Are Switching Sites A Con?>??

BritishGasWorker

Hi Guys

I have been reading and answering these boards for a little while now so I thought I would give some extra back to you guys...I have just done a direct comparison between three Switching Sites..and I am shocked and suprised on my results i found..I used the following on each site and you will be suprised to see what I got..

I put the following into there search engines,,

Annual money consumption on both gas and electric @ £500 each
Both on Direct monthly fixed direct Debit
Postcode of SO1* *** my own postcode kept this private for obvious reasons
I said i was on the British Gas standard current tariff.

I wanted to find the cheapest tariff for my area to pay as I am now. I used the same on ALL the sites..

I have listed the Top 3 hits from each site ALL using the same formula above.

Uswitch

Top of the list

British Gas click 2 saving 134.56
PowerGen Eon Saving 133.35
Scottish Power Saving 121.45

The Energyhelpline

Utilita energy saver Saving 122.00
British Gas CLick 2 Saving 121.00
Powergen Extra savers online 2 Saving 120.00

The EnergyShop

British Gas Click 2 Saving 120.63
Powergen Eon Saving 119.34
Utilita Saving 107.17


Now since I work in the industry I know for a Fact British Gas click 2 would be the best option for me if I was on the std tariff but you can see instantly that they dont know how to work this out...there is a diffrence on all of them..the smallest diffrence of around £2.00 to the very big diffrence of over £15.00...I would say that these pricing sites are flawed..and actually over the year..the best saving I would get would save me per month a grand total of £11.00 per month on both fuels

Please I would ask others to check this out as well...lets see exaclty what you would save against what you are paying at the moment..The advertiments are cleaver they say save £250 a year etc..however, what they dont tell you is that is the worst comparison diffrence you could imagin...
Usualy they choose the most exspensive way of pay for you fuel....EG prepayment and vs against the cheapest direct debit out there in the country..it is very very rare you save as much as they say! give it a go..i am sure I am not the only one out there curiouse about all this.

tomstickland

It doesn't make British Gas into a market leading service company either way though. The advice is to start with the switching companies and then go and check the maths yourself.

NigeWick

The only sure way is to get the price per unit, any standing charges and other fees included in the cost and compare the results oneself. I suspect that these switching sites skew their results to show the companies who pay them most in the best light.

Nigel.

MoneyMiser

Hi All,

I would have to disagree with you NigeWick as there are a lot of other factors to take into account other than the unit rates and standing charges. For exapmple a company can charge a high unit rate nut offer a bigger discount, therefore making them the cheapest.

All these sites are more of a guidline on who is the cheapest and if you notice are all in the same order. The reason Utilita appear is because some sites only list what they get paid for(Uswitch, energyshop), whereas others are obliged to show all the suppliers regardless of having a deal with them or not (EnergyHelpline). I believe the £15 difference is a discount offered by British Gas to its dual fuel customers. Looks like Energyshop and Energyhelpline have not factored this discount into their prices.

wills34

if you don't use your kWh the comparison sites will estimate your kWh not just based on the cash amounts you give but also the additional information. If you use your kWh all the energywatch accredited brokers should gave the same amounts if they dont't then report broker to energywatch

dc

The comparison sites tend to be biased, for their own reasons, as has been said many times here.
.

So they should be used as a guide/pointer only . As Will 34 said, to get an accurate comparison, you should hone your findings by pricing the Kw's you use and your prefered payment methods and any discounts offered. Harder but better IMHO.

Your findings could be considered biased as you seem to have gone for a dual fuel comparison, ( with BG in mind?) which highlight the BG £15 dual fuel discount. At mo Click2 seems to be best for Leccy, but will not be the cheapest for gas due to the current competition regulations which prevent BG undercutting the competition.

MoneyMiser

dc wrote: »

The comparison sites tend to be biased, for their own reasons, as has been said many times here.
.

Surely in this case then we should only use comparrison sites that have an EnergyWatch accreditation. There is now way energywatch would approve the site if they were biased in any way.

wills34

the sites will still show a slight bias just in a clever way. For example Uswitch will not include Ebico unless you ask to show all tariffs including social tariffs, Uswitch will show Bgas but will not let you switch to them due to a dispute between both companies. Other sites will have similar set ups for example Simply Switch will strongly promote Atlantic over the phone if you call them possibly some arrangement between the two. Read all options carefully when getting a quote online always use an energywatch accredited broker and try to use your kWh and the sites should sing from a simlilar hym sheet. As energywatch accredit certain brokers they monitor and audit these sites which means they should state when last updated and be has up to date as possibly and are responsible for any quote given and must give the customer THE OPTION of being able to SEE (not necessarily apply to) all online and standard domestic tariffs available on the market. They should not blatantly show bias, if they do e-mail the query to energywatch as the could lose their accreditation

Cardew

They are a 'con' in another way. They are an unnecessary overhead(middleman or parasite) factored into the prices we pay for our gas and electricity. The £millions in commission they earn is paid for by us customers.

With modern technology it will be very easy to set up a similar comparison website. It seems a great pity that a Government funded organisation like the Energy Saving Trust(or Energywatch) don't operate an independant site - which would not be biased and include companies like Ebico.

Save us £millions as well.

MoneyMiser

Cardew wrote: »

They are a 'con' in another way. They are an unnecessary overhead(middleman or parasite) factored into the prices we pay for our gas and electricity. The £millions in commission they earn is paid for by us customers.

With modern technology it will be very easy to set up a similar comparison website. It seems a great pity that a Government funded organisation like the Energy Saving Trust(or Energywatch) don't operate an independant site - which would not be biased and include companies like Ebico.

Save us £millions as well.

Cardew, where do you get your information from?

Although it is true that the comparrison sites earn a commision from the suppliers, this commision is in no way paid by the customer in any underhand way such as factoring them into the prices.

IMHO comparrison sites with EnergyWatch accreditation are not biased and will show all providers and tariffs available. British Gas' Click Energy 2 is probably the cheapest at the moment in most areas the comparrison sites reflect this.

If the comparrison site listed suppliers in order of how much commision they earnt, which will definately vary from each site then we would have results all over the place. EnergyHelpline would show British Gas, Simply Switch would show PowerGen, USwitch would show Scottish Power.

I thought EBICo were an agent of the Scottish and Southern Energy Group i.e. Southern Electric, SWALEC etc Most comparrison site will not list agents!!

wills34

Some sites try to hide ebico but you can unlock them (on most good sites)on the include social tariff option or the option for including the tariffs that pay the broker to switch you. The brokers will try to make a profit obviously and will only offer switching facilities to favoured companies, however they should at least allow you to view all tariffs. Switching sites in the main i believe have been beneficial to the majority who use them, particularly those using them or switching for the first time although they are flawed particularly for the more experienced switcher they can be frustrating and to those on fixed tariffs be careful always check the price per kWh of the deal you are switching to