Switch sites not what they seem

luggagewarrior

I've looked at a number of sites and they all seem to do the same results that seem weighted towards the big suppliers, BG,Npower etc. I was with swalec but switched to Npower after a man at the front door promised rebate after rebate. I didnt check the unit price before switching(which was about twice that for swalec). After a month, I checked the Uswitch / Switchwithwhich etc (using Npower as the main supplier)to find that Swalec didnt figure anywhere in the results.
I then put in Swalec as the main supplier and the results all came in red and negative, meaning that all of the results were more expensive, the nearest being about £270 more than swalec.

I've taken which to task for this but their answers weren't satisfactory and I'm still waiting for a reasonable reply. This is the next stage, the public forum to tell me if I've made a mistake, or if skullduggery is afoot.

Below is the email to date which obviously has to be read from the bottom entry (fnarr fnarr!) first to the most recent at the top. (first message, first reply, second message etc. scroll down and see).


(third / final message)
Stephanie,

Thanks for the reply, I understand what you are saying, even though I'm not overly familiar with utility companies and their respective tariffs. All that I know is that even though the search site is clearly aware of all of the tariffs, it doesnt display them in the results. I would be guided to switch to british gas who came in as the best choice for price instead of SSE (at £1300 on the existing criteria) who came in at number 11 at the time of this email. Had I switched and later found out that an offshoot tariff of SSE could have only cost about £1000, saving me over £400, I would be absolutely livid, and feel that I had been the victim of yet more corporate trickery, something that's all too common these days, and the very reason that I subscribe to your magazine.

Untill I see an explanation published of why the site ignores the cheapest tariff in favour of the big players, I will be of the mind that vested interests are at play here, and to think, at Which? magazine of all places.

Yours

Stewart **

(second reply)
From: editor@which.co.uk [mailto:editor@which.co.uk]
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2006 9:12 AM
To: Stewart **
Subject: Re:RE: comparison site issue ID*|#1.0.152294909#11aa0297#|*

Hello Stewart,

Thank you for your patience while I looked into your query about the results you were given on our switching website. I apologise for the delay in getting back to you about this, but can assure you that the site is working accurately and offering the fullest range of alternative tariffs.

SWALEC is a sub section of a larger company called SSE, Scottish and Southern Electric. Their tariffs all appear in the results table from an npower search under Southern Electric rather than SWALEC. I have informed our web design team of this as I appreciate that we need to make the names of suppliers clearer to prevent consumers being confused. I can assure you, however, that as SWALEC is under the umbrella of SSE the tariffs are appearing in the results table, just not under the name of the individual supplier.

I hope that I have been able to explain the results you were given, but if you have any further questions then please don't hesitate to email me and I will be happy to help.

Regards,

Stephanie **

(second message)
> No problem, WV4***, Usage 300kWh Elec/month, Gas 3000kWh/month>
> 1 type post code, select gas and electricity.
> next
> 2 select dual fuel, economy 7 with a 30% night usage, bill size=yes
> next
> 3 select npower, monthly dd, tarrif economy 7 dual fuel, the above figures for usage.
> next
> 4 select lowest price
> next
> 5 See bill size of £1461.10, first cheapest is british gas by £231.60, note that swalec does not appear in the results.
>
> Start fresh comparison from step 1 again
> select SWALEC as supplier in step 3, again monthly dd, tarrif economy 7 dual fuel monthly dd, same usage figures.
> next
> select cheapest
> next
> notice that swalec charges £1059.29, cheaper than the above quote in point 5 by about £450, the first nearest is still more expensive by £149.50, which is Npower, then british gas ( same tarrif as 1st comparison above) by £170.21.

