Find The Cheapest Gas & Electricity Plus Cashback Article Discussion

murphydavid

Team_Twister wrote:

A word of caution!

Last week I used Energyhelpline to check my electricity provider, it came up with British Gas as saving the most. So I agreed to switch.

Today a guy from BG phoned, to confirm the switch. In the course of the conversation I became suspicious, and asked him what I would actually be charged (I'd heard that BG had recently increased prices). He told me, and I had a 2-week old bill to hand - the price they were going to charge after the switch was 20% more than I'm currently paying. I challenged this, and he said he didn't have the actual prices as I'd used a web based agency...

This sounded like a load of flannel to me (or worse), so I cancelled the switch.

My advice - when the new provider calls to check the details, ask for the actual prices they'll be charging - you may be surprised, as I was!

Just trying to get my head round this one. Martin says in his article that B.G. last announced price rises on 27/07/06 to be implemented on 04/09/06. I presume this is the price rise you refer to, so are some price comparison services using out of date info or are B.G. keeping an old info site running so that price comparison services get the wrong info?

Anyway More caution

Tried Martins recommended price comparison site and found their cheapest recommended supplier for me. Being the devious sort I wondered (as they have an incentive to want you to change) if they were devious too. So I did a second comparison and put back in the same figures but claimed my company was the one they had just recommended. Guess what, they recommended a different one saying it was £28.00 cheaper than the one they had just said was the cheapest. O dear?

russetred

:eek: I used the energyhelpline cashback site to find the cheapest electricity provider which turned out to be British Gas which was surprising, and they did a green click energy which uses renewables for a year which i liked so I switched.I had to be scraped off the ceiling when the letter from BG dated 01/09 said my direct debit would be over 50% more per month than i currently pay.Remember this is before the price hike of 04/09 as the letter had the price based on 31/07 prices. Their letter sent first class business post took 6 days to arrive and left me with ONE day to cancel before the switch went through.I stopped the switch and checked energyhelpline's site even after BG's last price rise they are still showing the same price for BG that was wrong in july nevermind now.What other tariffs have they got wrong and how many more people will switch to higher priced providers? That was a shock to the system that will take me a long time to forget.

bassman

murphydavid wrote:

Tried Martins recommended price comparison site and found their cheapest recommended supplier for me. Being the devious sort I wondered (as they have an incentive to want you to change) if they were devious too. So I did a second comparison and put back in the same figures but claimed my company was the one they had just recommended. Guess what, they recommended a different one saying it was £28.00 cheaper than the one they had just said was the cheapest. O dear?

Thats a bit off putting ...isn't it.....

It looks as though their "independent" advice.....isn't

Although I would try it with another couple of the comparison sites before "building your case".....

bassman

russetred wrote:

:eek: I used the energyhelpline cashback site to find the cheapest electricity provider which turned out to be British Gas which was surprising, and they did a green click energy which uses renewables for a year which i liked so I switched.I had to be scraped off the ceiling when the letter from BG dated 01/09 said my direct debit would be over 50% more per month than i currently pay.Remember this is before the price hike of 04/09 as the letter had the price based on 31/07 prices. Their letter sent first class business post took 6 days to arrive and left me with ONE day to cancel before the switch went through.I stopped the switch and checked energyhelpline's site even after BG's last price rise they are still showing the same price for BG that was wrong in july nevermind now.What other tariffs have they got wrong and how many more people will switch to higher priced providers? That was a shock to the system that will take me a long time to forget.

Another instance of "Can we trust these sites any longer"

sisyphus_2

i have a dual rate meter ('standard' and 'low'), but i'm *not* on an Economy 7 rate. Some comparison sites ask if one has an "Economy 7 meter". Is that the same as a dual rate meter?

TIA,
sis.

ikr2

We definitely have an Economy 7 meter but only use about 25% of our electricity between 1 am and 8 am. I tried to switch to a non-Economy 7 plan and was told by our old supplier Atlantic that I'd need a new meter! I'm sure we freely switched between the two at our old address. All they have to do is add up both numbers.

EDF/London Energy have just notified us that they are raising their monthly DD for our gas from £34 to £85 for the next 6 months. Yeah. Right. Especially as of this current bill we only owe them £40.

