice. They tell you what you want to hear on the phone/at the door/on the website. Its called making the sale. I have my own little black book with daily/weekly/monthly readings for both gas and electric and monitor their usage and compare these against price lists direct from the suppliers websites usually in a .pdf form. Don't listen to the guff that the sales people tell you, thats their job. Only this morning I had Southern Electric at the door telling me I could save a fortune. Funny that every rate he showed me was more expensive across the board then my current supplier. At the end he admitted he was beaten.

Npower caught me out with this trick the 1st year we bought our house. £50 a month for both. At the end of the year we owed them over £500 and it took another year to get away from them.

GetRealBabe

Hi

After reading some posts on here, I increased my dual fuel direct debit from £40 to £54 a month. I thought £40 was too low to cover my £135.02 debit and my current usage. Hopefully I'll be in credit in June when npower review my account.

I agree with espresso: read your meters. Use: http://smartmeter.ukpower.co.uk/ to calculate your gas and electric usage.

You mention estimated billing. Didn't you give Atlantic any meter readings?

GRB

kjsmith7

I agree with all on here. I think sometimes it's very easy to want to believe that your bill with only be £30 per month (or whatever figure is lower than what you pay now) with Company X and that you're better with them than with Company Y. It's just a case of keeping an eye on everything, at least correcting meter readings. Remember that most of the suppliers won't increase or decrease your direct debit in the first year, which can leave you with a massive deficit (or credit) if you don't phone up and request it (they need a years readings to work it out). I learnt the hard way to check my meters, now I check them once a week (plus have a monthly bill) - it's as much micromanagement as I like haha.

sh9190

Espresso - good point well made. It greatly frustrates me when people whine and moan about energy companies who havnt set their DD payments high enough or they have been told by a sales agent that they can half their DD etc.

People need to take responsibility for keeping an eye on their own energy accounts. The big six suppliers have anywhere between 4-10m customers each. That's anything between 4-30 million meter readings to take EACH.

If you pay your own gas and electricity bills you have a maximum of 3 meter readings to take. A quick phonecall or entering the readings online will be able to give you the balance of your account and then YOU can request a change in payments to your supplier.

Plushchris

RobbieD wrote: »

I will be as public as I possibly can about this to warn others of the potential dangers of switching with uSwitch and the way Atlantic deal with estimated billing.

HELP!

What has it got to do with Uswitch?