Confused - SP 24% price rise!!

asc99c

I've recently signed up to Scottish Power (3 months ago), and I've just received an email saying the price has gone up by 24% as of 2 months ago.

Being a bit annoyed by this I've just gone straight to the price comparison sites, but the cheapest deal I can find is showing as £27 a year more expensive than my current one. So thinking they've just not updated the prices for my deal yet, I've clicked through onto a couple of tariffs, and there's no doubt, the cheapest are still more expensive than mine.

The weird thing is, the Scottish Power tariff wasn't even the cheapest 3 months ago, but it did come with £70 cashback which got it there.

Have prices really gone up by this much in three months? I've not heard much about it in the news, so I'm really confused!

Yellowcard

That's a little odd, the SP price increase was 2% gas 8.9% electric.

asc99c

Yes, that is what the email says. Yet comparing the old and new prices:

http://www.scottishpower.co.uk/PDF/OnlineEnergySaver10.pdf
http://www.scottishpower.co.uk/pdf/OnlineEnergySaver10Nov2010.pdf

It just isn't true. Look at the Norweb electricity prices, it's gone from 14.461p / 6.819p up to 17.906p / 8.443p which is 24%. The prices in the 2 PDFs are correct, because they're both shown on my December bill.

Premier_2

Yellowcard wrote: »

That's a little odd, the SP price increase was 2% gas 8.9% electric.

On average

I had a hefty increase with Scottish Power (also about 25%), essentially due to a massive reduction in their prompt payment discount.
It was only this discount that made them competitive as it paid a not insignificant amount of my bills.

According to SP, some gas customers actually saw a decrease in their gas bills following this price rise announcement.

Yellowcard

Premier wrote: »

On average

I had a hefty increase with Scottish Power (also about 25%), essentially due to a massive reduction in their prompt payment discount.
It was only this discount that made them competitive as it paid a not insignificant amount of my bills.

The fact 2% can become 25% based on location is insane!

Swipe

Do a comparison site check. You may find they are still the cheapest for your area even after the price rise, as was the case for me (Midlands area).

Premier_2

Yellowcard wrote: »

The fact 2% can become 25% based on location is insane!

Statistics, don't you just love the subject

Actually it's not based just on location it's "based on an average of domestic mains gas customers across Britain with an annual usage of 20,500kWh, who pay monthly by direct debit, quarterly (excluding prompt payer discounts) or use a prepayment meter"
To clarify, it's based on standard (i.e. the expensive) tariff prices only.

Pincher

I think the short answer is, yes, prices have gone up.

I think what we need is an idiot, sorry, customer, who took up a two year Price Protection tariff to come forward and say they are happy or not post price rises. E.g. :

"Before the price rises I was paying 30% more than the lowest online tariff I could have got. Now that prices have gone up, I am only paying 15% more. I am so happy because............"

Premier_2

Swipe wrote: »

Do a comparison site check. You may find they are still the cheapest for your area even after the price rise, as was the case for me (Midlands area).

They were for me too, but I had to change tariff (which wasn't easy as their website wouldn't allow it, and it was supposedly online sign up only), had to agree to online management/billing and worst of all accept payment monthly by DD :eek:

That was something I said I would ever do again after a bad experience in the past ... but I can be bought for the right money

agrinnall

I've just done the calculations for my electricity usage with Scottish Power and it also results in an increase of around 25%. About 12% of that is due to the rise in the elecricity price with the rest due to the 60% cut in prompt payer discount. When I spoke to a SP customer advisor she said the prompt payer discount had been slashed because they found too many people were using it! I will be looking elsewhere for my electricity now.