This all stems from the fact that when we switched to them in Nov 2005 they didn't collect the first gas payment until Feb 2006. This plus the price hikes means they've gone off the deep end.

So I sat down and worked out our gas bill based on the new EDF prices. This was about £700 after discounts and not including the nectar points (about 3200 pa if you read the meter for them too). That should be a DD of £58 a month.

What EDF should do is say, "Based on current useage, we think you'll burn about x KwHr per year that will cost you £700 at today's prices after discounts. That's about £60 a month. But you owe us £40 so you can either clear that in one go and up your payments to £60 or we'll take £70 for 4 months.

But oh no. Our payments are "reviewed" and they pluck £85 out of the air for six months (did I say we're expecting our second child in 2 months? Not a good time for big 250% price rises to happen)

I've been meaning to switch after the recent rises and have used Energyhelpline to compare via MSE. Atlantic came up best, saving us over £200 for dual fuel (as long as we stay with them for a year). The gas DD should be back down to about £50 with Atlantic.

So goodbye EDF for now. Let's hope EDF sort their DD's out by the time I ever switch back.

Edit: I did cross-check with Simplyswitch to try and ensure that Energyhelpline had the right prices

4_Pete's_Sake

WARNING WARNING WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Never ever trust any of the comparison websites when they say a particular company is the cheapest, don't even trust the cost per kwh that they give for a company. Remember that they make money out of you switching.

My suggestion is this, try at least 3 of the price comparison sites such as:

http://www.energyhelpline.com/energy/rg_home.aspx

https://www.ukpower.co.uk/domestic-input.asp

http://www.tescoenergy.com/tesco/Utilities/ (Also gives you 1000 clubcard points if you switch to Powergen, thats £40 in deal tokens)

Always choose to search "All Tariffs" and to display the answers by price.

Make a note of the cost per kwh and the standing charges or if they don't have a standing charge, note down the higher unit rate for the first X amount of Gas and Electricity units. Then go to that companies website and check that the cost per unit (KWH) is correct.

Ascertain from your last years bills how many kwh of gas and electicity you used in the last 12 months.

Then get a calculator (or a mathematician) to check that you will really be making a saving by switching.

It is a lot of work, but it is better to be safe than sorry, as russetred almost was, in the post above.

Having followed my own advice I have found the npower on-line tariff to be one of the most competitive. But if you do sign up to it please make sure that you do it on-line, preferablly via the npower website. Otherwise you will end up on their standard tariff and will be paying loadsamoney.

EnergySwitcher

A few weeks ago Martin's regular email said he thought it was now probably a level playing field for gas & elc switching and I followed the advice and put my details into EnergyHelpline cashback site and it showed I'd get a big saving switching to British Gas from Powergen (which had just announced rises), so I did so, but just after the 7 day cooling off period, I heard the news that BG prices were going up a lot, which actually meant I'd have been better off staying with Powergen. Contrary to what Martin's article says the switching website was using the pre-September prices even though, as I found out later, the BG rises had been announced in July. I complained to EnergyHelpline but have had no reply. So all Ive had is a load of switching hassle in order to pay more for my gas and electric. Any comments?:mad:

Gambler

EnergySwitcher wrote:

A few weeks ago Martin's regular email said he thought it was now probably a level playing field for gas & elc switching and I followed the advice and put my details into EnergyHelpline cashback site and it showed I'd get a big saving switching to British Gas from Powergen (which had just announced rises), so I did so, but just after the 7 day cooling off period, I heard the news that BG prices were going up a lot, which actually meant I'd have been better off staying with Powergen. Contrary to what Martin's article says the switching website was using the pre-September prices even though, as I found out later, the BG rises had been announced in July. I complained to EnergyHelpline but have had no reply. So all Ive had is a load of switching hassle in order to pay more for my gas and electric. Any comments?:mad:

switch again?

EnergySwitcher

I will do - anyone but BG who are rubbish at answering the phone, their emails and on-line service is totally confusing, and they wont allow you to have a single bill covering both gas & elec....although their Economy 7 night rate is good!