EDF or nPower - exactly same deal, who to choose?

tizerbelle

npower made me redundant years ago so I refuse to allow them to get any of the redundancy pay back off me by me having to pay them for utilities - so I'd go with edf !!

(Yes, its a pointless grudge/revenge act - but so what!)

liney

I'm convinced that Npower only actually look at complaints in the order the ombudsman contacts them!

JimmyTheWig

EDF appear to be better from a customer service point of view, but have never been with npower myself so can't comment from experience.

EDF use a lot of nuclear power stations for their electricity. Some people may choose based on that.

djp64

Switched to EDF last Thursday (via the Moneysupermarket link on here). Already have all the contract paperwork and now in the 12 day cooling off period. Switching dates already provided (early November) and have been able to set up an online accout to initially track the switch and in due course provide meter readings etc. Had to speak to them yesterday as wanting to switch a friend who has an E7 meter but wants a standard one and whilst they took a while to answer (@ 20 minutes) the agent was able to answer the question immediately. They will switch the meter for free 30 days after the switch to them takes place. (The friend is switching from NPower - has taken them 14 months to solve a billing issue!)

So far so good with EDF - I'm happy

Debbie

DragonQ

Not relevant but I just realised that nPower and EDF are the only two "big 6" providers I've never been with. :cool2:

PollyOnAMission

Based on my experience with nPower, my suggestion would be to avoid them like the plague.

undaunted

There are various surveys available on line all of which will show Npower at or very near the bottom of customer satisfaction ratings.

Decide wheter you value the £105 or service more and you will have your answer

alleycat`

I've been with four of the "big 6" now.

EDF were a bit of a shambles to start with but that was due to their SAP implementation and, i suspect, their best tariff at the time was overrun.
Call centre staff have always been decent to deal with.

BG (prior to EDF). Never had an issue at all with them, only moved to EDF on price.
Again, call centre staff seemed fairly decent.

NPower. Can't print what i think about their sharp billing practices. Wouldn't use them again even if they were free.
Complaints process is comical and they were unable to perform basic math.

EON (Powergen at the time). Fine for electric. Totally incompetent for Gas. Never managed to send me a gas bill ever.

It's getting to the point now where once you've got off the standard tariff moving around is much of a muchness.

Of the two i'd choose EDF and sacrifice the cashback.


Edit:- Might not be obvious with the way i did this but i started with Eon and am now with EDF (at least for a few more months anyway).

DragonQ

Funnily enough I don't remember having any problems with British Gas either. That was back when I had no idea about switching suppliers though.

E.On were again a default choice after moving. I moved away to a slightly more expensive fixed tariff and E.On were adamant that I was making a mistake. I pointed out that E.On's prices would surely rise soon (as another company had announced a rise shortly before) and the guy on the phone acted insulted, saying they hadn't announced any price rises and I was switching based on speculation. Anyway, I left and about 2 weeks later they announced price rises.

Scottish Power were next. Great tariff which is sadly coming to an end shortly. They even let me move my cheap fix when moving house. Only problems I had was with their online account - they've been slowly moving people from the old system to a new one and it meant that I was unable to access my account for a while. They did sort it eventually and compensated me, so fair enough.

I was briefly with SSE after moving. They let me switch to DD payments even though I was only going to be with them for a month (lower standing charge), and sorted out my switch back to Ebico for gas. No problems.

Ebico, whilst not one of the "big 6" have been great. No issues at all, aside from the price rises.

Anouchka

I like EDF's website and find it a useful way of keeping track of what I am using and how much it's costing.