MSE News: 'Huge Switch' aims to beat Which? 'Big Switch' 30 March 2012 at 1:31PM in Energy 17 replies 3.6K views

Former_MSE_Guy

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"A rival to consumer group Which?'s campaign has been launched by Energyhelpline.com ..."

Read the full story:
'Huge Switch' aims to beat Which? 'Big Switch'

MillicentBystander

Great, another email harvesting initiative that very probably won't guarantee anything like the best deal. Anyone remember the fuel one a few years ago? I got marketing emails for years....

meggsy

British Gas refuses to take part in the Which Big Switch

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/household-bills/9175504/British-Gas-refuses-to-take-part-in-Big-Switch.html

victor2

Which? arguably has more potential signatories than Energyhelpline and still has only attracted a little over 200,000 possible customers. Would make them a nice little sum if it works, but why would energy providers give Which? £40 per customer when comparison sites effectively advertise their rates (if competitive) for free?

patman99

Then BG will miss-out on gaining new customers instead of losing some.

The Which 'Big switch' commission payments will go to funding more consumer investigations and campaigns.

The Energyhelpline 'Huge switch' commission payments will go towards the shareholders premiums.

I know which one I'd rather see my cash go to.

Premier_2

Great marketing spin there by EHL, but remember the amount of profit the intermediary takes is unimportant; all that matters is what is the cheapest cost to the consumer ... and the myriad of tariffs and suppliers currently available clearly indicates this isn't a one size fits all.

I'm not sure how this is supposed to work.
Either they plan to set up their own supply company and do everything (billing, customer service, etc) like multimillionaire, Matt Stockdale spectacularly failed to do with his atcostenergy company ... and he said he wasn't going to earn any commission at all.

Or, they will approach the companies and do a deal with one to supply & handle all the billing etc, just as non-profit making Ebico currently do with their supply partner SSE.
But whilst Ebico may be good for some, (in this case the low users, and those on PPMs who they target) it clearly is not the cheapest for everyone.

As I said with the Which? campaign, and I said with the atcostenergy promotions at the time ... and I said with the pipedream, sorry Pipeline, card that was promising to get us cheap petrol/diesel but is now spamming those who signed up with that energy company we cannot mention here, be careful what you sign up for ... and don't expect anything soon.

Just keep using those comparison sites (and yes I do like EHL for that) to check for the best deal that suits your individual household requirements.

Blackdog

Also worth considering is the Peoples Power who are only taking £2 commission and it's a community interest company. www.thePeoplesPower.co.uk

They say they have signed up some Housing Associations and are having a big push to get more people signed up by Easter.

Reaper

MillicentBystander wrote: »

Great, another email harvesting initiative that very probably won't guarantee anything like the best deal. Anyone remember the fuel one a few years ago? I got marketing emails for years....

Not only that but the Fuel people did a group energy deal as well similar to these schemes. I went along with it but it turned out more expensive than the tariff I was on. I fully expect both these schemes to similarly fail to be the cheapest on the market.

thelawnet

Which? is increasingly irrelevant in the internet age, and are having to pimp themseves out to washing up liquid manufacturers and come up with schemes like this to raise revenue to make up for the fact that much of their printed output is now available from free, consumer-generated websites for free. If you want to buy a TV in this day in age, the Which magazine is no longer the place to go for advise.

Consumerist

It's hard to see how energy customers could do any better than by using the energy comparison sites, particularly when coupled with possible cash-back incentives.

I think it's going to take action by Ofgem, to force the energy suppliers to advise their customers of the discounts they offer on their other tariffs, to achieve more widespread savings in energy costs.

The downside, of course, is that the more widely the cheaper tariffs are taken up, the more likely it is that competition will close the gap between the cheaper and the more expensive tariffs.

Michael_Nottingham

victor2 wrote: »

but why would energy providers give Which? £40 per customer when comparison sites effectively advertise their rates (if competitive) for free?

Yes true the comparison sites have to quote all the rates - but they all take a cut for any deals that they switch the customer to online - a good guide how much is the cashback you can get from Quidco / TopCashback etc. So likely to cost them a similar amount to the Which cut