SSE Standing Charge per year.

koran

I have just rang up SSE and asked them about the £100 standing charge or as they put it 27.405 per day on my heating, i told them i vary really use my gas in the summer what happens then, they said that the 27 odd pence per day will mount up until i put money on my key metre to pay it off, so if i am on holiday for 1 month, i will come back to a debt on my key metre of 28 days x 27.405 pence and i have to pay that off befor i can get any gas, I then asked them if i can pay them the standing charge in advance of £100 pound and they said this is not aloud, this has been set by OFGEM. This will get me in debt on my key metre as i am sure it will do with other people out there on a key metre. This is not fair, i have to make sure i have nearly £2 in the house every week to put on my metre winter or summer before i can get any gas or hot water. HOW UNFAIR. HITTING THE POOR AGAIN.:(

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

Why don't you just put 10 pound a week, for instance, on your METER throughout the year? Come winter you will have a fair balance to tackle the colder months, so you don't have to find the 30-40 a week that would normally be used during cold spells.

Everyone (just about) pays a standing charge, whether poor or rich.

PaulaR_2

Hi, so does that mean that you have to be in credit at all times? Does it mean that you can still go into emergency? Does it mean that if you top up your key by £10.00, the first 27p per day or whatever will be taken for standing charge, the next £5. for emergency and the rest for gas/electric? It's a bit confusing.

P

Bark01

Under the new Ofgem rules they can set a standing charge of £0 they just can 't use banded tariffs.

Ebico don't charge standing charge so why don't you use a comparison site and find out which supplier is cheaper. If you don't like SSE then change, its how a competitive market place should work.

koran

The standing charge does not come off the Emergency credit but if you haven't needed any heating for 3 weeks lets say and you use £3 emergency credit, you have to put on £3 for emergency credit and also 21 days of 27 odd pence and then on top some money for heating. I was also told by SSE that all heating companies have been told this is what they have to do by Ofgem, so a comparison site is of no use because all heating companies have been told to do the same, even if you pay by quarterly payments and you don't use your heating in the summer you will still get a bill of £25 every quarter for your standing charge, so be careful out there who ever has a standing order on their account, my problem is i would rather pay the £100 in 1 lump sum so if i only have £2 in the house i know i have £2 of heating, but the way Ofgem have set it up is you have to make sure you have saved the 27pence day by day in the house. This is not fair when you are on a budget.

koran

Bark01
This has all changed as of the 15th of November, we all have to pay the standing charge this means it is not a competitive market, unless SSE are telling me lies, that is why i am on here trying to find out if SSE are telling me the truth or not, I can only tell you what they said to me this morning and I have the ladies name and extn. number. They said it is a new ruling by Ofgem and it starts on 15th November for everyone on every service provider. please give me proof otherwise, has anyone spoken to Ofgem, i cannot get thru. Thanks

koran

Bark01
This has all changed as of the 15th of November, we all have to pay the standing charge this means it is not a competitive market, unless SSE are telling me lies, that is why i am on here trying to find out if SSE are telling me the truth or not, I can only tell you what they said to me this morning and I have the ladies name and extn. number. They said it is a new ruling by Ofgem and it starts on 15th November for everyone on every service provider. please give me proof otherwise, has anyone spoken to Ofgem, i cannot get thru. Thanks:mad:

DragonQ

Sigh, we do not all have to pay a standing charge. What changed was that two-tier pricing was eliminated, meaning the companies can only charge in two ways: a standing charge and a unit price. This supposedly makes the market simpler, which is clearly nonsense, especially considering all manners of discounts still exist that are often not clearly laid out.

A company could still offer an electricity tariff with a £500/year standing charge and 0p/kWh unit price, or £0/year standing charge and 18p/kWh unit price, for example, if they really wanted to.

Nada666

Both arguments are true.

Yes, Ofgem have ruled that two-tier tariffs are no longer acceptable - you either have to charge everyone a more expensive tier 1 price including uncapped pro rata service charge on each and every kWh you use or, if you want to offer 'tier 2' prices and limit the service charge then you must charge a daily standing charge so everyone pays the same service charge regardless of use.

So the option of a 0p per day standing charge is available but with only four tariffs permitted pretty much every supplier will no longer offer that option.

SSE are correct. This is the fault of Ofgem. Ofgem have mandated this introduction. It isn't absolute but there is little choice. SSE or any other individual supplier are not going to limit themselves to three 'normal' tariffs when most every other supplier will have four.

Anthorn

I recommended Ebico in another thread and I do again in this thread due to similar circumstances.

Ebico have no standing charge and all Ebico customers pay the same so there is effectively one tariff for all and no tiers. That is regardless of payment method and meter - you don't pay extra if you have prepayment meters.

Especially attractive is the lack of tiers where energy is expensive up to a certain point in usage and then gets cheaper in the higher tier: That should make Ebico highly attractive for low to moderate energy consumers who may never get onto the cheaper higher tier.

Nada666

Anthorn wrote: »

That should make Ebico highly attractive for low to moderate energy consumers who may never get onto the cheaper higher tier.

Except customers in that position used to have the choice of every supplier. And Ebico (last year) were 70% more expensive than some two-tier tariffs for very low useage (due to having no direct debit discount.)

Not having to pay extra for prepayment meters just means customers who do pay on time pay a higher price to compensate those who have run up hundreds or thousands of pounds of interest free debt.

You also lose flexibility with an only-tier-1 tariff - if there is a bad winter and you need the heating for a change you pay a penalty much higher than if you were on a two-tier tariff.