MSE News: MoneySavingExpert.com launches the 10 day big winter switch event

MegaMiniMouse

Pincher wrote: »

There is no exit penalty if you move house, so why would you need such a fine stepping? If you had joined Scottish Power in October 2014, the December 2015 fix would have been 15 months, which is nearly 18 months any way.

The phone companies tend to give you a better price for the longer contracts. The difference is that you don't have to compare a deal which will expire in, say, December 2015 with a deal which will expire in May 2016 (for example). You simply have to compare the price of one company's 24-month deal with another company's 24-month deal - whichever you choose will have the same start and finish dates as all the others. Moving house is usually not a problem, but if your plans are uncertain in the short term, then you need a short-term tie-in, even if the monthly price is slightly higher.

MegaMiniMouse

moneyfoolish wrote: »

You're absolutely correct. Oh for the days when Gas, Electricity, Telephone, Transport, etc. was all a standard fair price. Nearly 2 years ago I switched from EON to the Coop via a 1 year fixed collective from Which. At the end of that deal I switched to EDF myself and then a month ago I switched from EDF to EON via a collective deal from The Peoples Power. Now, I'm contemplating whether to switch to the MSN collective with EON and last week I received an email telling me of a Big Deal collective coming out in early November from the Sun which they say is going to be the cheapest ever! If you add all the time spent messing about doing the same thing for mobile deals, train travel, car insurance and home insurance, it's half your life wasted!

Martin Lewis, and quite a few people on MSE (me included!), positively enjoy juggling with all the variables in our financial activities, but, rather like people who grow their own vegetables, it is probably not cost-effective. On the other hand, some people will gladly pay hefty bank charges every month in order to avoid having to spend time organising their spending patterns (and some people will happily pay through the nose for nightly take-away meals in order to avoid the complications of shopping and cooking).

The mantra that we have to switch, switch and switch again in order to keep control of our energy bills is absurd. For reasons which are not particularly clear, the privatisation of the energy industry has not created a conventionally competitive market. Most markets compete on price and quality of service etc, but the energy market appears to work by engaging in its own internalised competition of 'let's see who can most mislead/confuse the customer'.

Patr100

The problem with the telecoms analogy is that while there is supposed to be competitiveness, in reality , most of the big businesses are charging pretty much the same (currently around £15/16 a month for compulsory line rental) so we can get broadband which is what most of us actually want. When you have to factor in line rental , in reality apart from the odd special introductory offer, there is very little to chose between them except maybe quality of customer service (eg overseas call centres or not). Where is the Telecom company that charges £10 for line rental ? It don't exist.
I suspect that should there be a shake up , the Energy companies will find a way to charge so that prices are still not that different between them, Call it price fixing, in essence a cartel, possibly illegal , maximising their profits.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26734203

MegaMiniMouse

Patr100 wrote: »

The problem with the telecoms analogy is that while there is supposed to be competitiveness, in reality , most of the big businesses are charging pretty much the same (currently around £15/16 a month for compulsory line rental) so we can get broadband which is what most of us actually want. When you have to factor in line rental , in reality apart from the odd special introductory offer, there is very little to chose between them except maybe quality of customer service (eg overseas call centres or not). Where is the Telecom company that charges £10 for line rental ? It don't exist.
I suspect that should there be a shake up , the Energy companies will find a way to charge so that prices are still not that different between them, Call it price fixing, in essence a cartel, possibly illegal , maximising their profits.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26734203

It's inevitable that competing companies' prices will all be in the same ball-park. That's how it oughtta be.

But, in the modern consumer-driven market-place, price comparisons should be easy. The energy companies all supply an identical product through a shared channel - there is nothing to separate them except price, so it is inevitable that they will do all they can to make it difficult to compare prices.

The phone companies are in a similar position, but it is much easier to compare their deals on a like-for-like basis.

JontyW

I changed my Eon tariff last Sun 23 Oct, from (Fixed 1 yr v6) to (Fixed 1 yr v11) after receiving an email alert from them on 22 Oct ....

"You signed up to our Price Alert service so we wanted to let you know about our new tariff E.ON Energy Fixed 1 Year v11. The unit rates on E.ON Energy Fixed 1 Year v11 are the same as those on your current tariff, .....".

I had 14 days to notify a cancellation, but assumed v11 was a good deal since I've been with Eon for about 10 years and although not the top rated cost wise, they were not far off if you take into account all the various discounts (paperless, online and dual fuel). I also think their energy saving advice and energy monitoring graphs are very good.

While waiting for the 14 days to pass, I then got the MSE Collective email on 29 Oct saying Eon was the winner, so I started to look into how that might affect me against my recent switch to v11. Of course, just like most on this thread I realised the MSE tariff was much cheaper than v11, by about £166 + £30 cashback, so £196 in total or 17% (196/1129) .. wow that was a surprise!