> It seems that to get the cheapest supplier, you have to know which one is cheapest before hand, because this site will not tell you, as is the same for Uswitch and other sites.
> If I put in a tarrif, then the site should be able to search all tarrifs based solely on the useage figures that I submit. It doesnt, and as an unknowing customer, it would have given me false information.
>
> Looking forward to your response,
> Stewart **

(first reply)
> From: editor@which.co.uk [mailto:editor@which.co.uk]
> Sent: 20 October 2006 15:09
> To: Stewart **
> Subject: Re:comparison site issue ID*|#1.0.152294909#11aa0297#|*
> Hello Stuart,
> Thank you for coming to Switch with Which? for our independent energy advice.
> I would like to be able to help to explain the results you were given on our switching website, but to do that I will need some further information. Could you send me details of your postcode and the exact name of the tariff you input into your searches? I assume that the figures of 3000 and 300 for gas and electricity respectively relate to kwh but please let me know if not. When I have this information I will be happy to investigate the results and get back to you.
> Regards,
> Stephanie **


(First message)
> > comparison site issue
> > I beleive that the comparison site search engines are inaccurate and was particularly surprised to find that the Which? engine was just as guilty.
> > I have found that it totally ignores the actual cheapest supplier and gives results in favour of the big suppliers.
> > I was initially with SWALEC, but 2 months ago decided to switch to Npower because of the end of year discounts offered, however, when they sent me the tarrif charges, I proceeded to look at the comparison sites to switch again. Disturbed at what I was seeing, I looked at yours, assuming that integrity had been retained. I found you no better than the rest so I will explain further.
> > I put in present supplier (NPower) for Dual fuel monthly DD Elec 300 gas 3000 /month, it returned a figure of £1200 (approx) and the best one was Brit Gas at £1000, saving £200.
> > Then I put in a fresh search, but against Swalec, same criteria and tarrif. The returned figure was £873 and the nearest one was NPower at £1000 and British Gas at £1100
> > .
> > Surely my original search against NPower should have found the Swalec Tarrif that produced the £873 figure and returned that as the best price, instead of ignoring it and placing the big players as best results. Perhaps it's just me being a bit thick, if so, I'd love the method of finding out the best supplier to be explained to me, cos at the moment it seems that you need to know the best one before hand so that you can do a direct search against that supplier.
> > I'm not impressed, because thousands of people will be guided by the results of these sites and I will be contacting consumer web sites soon.
> > On Radio 2 on a friday, consumer expert Martin Lewis appears on a section of the Jeremy Vine show. I will send emails tomorrow to see I can get a mention on the show, perhaps to even rebalance the millions that you have spent on advertising.
> > Yours,
> > Unhappy Which Member

Dazza.mk_2

So how does the Swalec tariff compare to the Scottish & Southern tariffs shown? as if I read the above correctly any Swalec tariffs were simply shown under Scottish and Southern as the group company rather than under Swalec?

usby

Ok i just had a guy come to my door from NPower asking me about my supplier blah blah blah - you know the usual stuff. I told him that I regularly changed suppliers using internet comparison sites, and this guy smirked and said Uswitch were actually owned by British Gas, all their prices were a year out of date, it had been investigated by Watchdog, and I'd basically been conned.

Now I'm not quite stupid enough to sign up with the first salesman that comes to my door and starts telling me that his was the only supplier worth being with, and to be honest he was so smug that I wanted to punch him in the throat. But is there any hint of truth in what he was saying?

I realise that, at 6.30 on a Friday evening this guy was probably trying to make a last sale, but is that even legal, making stuff up like that?

Miss_Penny_Pincher_2

usby wrote:

I told him that I regularly changed suppliers using internet comparison sites, and this guy smirked and said Uswitch were actually owned by British Gas, all their prices were a year out of date, it had been investigated by Watchdog, and I'd basically been conned.

Now I'm not quite stupid enough to sign up with the first salesman that comes to my door and starts telling me that his was the only supplier worth being with, and to be honest he was so smug that I wanted to punch him in the throat. But is there any hint of truth in what he was saying?

