Scottish Power - 25% price hike ?

BBDom

Just had an email through from Scottish Power saying my prices were going to increase. I was expecting this but wasn't expecting a 25% hike on part of my tariff.

*edited this bit because I managed to mess up my dates lol !

Here are the rates they have sent through to me - there is a 12% increase on the first 225kwh daytime, 25% increase on the remainder (the majority of my bill) and 10% increase on the night usage. I obviously don't fall into their "average 7% increase" customer base :eek:

My annual discounts have also halved from £10.50 a year to £5.25

Electricity prices     Prices before 3rd December 2012  Prices from 3rd December 2012
First 225kWh used each quarter     21.368p     23.913p
All/Day remaining kWh     10.748p     13.469p
Night Units per kWh     5.618p     6.179p

BBDom

Oh and I finally managed to get a message through on their website even though it was constantly crashing and giving me page errors. I couldn't even read their T&Cs because of the problems.

good_advice

This price rise is affecting many customers across fuel tariffs.
Some customers are locked into deals with £60 exit fee's.
For weeks now people have been advising to move to a fixed rate online DD acount for the cheapest deal.

tichtich

Just guessing, but I bet that "7% average" includes all the people who are on fixed tariffs, and who are treated as having had a 0% increase, bringing the average way down. If so, that would be a very misleading figure, because it would fail to account for the increased price of new fixes.

I'd love to know just how they calculate that average. The existence of fixed tariffs means there's no straightforward way to do it. Do you treat people on fixed tariffs (a) as having had no increase, (b) as if they'd switched to the new fixed tariffs, or (c) leave them out of the calculation altogether? All of these methods have drawbacks, but (a) would be grossly misleading.

BBDom

Good question tichtich - I've posted this on here as I know Scottish Power representatives monitor the MSE board so I'll invite them to comment.

tichtich

Update. It looks like the calculations are based on the standard tariff only. An nPower representative appearing in another thread said that all the companies' announced figures were based on standard tariffs. SP's press release (http://www.scottishpower.com/PressReleases_2100.htm) is very unclear, but reading between the lines does seem to suggest that it uses a standard tariff and assumes average consumption. So it's not a realistic figure.

In fact it's a very misleading figure, since the energy companies have apparently adopted a policy of reducing the differential between standard and discounted tariffs by increasing the discounted tariffs disproportionately. The reduction of that differential is a good thing in itself, in my opinion. But because their press releases makes no mention of the far greater increases in other tariffs, the figures given are deceptive and virtually useless. The headline announcement is this:

Gas prices to increase by an average of 2%, electricity prices increase by an average of 8.9%

Utterly misleading.

Scottish_Power

BBDom if you e-mail [EMAIL="onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com"]onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com[/EMAIL] I can provide specific advice on your account and see if we can offer you a better deal to avoid the price increase, such as Fixed Price April 2014. Thanks David @ ScottishPower

tichtich

P.S. I can see the difficulty of coming up with a realistic average figure. But if the companies can't do it, they shouldn't claim to have one, and they shouldn't publish the figure at all without clearly explaining that it's not representative of prices overall.

wakeupalarm

They should be forced to publish price increases for each and every tariff they offer. With some of them offering close to 100 different tariffs, it will make their claim of simple tariffs a laughing stock.

Cardew

scottishpower_company_representative wrote: »

BBDom if you e-mail [EMAIL="onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com"]onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com[/EMAIL] I can provide specific advice on your account and see if we can offer you a better deal to avoid the price increase, such as Fixed Price April 2014. Thanks David @ ScottishPower

David,
Your input to these form is appreciated.

Would it be possible to find out from your 'masters' just how the average price increase is calculated.

For instance if it is, say, an 7% average increase, is that on your total revenue, including as mused by tichtich above, the fixed/capped price tariffs that do not increase.

e.g. If, say, your total revenue from gas/electricity sales is £100million (including fixed/capped) will the increase in your revenue be £7million?

This would mean that if, say, £50 million was from fixed/capped sales, the average increase on the non-fixed tariffs would be have to be 14% to raise an extra £7million.

jalexa

BBDom wrote: »

Just had an email through from Scottish Power saying my prices were going to increase. I was expecting this but wasn't expecting a 25% hike on part of my tariff.

Your current day secondary unit price of 10.748p/unit is incredibly low. Please can I get some of that. This is just guesswork but I guess you are on a "guaranteed discount" tariff which had an initial discount significantly greater than the "guaranteed minimum".

If so perhaps a glass half full approach is to see that you have enjoyed a really good rate but now the party is over. And also that 13.469p/unit is still a good price for daytime E7.

In the circumstances you find yourself in it is possible to switch without liability for any early termination charges though the SP advisers may "deny" it (per previous threads).

Alternatively, next time choose a fixed rate.