First Utility email - price increases

nocomp

Hello

Received an email tonight from FU to tell me that they are increasing charges

For me gas standing charge goes up to 70p, electricity to 37p per day

unit charges also increase all effective from 1 April


that a total standing charge of over £350 per year even with extra discounts Of £120 each for gas and electric it still makes my bill almost £300 more than i can get with new BG websaver

will be interested to see what emails land in othe FU customers in boxes in next few days


nocomp

KimYeovil

(Don't forget if you are moving away following a price increase you can notify your supplier and continue to receive the old prices until the switch. You have to tell them of this intention within ten days of being told of the change.)

ollski

My electric increase is 30% on the unit rate and in total just over 500.00 a year increase in total on gas and electric. With f.u already 164 more than bg websaver and with a small employee discount its a bit of a no brainer what I'll be doing tomorrow....yes I'll lose the first utility cash back / loyalty stuff but I'm afraid their service is not worth 800.00 more than bg's.

kevquinn

I calculate, taking into account the loyalty bonus (£110 for me) and the dual fuel discount (£240), that my overall bill projection for the year goes up just over £400 compared to last year's pricing - that's a whopping hike on £1700. According to the comparison sites, the BG WebSaver 11 would get that back for me. Note to self - look into cavity insulation & loft insulation improvement...

I note the comparison sites haven't caught up yet with the new pricing, at least on my tariff, which the sites are showing at the old rates. New rates put 3.3% on the electrics standing charge, 7.8% on the gas standing charge, a whopping 54% on the electrics rate per kWh, and 3.9% on the gas price per kWh. Standing charges already increased substantially mid way through last year; electricity by 22% and gas by 103.9%. I'm still waiting for smart meter installation; I'm wondering if the relatively high standing charges are related to the cost of installing the fancy meters.

@KimYeovil - just for the record, the email we received gives us 20 working days from receipt of the letter in which to terminate; I don't know whether that's a new standard time period or whether f:u are just being generous.

@ollski - My thought was to wait a little while (within the 20 days...) to decide; I don't want to switch only to find (say) bg are about to hike theirs as well... I'll probably talk to f:u before switching as well, see what they have to offer if challenged. Presumably I could switch to the BG WebSaver 11, only to find them hiking their rates by a similar amount in April. I notice there are cancellation charges for BG WebSaver 11; £30 each for gas and electric.

Vanessaf_2

It seems as though First Utility are operating something of a scam. They offer highly competitive tariffs, typically leading the tables on price comparisons, then every few months, they increase tariffs. In my case iSave5 has increased by approx 100%. Customers are then put into the situation of switching supplier & losing the back-end bonus (12% in this case), or blindly accepting a doubling of their energy bill. This is a scam. Why are companies like this allowed to trade? Why are their tariffs still shown on comparison sites - is this because of lucrative commissions associated with churn?

KimYeovil

Vanessaf wrote: »

It seems as though First Utility are operating something of a scam. They offer highly competitive tariffs, typically leading the tables on price comparisons, then every few months, they increase tariffs. In my case iSave5 has increased by approx 100%. Customers are then put into the situation of switching supplier & losing the back-end bonus (12% in this case), or blindly accepting a doubling of their energy bill. This is a scam. Why are companies like this allowed to trade? Why are their tariffs still shown on comparison sites - is this because of lucrative commissions associated with churn?

And this is different from most every other supplier? At least they only have two tariffs. And the biggest increases tend to be in the standing charge - provided you stay for twelve months most of this is refunded - where else offers a £30 per fuel annual standing charge theseadays? (And surely the massive £180 (effectively mandatory) annual bonus is there to minimise churn not encourage it?)

You say your bill has doubled - unless you are an electricity only household this is unlikely once the twelve month calculation is accommodated. As far as I can remember First Utility has never been an option for households with a modest consumption.

kevquinn

I've had some follow-up from f:u to report.

First contact was in response to my query with them about the rate hikes, and came the day before the new rates came into play. Their respondent said that a new tariff, iSave v7, had been developed "with the April rise in mind" and that I should call back that day to get it. My feeling in response to that was (1) why wasn't I moved to the relevant tariff rather than just dumped on with the big increase (rhetorical - I would guess that they'll leave anyone who doesn't make a sound on the high tariff, and only figure out something different for those that make a noise), and (2) bit late, really, and I don't like "must be today" deadlines. I didn't calculate against those rates to see whether it made a real difference (for the record; electricity 13.08p standing charge, 10.711p per kWh, gas 57.39p standing charge and 2.626p per kWh - not clear if that included tax).

Second contact I've had, just in the last few days (presumably triggered by British Gas notifying them of the switch). They made the point that comparison sites don't take account of the loyalty bonuses; true enough but I did the calculations myself and took those into account. They have also launched yet another tariff (iSave v8), which I've not looked at yet, and also suggested they could install Smart Meters within 60 days (which is something I queried with them a while back).

Assuming the web site pricing as of today is iSave v8, for my location that's electricity 33.6p standing charge, 11.44 per kWh and gas 60.9p standing charge, 3.04p per kWh. So pricing has already increased from the i7 tariff (they are cheaper than the rates they tried to put me onto from the beginning of April), so assuming I'd gone with that presumably I'd be looking at these i8 prices once their three-month price guarantee expired. Oh, and the duel fuel discount is down from £240 to £180, so that doesn't help either.

The upshot is that I have no confidence I'll be able to keep up with all their rate changes. I'm also bored of having to perform relatively involved calculations each time the rates change... I am expecting my consumption to drop dramatically this year due to changes in personal circumstances, and as a result f:u will struggle to be competitive anyway due to the relatively high standing charges which are only worth considering if (a) consumption is relatively high and (b) the unit rates are cheaper than elsewhere.