I just had a quick look and found this (albeit from uswitch.com's own website):

Who owns uSwitch.com?
uSwitch.com was bought by US company, The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE: SSP) in March 2006. Scripps is a diverse and growing media enterprise with interests in national cable networks, newspaper publishing, broadcast television stations, licensing and syndication, electronic commerce and interactive media.

Seems strange to me that we would say BG owns uswitch as whenever I do a comparison it seems to come up with NPower!

luggagewarrior

From dazza.MK;
So how does the Swalec tariff compare to the Scottish & Southern tariffs shown? as if I read the above correctly any Swalec tariffs were simply shown under Scottish and Southern as the group company rather than under Swalec?
It's in the third and final message, existing useage £1400 through Npower, SSE came in at no 11 behind BG at £1300, saving £100, Swalec didnt get a mention at all as far as page 5 of the results tables, and I didn't bother checking any further pages.
Then by doing a comparison with Swalec as the supplier, it came up with useage at £1000, (£400 cheaper than Npower). The search site is clearly aware of the individual tarriffs, but selectively ignores them so as to give 'tweaked tariffs' of the big players the edge.
Indipendant - Pah!

A_Nice_Englishman

Miss_Penny_Pincher wrote:

Who owns uSwitch.com?
uSwitch.com was bought by US company, The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE: SSP) in March 2006. Scripps is a diverse and growing media enterprise with interests in national cable networks, newspaper publishing, broadcast television stations, licensing and syndication, electronic commerce and interactive media.

I think this is an important point that people don't always understand.

E W Scripps Company are in business to make money. One way they do this is by getting people to change their energy suppliers through uSwitch.com. Presumably the suppliers pay uSwitch a commission for each consumer they sign up.

Really they are little different to the men and women who come knocking at your door, except that they offer several suppliers instead of just one.

I've always said that the constant switching between suppliers can only increase costs for the consumer. All those sales people and administrators have to be paid and the money can only come from one place.

Cardew

A_Nice_Englishman wrote:

I think this is an important point that people don't always understand.

E W Scripps Company are in business to make money. One way they do this is by getting people to change their energy suppliers through uSwitch.com. Presumably the suppliers pay uSwitch a commission for each consumer they sign up.

Really they are little different to the men and women who come knocking at your door, except that they offer several suppliers instead of just one.

I've always said that the constant switching between suppliers can only increase costs for the consumer. All those sales people and administrators have to be paid and the money can only come from one place.

Absolutely correct. I posted similar comments some while ago.

These comparison companies(and for that matter companies like Quidco, Nectar etc) are an unnecessary overhead that the consumer pays for in the end.

I believe that it is a relative simple and inexpensive procedure to set up a comparison website and it should be undertaken by and independent Government sponsored organization like OFGEM or the Energy Saving Trust.

These organizations would not have a vested financial interest in encouraging multiple switching by consumers; and we should get some objective and impartial information.

A_Nice_Englishman

Cardew wrote:

Absolutely correct. I posted similar comments some while ago.

These comparison companies(and for that matter companies like Quidco, Nectar etc) are an unnecessary overhead that the consumer pays for in the end.

I believe that it is a relative simple and inexpensive procedure to set up a comparison website and it should be undertaken by and independent Government sponsored organization like OFGEM or the Energy Saving Trust.

These organizations would not have a vested financial interest in encouraging multiple switching by consumers; and we should get some objective and impartial information.

Yes, that would an excellent idea Cardew.

luggagewarrior

Now we cut to the quick, contributors seem to be of the same mind as myself, that these comparison sites are biased, a truly independant one would be nice, but untill that happens, consumer champions like Which? and Martin Lewis himself should put out a warning that the results aren't 100% trustworthy.

tripled

Companies who do not pay uswitch comission are not listed by default. Where it asks you the slightlty misleading question along the lines of "Show tariffs where you can switch with uswitch online?" Yes/No, if you click yes it shows only the tariffs you can switch through them, if you click no all are shown. Yes is the default option.