Martin's on Talkback re Airtricity

Polly

Two days after the announcement by Airtricity, I received a letter from NIE advising that my monthly payment would be reduced from £103 to £92 but this is still £20 per month more than I was paying 18 months ago. I feel NIE prices are absolute highway robbery and am delighted to finally see competition in the market. Any chances of NIE reducing prices again before I make the switch?

dghr

NIE Energy Kirsty.... just to be clear, NIE meter reading obtain reads for 99.5% of customers annually, a standard set by the regulator. This includes all obtained customer supplied reads via cards, internet, web and phoned-in reads. It does not reflect actual successful visits.

Re other posts......The Airtricity call handler taking my details stated I would be on a bi-monthly DD and that I would receive an reminder email, just prior to billing, to allow me to supply an accurate reading. They then would would take the amount to cover my consumption. This is similar to NIE Energy's current quarterly DD. Being a current DD customer my discount is actually 10%, as I already get 4%, up to a max amount, with NIE Energy.
When I asked when my supplier change would be actioned she stated in approx. 3 weeks and there was no monthly limit, as stated in the media, to the number of customers they could take per month on month.

chunter

I just want to bring everyone back 10 months...
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1860623

anyone who comes on here and tries to defend NIE needs to reappraise...

36square

NIE_Energy_Kerstie wrote: »

...re meter reading..I understand from NIE that they get in to 99.5% of homes to read the meter at least once each year.

Why on earth does NIE pay people to drive around checking meters quarterly. It's completely unnecessary in most cases. There can't be many people who can't read their own meter so the only reason why NIE should be checking more than quarterly is where they identify a significant risk of bills being unpaid or large arrears accumulating.
How many people does NIE employ to read meters and how much do they cost?

36square

Sorry meant 'more than annually'.

Keelin_-_Consumer_Council

Hi,
It's our first time posting on the forum but we'd like respond to the comment posted on the 26 May about our investigation of a complaint.

We took on the consumer's complaint and investigated it with NIE Energy. We got a response from NIE Energy which clarified the direct debit calculation. We wrote two letters to the consumer providing this information and asking them to come back to us if they wanted any further information.

arkonite_babe

NIE_Energy_Kerstie wrote: »

.I'll have to look into what is said about me getting 'authorised'..sounds painful!

PM sent

agal

Don't see anything about an equivalent to Economy 7 on the Airtricity website so it's not for me (I don't have storage heaters but all laundry, tumble-drying, dish-washer etc runs at night - saves me about £200 per quarter compared with normal rate).

Golden_Anemone

agal wrote: »

I don't have storage heaters but all laundry, tumble-drying, dish-washer etc runs at night - saves me about £200 per quarter compared with normal rate.

If you're saving £200 per quarter like this I hate to think what your bill is. My entire quarterly bill is much less than that. :eek:

Old_Git

I have signed up today ,will see how it goes .
If its not right for me then its back to NIE