A Word Of Caution

zantos

Last night I had a phone call from an Indian call centre and the gentleman thanked me for swithing using Energy helpline and asked if he could try to save me more money (I had switched over a year ago). I told him I was on a fixed contract that he then told me I could terminate for £20. He persisted in asking for all my usage details and then "discovered" that I could "save" £86 a year by switching to another supplier. I thanked him and told him that if I switched online I would receive an additional £15 which he didn't like and proceeded to try and apply pressure on me to agree to switch there and then with him. Needelees to say I declined. Upon checking on the Energy Helpline website and filling in the exact figures I had given him I found that I "theoretically" could save £86. BUT ON READING THE SMALL PRINT this saving is based on the "projected" changes when my existing fixed contract is up - presumably thinking I would then revert to a "standard" more expensive tarriff. Upon using the option on their site that compares without this assumption it clearly stated that I would be £24 worse off a year and this was not including the £20 pound I would need to pay to terminate my existing contract.
This just shows that it pays NOT to sign up to a deal even from "an independent advisor" as he called himself without checking ALL the details yourself - which he said he had done for me!:rotfl:
He seemed very upset that I should not be grateful to him for virtually reading the questions from their website to me and giving the final answer while ommitting the fact that serious assumptions had been made over a) the future price of electricity and b) what tarrif I would be on when my contract finished.:eek:
Although I appreciate that this website does provide helpful information I must object to their use of my data for follow up calls just to makr money for themselves - if only the £15 I could have lost.

macman

The telephone number option on energyhelpline is entirely optional, don't put it in if you don't want marketing calls. Much better to use the site to find the best deal and the switch via a cashback site.

zantos

I agree that you don't need to leave your telephone number BUT was also highlighting that Energy Helpline publish, as a default, there "vision" of what the future will hold regarding electricity prices rather than showing the straight forward version that they could use. Other sites just do a comparison Energy Helpline seem to be capable of seeing into the future and base their default comparison on WHAT MIGHT BE rather than using what is:j Who can tell what the future holds? I find this a misguided at the very least way for a comparison website to work and sense that it is driven by profit that can be made by encouraging a person to switch providers by distorting the facts rather than providing a genuine service.

macman

All the comp sites give prices 12m ahead. If the tariff is due to finish by that date, then the remaining months will be based on the default tariff specified by the supplier.