DD Price Hike from £60 to £85/month! Switching help!

babyfreckles

We are currently with Eon for our gas and electric, paying by DD £60 a month, and have been paying this ever since we moved in in 2007. Got a letter from them saying as of begining Dec our DD will go up to £85 to cover the cost of the gas/elec over the winter period, plus covering the price rise. We are not currently in debt with them, and never have been.

I havent switched before as these were our providers when we first moved into the property - Any reccomendations to who I should switch to? We can afford to pay an extra £25 a month, but feel why should we if we are not in debt with them, and surely we will not be usign an extra £25 a month?!

Any advice greatly recieved..

jalexa

babyfreckles wrote: »

Any reccomendations to who I should switch to?

There are several recent threads explaining (but not justifying) this. You are entitled to be given a detailed calculation but given the time at £60 it seems quite a modest increase. Not being in "debt" (or debit) is not a good defence as suppliers (rightly or wrongly) are looking for a significant pre-winter credit balance.

As far as switching is concerned, enter your annual consumptions (in kWhrs) given on your most recent annual statement, and your current tariff, into a comparison website and you will get a list of supplier/tariffs in price order.

deshepherd

jalexa wrote: »

There are several recent threads explaining (but not justifying) this. You are entitled to be given a detailed calculation but given the time at £60 it seems quite a modest increase. Not being in "debt" (or debit) is not a good defence as suppliers (rightly or wrongly) are looking for a significant pre-winter credit balance.

As far as switching is concerned, enter your annual consumptions (in kWhrs) given on your most recent annual statement, and your current tariff, into a comparison website and you will get a list of supplier/tariffs in price order.

If you switch then the new supplier will almost certainly give you a quote based on annual usage/12 per month ... there's no way they'll look competive if they aim for a zero balance in spring this year. So you'll have lower DD's for now ... however you'll probably just postpone the issue as in spring you'll have debit balance and they'll either adjust the DD then to reclaim this over 12 months until spring 2013 or, they may just leave it until this time next year and instead of a £60->£85 increase it will be £60->£110. With the way energy companies have changed the way they handle DD accounts (I think following an instruction from Ofgem to avoid allowing people to get into debt and thus not be able to switch easily) then at some point you are going to have to take the hit to reach a spring zero balance.