MSE's Cheap Energy Club: Discuss & feedback

Gnans

Okay, I have chekced and done my switch now.
However after I entered my personal details, I'm unable to edit/see them in the Cheap energy club.

Also someone rang me this morning to talk about cheap telephone/broadband deals (definetely not convincing) which I wasn't expecting. I'm wondering if MSE is using data provided in cheap energy club to sell other stuff ??

MAB_Eddy

(Re-posting this here just in case - I originally emailed it to the address given for feedback in the original email about the Cheap Energy Club, but that now seems to have changed to this forum thread)

I've just got the email about the new Cheap Energy Club. It looks like a good idea, and I've been meaning to check my electricity prices for a while so I went to sign up straight away.

However, there is one feature I was really hoping it would have, which would be very useful (at least for me) and would further set it apart from normal comparison sites.

Rather than having to enter my actual annual or monthly usage, I'd like to be able to enter any meter readings that I've taken, along with the date of each reading, and it would work out what that averages out to over a year.

I don't know about anyone else, but the reason this would be particularly useful for me is because I'm currently away from home quite a lot of the time, so when I am there I usually get a quick photo of the electricity meter, with the intention of using several of them later to calculate my usage - which I haven't got round to doing yet. So having this functionality built-in would have made things a lot easier.

Also, because you're checking every month to see if there's a cheaper deal for each person, I think this would be particularly beneficial for your system - people could enter their current meter readings into your site whenever they feel like it, and it would use them to refine their average usage figure (or adjust to their recent usage, or even work out how their usage varies between different times of year) - which would ensure the comparisons stay accurate, or even become more accurate over time.

Hopefully this should all be quite easy for you to implement, if the technology behind it is as substantial as you say it is.

In the meantime, I'll finish signing up as soon as I get a chance to calculate my usage myself.

Wywth

MAB_Eddy wrote: »

(Re-posting this here just in case - I originally emailed it to the address given for feedback in the original email about the Cheap Energy Club, but that now seems to have changed to this forum thread)

I've just got the email about the new Cheap Energy Club. It looks like a good idea, and I've been meaning to check my electricity prices for a while so I went to sign up straight away.

However, there is one feature I was really hoping it would have, which would be very useful (at least for me) and would further set it apart from normal comparison sites.

Rather than having to enter my actual annual or monthly usage, I'd like to be able to enter any meter readings that I've taken, along with the date of each reading, and it would work out what that averages out to over a year.

I don't know about anyone else, but the reason this would be particularly useful for me is because I'm currently away from home quite a lot of the time, so when I am there I usually get a quick photo of the electricity meter, with the intention of using several of them later to calculate my usage - which I haven't got round to doing yet. So having this functionality built-in would have made things a lot easier.

Also, because you're checking every month to see if there's a cheaper deal for each person, I think this would be particularly beneficial for your system - people could enter their current meter readings into your site whenever they feel like it, and it would use them to refine their average usage figure (or adjust to their recent usage, or even work out how their usage varies between different times of year) - which would ensure the comparisons stay accurate, or even become more accurate over time.

Hopefully this should all be quite easy for you to implement, if the technology behind it is as substantial as you say it is.

In the meantime, I'll finish signing up as soon as I get a chance to calculate my usage myself.

Try imeasure.org.uk

tallgareth

Amontylado wrote: »

Hello - I have input my exact details for gas and electricity usage over the past year and the calculator tells me I can save £383 by switching to a different supplier (Spark) to pay £160 per month. Well as I currently pay Eon £132 per month and my account is in credit even after the cold winter period I don't see how this can be correct. I have double checked the information I entered and it is definitely right. I think there may be a bug in the calculation tool.

As I said in my earlier comment, I think there is a bug in the calculation tool. It reckons I use £180 worth of gas+elec a month, but when I do the calculation using the same kWh usage numbers and the pence-per-kWh and standing charge figures from my bill I only use ~£100.

typistretired

I input the exact annual figures for electric and gas which my supplier emailed me in November when they revised my direct debit payment.

I was very pleased that only Sparks was a better package, which I will not be changing to, as I have never heard of them and like to stay with what I know. It would only have saved £50 a year and their prices could go up again soon anyway.

typistretired

[/QUOTE]1. The site says it is a Beta version but there's nowhere to report bugs, email screen shots etc for those who have a problem.
for example, I went to edit the amount of saving that triggers an email but it doesn't save that change.[/QUOTE]

I input for them to contact me if I could make any savings and my email stated the following

You asked us to tell you when you can save £ 0

So something wrong there!!!!!

annievparis

I signed up to this and put my info in, first I did the yearly consumption, then I did the amount I pay a year. These came out vastly different, how come? The yearly consumption should be the correct one, but came out a lot more than I pay, yet saying they could save me money, most confused!!!

Shuggieg

Wendy_MB wrote: »

I have joined the club and entered my gas and elec usage (based on an average of my years usage for 2012). I paid £135 per month to Eon for all of last year for this usage, which totals £1620 and your site is comparing prices and telling me that I only paid £233.44 per year for my energy???

Please help as I don't know from this if I will benefit from switching to NPower like it is telling me to or if your site is wrong in this case?

Check you have the right drop down clicked ie per month or per year

AJ16

The Cheap Energy Club website should be either drastically revised or scrapped as it's misleading. In common with others I found that the results are inaccurate when compared to the suppliers websites. Also if you check the reviews of Spark Energy which comes out tops they are awful. I will be doing it manually from now on and leaving the CEC.
Martin you need to sort this as I alerted you in my tweet which you received.

pollyloppy

I was very happy with my experience of the cheap energy deals site. It came at the right time, as my current energy supplier's early exit fees finished today, so now is a good time to look at switching again..

I entered my yearly consumption of gas and electricity in KWh, and it estimated the price I would pay for my gas and electric with my current supplier (EON) at exactly the same price as EON themselves had quoted me (good start).

Looking at the comparison, initially, spark came out the cheapest - £153 cheaper - for a variable rate tariff (as has been the experience of a lot of other people by the looks of it), but it did warn that the prices were likely to go up soon, and there was no cashback. So then, I looked at the cheapest fixed deal, which was first utility. It is still a saving of £86 a year on what I would pay if I stuck with my current deal. On top of that is the potentially £70 cashback, which would take my total saving to £156 per year, beating sparks tariff. - so decided to switch to first utility.

n.b. I say potentially £70 cash back, as I am unsure of the T&C around cashback - I guess I am definitely getting £30 cash back from using MSEs site, and an additional £40 cash back is quoted if I sign up by 15th Feb, so whether "successfully sign up" means enter your details and initiate switch, then I'll get another £40, otherwise if I need to have successfully switched, or at least passed the cooling off period, then I might not get it...watch this space)

Overall, very happy bunny