MSE News: MoneySavingExpert.com turns energy market upside down 4 February 2013 at 10:00AM in Energy 92 replies 7.4K views

Former_MSE_Jamie

"Revolutionary free new Cheap Energy Club launches to ensure permanently cheap deals ..."

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MoneySavingExpert.com turns energy market upside down



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shammyjack

Factoring in exit fees no savings except SPARK saving £11 per annum, still has price rises to come and has a poor reputation .

Waiting to hear from a Manchester lead collective saving scheme. Utilities put in auction bids at the end of January.

phillo365

Not sure if this is a good or bad no savings except £10 per year with SPARK who I have never heard of and are due a price increase. I can't help thinking this service is targetted at the wrong people ie existing moneysaving experts. I wonder if this is more to do with the sale of this site to Money Supermarket.

SnowMan

Seems a logical idea.

Because moneysavingexpert is trusted, I expect a lot of people will sign up.

I've signed up and it all works OK.

I suspect the only problem is that many customers are on tariffs with fixed end dates with exit penalties for leaving early. Npower also has its £100 direct debit discount scam which means you need to switch away just after an anniversary and not before to avoid losing out.

So it may be of limited use to know there is a cheaper tariff out there when realistically you can't switch because of the exit penalties until the end of the tariff. And so if you are well organised you will just go to a comparison site when your existing tariff ends. Not everyone is organised of course.

For some of the EDF contracts which allow you to switch away early this could be really useful.

And of course it is a ready database for collective switching. And so if you sign up you may get lucky with a good collective deal offer.

So overall a good idea, and I’ll be suggesting to friends and family that they might want to sign up.

Bark01

The major problem with this service is that prices are only going to go up for the foreseeable future, so offering a service that tells you when something cheaper comes out doesn't really offer any real use.

Still its not doing any harm.

Does it offer the same cashback for switches as Moneysupermarket?

WestonDave

Interesting to see that neither of the issues I raised when this was tested have been addressed.

What this really is, is a rebranded front end to Moneysupermarket.com (which will be where your personal data ends up) fronted with the MSE trusted status.

There is absolutely no need to have to put in your address - the post code is sufficient, but of course that doesn't give them your house number for junk mail later. You can't progress without this.

Also as previously stated (and interestingly Moneysupermarket doesn't have this flaw) it gets the Good Energy tariff wrong because it doesn't allow for the South West discount which applies within certain areas.

Thankfully I've used junk personal data (albeit using a random actual address) so it won't be harvesting my data!

SnowMan

WestonDave wrote: »

Thankfully I've used junk personal data (albeit using a random actual address) so it won't be harvesting my data!

In terms of privacy read the privacy policy (which includes a section about the energy club), didn't remotely concern me but suggest others read that also and come to their own view. In particular although Money Supermarket does provide the service of course it says

Under no circumstances will we pass your details on to MSM [Money Supermarket] for marketing purposes.

That is good enough for me.

WestonDave

Yes it does say that - just above the bit where it says

"where we would like to share certain moneysaving information with you [(no more than [x] times a year]). "

Doesn't exactly fill you with confidence that this is a document they take that seriously. As I said there is no need to harvest your actual postal address because your supply tariff is based on your postcode, not your individual house number.

WestonDave

Jennifer_Jane wrote: »

Hope you're not, by some remote chance, using my address. Isn't this a little unneighbourly?

No its an address I know is empty and about to be demolished for redevelopment!

brewerdave

WestonDave wrote: »

No its an address I know is empty and about to be demolished for redevelopment!

...........if I have to use a house number I use the address of an unpleasant neighbour who allows his dog to roam free and defecate where it fancies!!!:rotfl:

Wywth

brewerdave wrote: »

...........if I have to use a house number I use the address of an unpleasant neighbour who allows his dog to roam free and defecate where it fancies!!!:rotfl:

Unfortunately, you can only use addresses that appear on the postcode database (there is no option to put in your own address from scratch or modify an existing one)

So if your address is not on the list, you are not coming in the club! :cool:

I'm sure this was another shortfall identified in the pilot but not addressed.