MSE News: Energy switches set to take three weeks 9 April 2014 at 6:37PM in Energy 20 replies 2.6K views

Former_MSE_Helen

"New rules planned by regulator Ofgem will enforce the time it takes to switch energy supplier to three weeks..."

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Energy switches set to take three weeks



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Ken68

To discourage customers from switching too often, the energy companies will just increase the cancellation charges and... maybe an end of tariffs designed to top the tables.

bbb_uk

3 Weeks not including the 2 weeks in case you change your mind.

That's 5 weeks in total.

Why does it even take 5 weeks? What exactly is involved in the switching process that justifies that amount of time?

wakeupalarm

Why not have same day switching?

heloid

I bet every single one of them said they'd be lucky if they made it 4 weeks let alone anything else. All their backoffices are a shambles.

Kitchen_Sink

The cooling off period for my application to switch to iSupply ended 2 days ago ... and my switch has been confirmed will take place 3 weeks today (01 May 2014).

OK, so still 2 days longer than Ofgem want, and perhaps this switching date was chosen to simplify things. But I guess it's not going to be impossible for them to speed things up by 48 hours in the future if they have to. And this by a new company that are presumably still find their feet.

Similary I switched my gas to Zog energy. Cooling off period ends today, and switch has been confirmed to take place on 06 May 2014.
That may sound a lot later, but it too is 3 weeks and 2 working days from the end of the cooling off period as there is a bank holiday weekend just before. Coincidence? Or are the suppliers already switching within 2 working days of the new requirement?

ashleyriot

Three weeks is far too long: here is my electricity meter reading and here is my gas meter reading, old supplier, and here is the date today.

Oh, look, now you can switch me.

Everything else is paperwork and irrelevant to my ability to save money on my tarrifs.

If banks can move all your standing orders, direct debits and balance in one working week why can't utility companies do it?

edinburgher

:rotfl: 3 weeks? I'll believe it when I see it! :rotfl:

It took me 49 days to get a response to the complaint about my switch taking over 6+ *months* with Scottish Power.

Also, be very wary of the Cheap Energy Club. 3 of the 6+ months was due to them submitting invalid data on my behalf :eek:

VT82

Worth noting that Scottish Power (amongst others maybe?) claim that as long as you initiate a switch away from them within 6 weeks of your old tariff ending, you will be charged at your old tariff rate, rather than the standard tariff, until the switch is completed. So in theory, there's no great desire to get the switch actioned in a hurry.

Worth noting even more that they didn't do this automatically in my case, claiming it was a 'mistake', but only giving me a refund after me chasing them. And even then, they originally only refunded it on the electricity, and I had to query again to get the refund on the gas. That's £25 they would have kept in their pocket if I hadn't queried it.

And this wasn't years ago. It's not part of the 'big thing' in the news that the utility companies have recently been fined for and had to rectify. This was in January this year.

Everyone should check this once they've had their final bills from their old suppliers.

Kitchen_Sink

ashleyriot wrote: »

Three weeks is far too long: here is my electricity meter reading and here is my gas meter reading, old supplier, and here is the date today.

Oh, look, now you can switch me.

...

Or

Oh, look, now you can slam me :cool:

To do away with the consumers current right to a statutory cooling off period would be a retrograde step in my opinion.

Kitchen_Sink

VT82 wrote: »

Worth noting that Scottish Power (amongst others maybe?) claim that as long as you initiate a switch away from them within 6 weeks of your old tariff ending, you will be charged at your old tariff rate, rather than the standard tariff, until the switch is completed. So in theory, there's no great desire to get the switch actioned in a hurry...

I think this has been mandated by Ofgem, as I think all suppliers offer this now.

Essentially the old supplier must receive notification from the new supplier of the intended switch before the end of any current tariff, and thge switch must then atually occur in a reasonable period.

Yes I expect many suppliers will not initially abide by such rules (like them not being allowed to increase prices if you don't accept and switch supplier instead, again with some reasonable time restictions applying) ... so yes, check those final bills folks, and be ready to submit a complaint/request for a partial refund.