So I rang Eon and asked about going to the MSE Collective, and the customer service guy, who was Irish and I was unable to understand hardly a word he spoke, mentioned that collective only apply if 'most of the people who live near you' also want to go with the collective. WHAT .. is he talking about .. utter rubbish! That would only apply for Oil fuel collective schemes where the distribution is 'local area' to save transport costs .. IMO.

The second time I rang, another guy said why don't I look at the alternative tariffs they offer, like v12. This was the first time I had heard of v12, since I hadn't received an email alert about it (not sure why not, but I may not have checked the notify alerts box?).

Anyway, I checked out the costs using my spreadsheet which I've used for the last 10 yrs to track my energy data, and v12 was what I decided to go with. Not worried about losing £30 cashback though and well pleased I heard about v12 almost just by chance.

MegaMiniMouse

JontyW wrote: »

"You signed up to our Price Alert service so we wanted to let you know about our new tariff E.ON Energy Fixed 1 Year v11. The unit rates on E.ON Energy Fixed 1 Year v11 are the same as those on your current tariff, ....."

I hear what you say, and in my experience, call centre staff are in no way guaranteed to have any useful level of understanding of the products which they deal with.

When I started to read your post, my alarm bells started to ring at the statement that your 'unit rates' would remain the same on the new tariff. What did you understand by the phrase 'unit rate'? Were you given any information about any other charges which might be applicable on the new tariff?

canterswest

What does anyone think about the prepayment meter MSE tariff from British Gas?

Ebico seems cheaper for low consumption, no exit fee and part of Warm Home Discount. No MSE commission.

MSE is plugging British Gas, more expensive, £60 exit fee dual fuel, £30 cashback if you have not switched via MSE for past 12months. MSE earns commission.

It looks quite shocking if MSE is signing up disadvantaged or vulnerable customers on pre payment meters to a more expensive tariff with penalties so it can earn commission.

It also hides the Ebico tariff on its MSE collective switch page, just shows it as an un named cheaper tariff.

redux

MegaMiniMouse wrote: »

I hear what you say, and in my experience, call centre staff are in no way guaranteed to have any useful level of understanding of the products which they deal with.

I spoke to someone at considerable length last week, who more than once expressed strong scepticism that the tariff I was on about was actually on their website.

When I started reading out the URL each time, he ignored and started talking over me.

Eventually it transpired that they do not have access to either any external internet or internally to a mirror of the company's own website as published.

If he did, he might have been able to point out something I realised hours later - that tariffs described as online fixed price and fixed price online are not the same.

Pincher

MegaMiniMouse wrote: »

The phone companies tend to give you a better price for the longer contracts. The difference is that you don't have to compare a deal which will expire in, say, December 2015 with a deal which will expire in May 2016 (for example). You simply have to compare the price of one company's 24-month deal with another company's 24-month deal - whichever you choose will have the same start and finish dates as all the others. Moving house is usually not a problem, but if your plans are uncertain in the short term, then you need a short-term tie-in, even if the monthly price is slightly higher.

You do appreciate that short fixes are usually cheaper for energy?

It is supposed to be based on futures contracts, which you can buy on the open market, so if Ovo's traders manage to get a good brace of contracts for the next 12 months, they can bring out a cheap fix, because they know exactly how much their cost is. If Ovo wanted to do a 3 year fix, they have to set it high, because they might lose money if energy prices shot up beyond the 18 months horizon. The bigger supplier may have long term tie-ins with their parent companies that own power plants, so can have a bit more control over their cost, but in the end the oil price dictates what that is.

The short fix strategy is not actually to fix and stay put for one year. The price of a one year fix is based on the sum of the contracts spread throughout the next year, with more weighting for the winter months. The price of a one year fix is fluctuating all the time, and you need to hop onto the cheaper deal when it appears. Cheaper also means popular, and can be over-subscribed in no time at all. I think Scottish Power January 2014 was gone in three days.

Within the same supplier, it's usually penalty free to switch to a newer tariff, but Scottish Power appears to be penalty free anyway. September 2015 was cheaper than May 2015, so I switched. December 2015 is even cheaper than September 2015, so I switched again. It's quite likely that Scottish Power will bring out a competitor to E.On 1 Year Fix V12, so I am waiting for that instead of switching to E.On. if energy futures prices keep falling, it's even possible that the next Scottish Power fix will be even cheaper than V12.

MegaMiniMouse

Pincher - you are obviously one of the minority of energy customers who enjoy the juggling game which the energy companies would impose upon us all. The futures market is for the wholesalers to play - the continuous rolling out of ever-changing retail tariffs is tantamount to inviting us all to engage separately and individually in our own little commodity gambles, and the result is that most people don't bother.

The energy companies can proudly point to the vast freedom of choice which is available to all, but their real intention, I believe, is to create such a level of confusion that, in practice, most of their customers are completely unable to decide what to do. The result is actually less genuine choice, rather than more.