Flawed Comparison sites

hannahp

I am trying to help my son to switch from Npower after long standing problems.:(

A standing charge (Gas approx 45p a day Elec approx10p a day) introduced in may ( that We had not got a letter about !) is penalising him as a low Gas user (Reasonable electric usage though)

Most of the comparison sites don't seem to realise this charge exists & are therefore giving wrong results !!!!

Help please I am going around in circles & am actually contemplating going with Ebico because they don't have a standing charge......But I would like to do some price comparisons first

victor2

Enter your annual kWh usage into the comparison sites (if it's not on your bills, the current supplier should be able to tell you what it is) to get realistic estimates of the cost. They will include the standing charge where appropriate. More suppliers are moving away from "no standing charge" tariffs now, but Ebico seem to be a good choice for very low users.

Nada666

Please name a single comparison site that is unaware (today) of nPower's standing charges?

If you compared in March or April before the price change and restructure then they may have used an old tariff.

Note that npower do offer other tariffs with a cheaper gas standing charge (£85 rather than £165). You should also consider when the anniversary of his joining npower is and work out whether to wait for his £105 annual entitlement.

It may be worthwhile switching both fuels to the cheaper tariff and even if there is a termination penalty just switch the gas after the next date of the annual credit.

hannahp

Nada666 wrote: »

Please name a single comparison site that is unaware (today) of nPower's standing charges?

If you compared in March or April before the price change and restructure then they may have used an old tariff.

Note that npower do offer other tariffs with a cheaper gas standing charge (£85 rather than £165). You should also consider when the anniversary of his joining npower is and work out whether to wait for his £105 annual entitlement.

It may be worthwhile switching both fuels to the cheaper tariff and even if there is a termination penalty just switch the gas after the next date of the annual credit.

EG:- Uswitch.com
I have just told the website the plan he is on is (Bill saver) and definately no recognition of standing charge IE put 10kw gas 10kw elec PerAnnum & total is -£102.27 PA (yes minus) presumably knows dual fuel discount however I know the gas standing charge alone is approx £164PA so that on is obviously wrong.

Another site which I can't find at the moment stated no standing charge.
I will definately check the anniversary (Good point ) as the discount willl help compensate the new charge.

Been a busy and stressfilled day already so i will continue to search & consider Ebico.

victor2

According to nPower's website, the original Bill Saver tariff (now discontinued) has no standing charge, but all the other versions of it do. So if you told uSwitch he is currently on Bill Saver (as against something like Bill Saver August 2013), it would not calculate a standing charge as there isn't one.
Maybe he was switched onto an nPower tariff with a standing charge on it?

hannahp

victor2 wrote: »

According to nPower's website, the original Bill Saver tariff (now discontinued) has no standing charge, but all the other versions of it do. So if you told uSwitch he is currently on Bill Saver (as against something like Bill Saver August 2013), it would not calculate a standing charge as there isn't one.
Maybe he was switched onto an nPower tariff with a standing charge on it?

Thankyou very much for your reply.

There are bells going off in my head everyday over this fiasco.:mad:

NPower have changed the T&Cs and have introduced this standing charge onto my sons original billsaver tariff and (according to Npower sent a letter prior to May informing my son of this)......He has not changed tariffs.
I (or one other adult) always deal with these things for him.

At least that explains why I can't get comparison websites to work out a proper quote !
victor2 ....Thankyou so much for helping me see i am not going mad.

Wywth

GIGO confirmed then? :cool:

Nada666

Well, the tariff ended Jan 2013. This may be more an npower mess-up than a comparison site mess-up (quelle surprise) in that your son should no longer be on a tariff named Bill Saver. The bills should now be labelled standard domestic or whichever tariff he has been bumped to.

Wywth, this may not be user input garbage - Uswitch does still carry the two-tier Bill Saver details.

However, OP, this still does not make the sites useless - what primarily matters is the cost of tariffs currently available to switch to. These are probably correct and will be in the correct order of price for your inputted usage. What you want to know is how much a certain number of kWhs each year in your postal code cost and that data is there.

hannahp

Hi Nada666.

There was a lot of info on this post.. re flawed (NB Not 'useless') comparison sites
Which I named in edit....but it has been removed .... so there is little point in naming them again !

hannahp

Wywth wrote: »

GIGO confirmed then? :cool:

Just figured this out :rotfl: I think it must mean 'garbage in garbage out' ?
As a relative newbie asking for help, I wasn't prepared for sarcasm :rotfl:

Very constructive :cool:

Speaking as someone who may have reached the end of her tether.
I can only ask why don't you use your time helping posters, instead of making silly comments ?