Energy Co-Operative - Oldham’s Collective Energy Switching Scheme

Wywth

patman99 wrote: »

I did the Big Switch and chose the Co-Op even though it worked-out £75 a year more expensive than the EDF Blue choice. Noe that the Co-Op has dropped it's prices by 2% & EDF has increased theirs, the difference is nothing.
Add on the fact that you can become a member of the Co-Op and get back a share of the profits in cold, hard cash and they are now the cheaper option.

EDF Blue is (and was) a fixed tariff, so you wouldn't have been affected by any price increases announced by EDF.

The Co-op recent price reduction of 2% for electricity is just a reversal of an unjustified increase of a similar amount in the summer.
(They haven't reduced gas because they claim that increase at the same time was justified)

So you have been and still are paying £75 per year more than you otherwise needed to. (infact you've been paying even a little more due to the unjustified price increase of electricity by the Co-op they imposed for a few months, and the increase in gas prices if you have that too.)

Mikebellows

Latest on the Co-Op scheme in Oldham...

http://www.oldham-chronicle.co.uk/news-features/8/news-headlines/75738/power-cut-171

Wywth

So, according to that latest article, the average user could expect to save just £171 on that scheme, whereas following MSE Martin's guide, the average user could save over £250

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/you-switch-gas-electricity

No brainer really... :cool:

Why restrict yourself to just 2 suppliers (currently Ovo for online billing or co-op for paper based billing) when you could have the option of the whole of market to choose from?

Note, neither supplier appears to have offered anything other than their generally available tariffs either

PPM customers didn't even get a look in! :eek:

No need to wait, using MSE Martin's guide. You can compare and start the switching process today! You could be making the savings before the next scheme is even closed to bidders (at which point it'll still take weeks to switch supplier even if you do accept any offer)

Don't forget, you could even get cashback switching to Ovo or Co-op via a comparison site (using the special MSE links). Presumably the council will pocket this themselves if you switch via them. Someone said it's nothing less than Moet at this years councillor's Christmas party

backfoot

I heard Martin saying on Radio 5 Live yesterday, that he thought the model for the future of Competition at Supply level, was via such schemes.

He felt the majority of switching would occur through this method.

Wywth

backfoot wrote: »

I heard Martin saying on Radio 5 Live yesterday, that he thought the model for the future of Competition at Supply level, was via such schemes.

He felt the majority of switching would occur through this method.

Indeed, in the future

i.e. when the government ban the suppliers from offering the multitude of tariffs they currently offer and hence the possible deals still currently available. (maybe as late as 2014)

As he also said, he's not happy with the model for collective switching at present, but it could be worked on to be improved.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p0rqz (29mins 30 seconds in)

backfoot

These schemes are gathering momentum and in my view add beneficailly to the range of options.

The attraction for many customers is that they feel they can trust intermediaries such as Councils, Age Concern and Which much more than they do the Suppliers and the Comparison Websites.

They have a chance of driving prices down because of bulk switching much more than individual switches, which have been a notable failure in that respect.

Early days, lets see how it goes.