Co-operative society energy

elektra

Well I thought I had but after reading your email I checked back my inbox and can't find any notification email.

I think I was aware there was a price increase due and now realise I read it on here.

On a positive note, the switch went well and they have applied the £50 joining credit without being prompted.

kar999

They sent out the increase notification emails on 30 Sept....

Dear Customer,
I have attached some important information regarding a price increase for your energy supply.
Please read and save these documents as they tell you about how and when this will affect you. .....If you need more information, please visit our website www.cooperativeenergy.coop
Kind Regards,
Ramsay
Ramsay Dunning
General Manager

I'm in the West Midlands area (14) and the hike is the biggest but the original price was always the lowest region to start with and is still cheaper than had I stayed with Scottish Power. Also I would have been paying SP the higher prices from Aug 1st through to Nov. The comparison sites still show the Coop as being within £17 of the next cheapest (Ovo).

I got my £50 discount credit (for just a single fuel switch) applied onto my account yesterday as well as didivends for consumption and monthly readings.

Mr_Crunch

kar999 wrote: »

They sent out the increase notification emails on 30 Sept....

Thanks kar

Unfortunately they didn't send one to me. I contacted them and I await their explanation. Yes, it was a good tariff but it is now a big hike.

meggsy

I received the price increase email on the 30th September as well and the price increases were expected.

Todays email was surprising in that they remind customers to give a meter read on the 3rd November for accurate billing. Haven't seen that from my previous supplier, the devious npower !

Mr_Crunch

kar999 wrote: »

The comparison sites still show the Coop as being within £17 of the next cheapest (Ovo).

Not for me. It depends very much on consumption. I'm on dual fuel in a not particularly thermally efficient ancient house and a check on the comparison sites using very accurate KwH consumption figures tells me that from next week I will be paying up to £200 more per year for Co-op Pioneer compared with other non-fixed tariffs. In fact, Co-op will be roughly in the middle of the distribution (with about a dozen up to £200 cheaper, and a dozen up to £180 per expensive) so on that basis I would expect them to be adjusting downwards if they really are going to keep their promise about being among the cheapest in the long-term.

Coincidentally my increase will be about £200 pa as well, so they have shifted themselves from being cheapest to being just below average! But at least that £50 introductory discount has been applied which offsets it a bit.

kar999

Mr Crunch. It was always going to be a gamble switching as they were bound to put up their prices. Just a shame they are not as competitive for you as they are for me. You've banked some saving these last few months though. I may have missed out on some of the earlier fixes but I didnt want to fix anyway due to some strong market sentiment then, and even more so now, that wholesale prices could continue to fall.

Meggsy. I was also asked for meter reading on or around the 3rd of November as well but my anniversay of supply is today 28th of the month so I'm giving them a reading today and on 3rd Novemebr as you get 25 points for each reading EVERY month and I didnt want to lose out on Octobers points!

local_wanderer

I also got the notification email on the 30th September, so no grumble there. I also got a reminder to submit readings before the 3rd Nov as well - that is a first! The price model that they use is loaded towards lower users / people who have a fairly static usage - SSE (and the others) made their changes to the 1st tier prices more than the second, so if you only ever use a lower amount, you get really clobbered for the hikes. My electricit costs with SSE went up by 40+% based on my usage, as it was mainly on the lower tier.
I passed on my readings today, and had to call as my computer did something odd - got straight through to someone - very helpful, efficient and friendly. Can't remember the last time I had that from a power company. In fact, my record for holding in the past had been about 35 minutes listening to some banal statement about how valuable and important I was....
Been with the Co Op for about 4 months now, and still think I have a good deal - I might be able to save a few pounds by shopping around, but value is more than bottom line cost; based on everything, I have a cracking deal.

kar999

For those thinking of switching to the Coop they are offering £50 discount off the first bill again until 9th December. I believe that applies for just a single fuel switch or dual.

Mr_Crunch

Firstly, I definitely did not receive notification of the Coop price increase which others seem to have had on 29 Sept. I have informed them and hopefully they will do something to correct this for the future. (In fact it would still be possible to freeze the old tariff and switch despite this notification mess-up because I find now that they have allowed notice to switch up to 3 November rather than 20 working days from the 29 Sept notice which I did not get).

Secondly, they have now actually emailed that 29 Sept letter, and with further investigation all has become clear:

Coop had price lists which were Version 1.1, 2.1, 2.2 and now 3.0. The versions had higher prices per kwh as the version numbers increased - earlier version numbers were for earlier sign-up dates, and the earlier the sign-up, the lower the prices (although there was a West Midlands anomaly).

In my case, not knowing that the V2.1 tariff had been modified, and with the Coop website info about the price increase linking straight to the V3.0 tariff, I not unreasonably thought that I was being put onto V3.0, in the absence of a price notification email.

But they have not put everybody on V3.0. What they have done is to keep the version numbers the same but changed the tariffs themselves and the effective date of the increase (i.e. 1st or 3rd November). This is totally bizarre and confusing - it conforms with no version numbering protocol which I have experienced, and in the process the prices which prevailed on each tariff which existed prior to November have now been obliterated on the website (although fortunately I had downloaded them before the change). So, if you go to http://www.cooperativeenergy.coop/prices which has all 4 Version numbers they will each now contain the modified prices which apply for each tariff. It does say there "For customers who sign up between the following dates, the price table in the right hand column applies" but when you open your particular tariff you will be surprised that you will be looking at the same filename as you did before the increase, but with changed prices and date....Change the filename if you saved the old pricelist before and want to preserve it.

The net result is that with the introductory £50 cashback V2.1 Coop current prices work out fairly similar to their competition. Certainly not worth changing yet again. However, be careful using comparison sites because (unless someone knows of one which allows quarterly comsumption inputs) they just calculate based on even annual consumption. That makes the fatal error of treating summer quarters like winter ones, so if (for example) you have a summer consumption (usually for gas) which is all within the Tier 1 tariff of one of the Big 6 then the comparison sites will not allow for this, will not allow for low consumption within a quarterly allowance, and overstate the saving if switching from a one-price supplier like Ovo or Co-op to one of the large rip-off merchants who tier their pricing.

Finally, the points for giving meter readings may be a bonus but that is all they are. At 2p per point, 25 points per meter reading for 12 months is £6 per year and not really material for an annual bill which is in many cases the second largest from a single supplier, perhaps only exceeded by Council Tax.

kar999

Mr_Crunch wrote: »

Finally, the points for giving meter readings may be a bonus but that is all they are. At 2p per point, 25 points per meter reading for 12 months is £6 per year and not really material for an annual bill which is in many cases the second largest from a single supplier, perhaps only exceeded by Council Tax.

Dont forget in addition to the points for the meter readings you get points for every £ of consumption. It's not megabucks but it's still an extra discount especailly if like you, you've got high consumption. You can exchange your dividend points each year for cash.