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Ebico energy reviews: Give your feedback
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As to savings you should look at the annual costs of the new tariffs compared with your current one rather than savings - especially if on a fix (but this is unlikely with Ebico.) But when switching to Ebico this may be the confusion over savings you encountered. C.f. lots of threads.
Can you explain a bit further how the estimated usage and second sites influences standing charges?
There is confusion if you are on a fixed rate tariff that finishes in the next 12 months. Some comparison sites make the assumption that you will switch to the company's expensive standard tariff for the remainder of the 12 month term and give a price based on that assumption. e.g. if your fixed rate tariff finishes in 3 months time, they will give current costs for 3 months on the fixed tariff and 9 months on their standard tariff.
In your example of Ebico charging £1,000 pa, any tariff showing a £300 saving will have taken into account the Daily Standard Charge on the new tariff.
On the subject of meter readings when switching, they will usually accept the reading you give(the gaining company will ask for the reading). However if the losing company feel that the reading is inaccurate they can object - they use a complex computer algorithm to estimate a reading on a specific date.
It is pertinent to point out that some posters on MSE openly advocate 'fudging' the meter readings to their advantage.
You may have missed them, but there have been the rare occassions in the past that the odd comparison site does get it wrong (but nowhere near the number of posts on MSE suggesting so)
Usually the error can be identified with a little further investigation. (I can only remember once where I had no idea where a certain comparison site was getting it's figures for a certain supplier & tariff, probably in a specific region too, from)
Typically the errors occur due to an error in the unit rates or standing charge applied, perhaps confusing E7 with non-E7 rates or using the wrong region's rates.
That is why I would always recommend consulting at least 2 different, independent comparison sites as it's very unlikely that 2 separate sites will make the same error.
Having made that recomendation, I do remember once when several comparison sites did make the same error, and so gave the same erroneous output. It is unlikely to occur today with Ofgem's new regulations, but in the past a certain supplier on a certain tariff gave a prompt payment discount of something like £25 per quarter for those paying quarterly on receipt of bill, and importantly this was guaranteed for those paying quarterly by DD. assuning the DD was met. (i.e £100 a year). Then that supplier, on one tariff update, quietly changed that discount to £25 per year. (I may have got the figures wrong, but that was the gist of what went wrong) To be fair, this change was hidden in the middle of something like a 37 page document, so it was not too surprising that some of the comparison sites had missed it.
The amount will be reviewed more often than only at the end of a year. Remember that any underpayment will be repaid at at least twice the delta. If you underpay by £300 then both that arrears plus that assumed ongoing usage has to be paid for - so the increase in payments will be £50 per month not £25. Seasonal adjustments may also be applied.
(Of course, being Ebico, you may prefer to just pay quarterly on receipt of your bill as there is no discount for paying monthly.)
Nada answered it for you
My only beef is that MSE CheapEnergyClub didnt tell me about what I could be saving as by default the search was only showing suppliers that involved cashback. Would have moved 2 or 3 years ago if I had known.
That doesn't sound right. I thought the MSE CEC gave details of all tariffs whether or not they can actually switch you.
Where is the ability on the site to change this?
(other comparison sites do offer this option, but I can't find it on the CEC)
Also, the CEC is actually a notification service rather than just a conventional comparison site - it sends you alerts when there is a cheaper deal available. Surely it sends details of any tariff that beats what you are curently paying, not just ones they can eran from from by switching you to. Well it does for me, and I can't see where to change that.
(The only filter that the customer can set is the level of saving to be achieved before notification is sent.)
There is also a filter that allows you to compare only those tariffs with zero standing charge, but you have to set that ... and I'm not sure why you would. Just leave filters as wide as possible and compare the whole market - the cheapest deal is then quite clear
The other filter that the CEC insists you set is how you prefer to pay. e.g. monthly dd, quarterly cash/cheque, etc. Not sure why they don't offer the possibility of "any" which some comparison site do.
As I mentioned in the other thread you posted this in, the official way Ebico spell this out is that they do not offer any discount to customers paying monthly by DD (despite if being less cost to them to collect money this way)
This is because they efficively use this money to subsidise those that are on a PPM which are otherwise more expensive to service.