Complicated Energy Tariffs

thescouselander

So I nearly ended up swapping to British gas for my utilities until they issued their price rise today. I had already arranged the transfer through USwitch so I needed to phone BG to see if it was still worth moving.


The unbelievable thing is that the person I spoke to at BG had massive trouble working out how much a years energy was going to cost even though I provided accurate annual usage figures. It took them several attempts to get to the right answer but they kept getting confused about the various discounts and adjustments that needed to be included.

If the utility company cant work out the costs what chance do any of us stand in trying to find the cheapest provider? Its just a massive scam and the utilities are deliberately obscuring the costs of their services - utter bobbins.


Rant over.

chris1973

The unbelievable thing is that the person I spoke to at BG had massive trouble working out how much a years energy was going to cost

You may have been through to the Executive Office, they clearly have problems with their sums too, as in needing to hike prices to consumers, despite still showing huge amounts of profit.

thescouselander

chris1973 wrote: »

You may have been through to the Executive Office, they clearly have problems with their sums too, as in needing to hike prices to consumers, despite still showing huge amounts of profit.

Good point - that probably explains it.

macman

You can calculate the precise cost in seconds, just put your annual kWh figs into a comp site.

thescouselander

macman wrote: »

You can calculate the precise cost in seconds, just put your annual kWh figs into a comp site.

Thats what I thought until I recently - the comparison sites only seem give an estimate and the actual cost seems to differ if you ask the energy company to give you a quote.

macman

Perhaps you could post the figs to support that please?

thescouselander

macman wrote: »

Perhaps you could post the figs to support that please?

I'm not going to do a full audit of the site but I know for a fact there are inaccuracies on Uswitch. For example, I am currently on Scottish power on-line energy 3 - Uswitch says there is no standing charge for electricity and the first tier is 110 p/kwh followed by a lower rate after so many units - this is miles out as there is a standing charge and only 1 rate for electricity. I did email them about this so I expect they will fix the problem soon.


Clearly you need to take a bit of care to confirm the Uswitch figures are correct before believing what they tell you.

moonrakerz

Does any one really expect the energy companies to give their prices in an uncomplicated way ??? If they did everyone could instantly see who was cheapest and then everyone would move to that company.

Pricing by confusion rules !!