MSE News: Energy switching slashed to 17 days for some

MegaMiniMouse

I think that the energy suppliers are milking the cash cow in a way which is not dissimilar to the banks' behaviour prior to 2007/8, and there now seems to be an influx of new players jumping onto the bandwagon in the hope that they will be able to make a quick killing before the the wagon crashes into the unknown (I apologise for the mixed metaphors).

Some people say that the banks collapsed because the government failed to tell them what they were doing wrong. We are now threatened with power cuts. I don't claim to be able to understand the relationship between the power generators and the energy retailers, but I daresay that in the event of power cuts taking place, the industry as a whole will enjoy the benefits of a taxpayer bailout in some shape or form.

Like the banks, the supply of energy is too big to fail.

Swipe

anselld wrote: »

Completely agree. There is no way First Utility can do anything right in as little as 17 days!

It takes them almost as long to respond to emails

zerog

I have a question for anyone who can answer:

How does this work in other countries?

footyguy

zerog wrote: »

I have a question for anyone who can answer:

How does this work in other countries?

I think in most countries, consumers pay the local/state electricity provider ... and get the candles out when that electricity goes off.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29916753

Rhenser

zerog wrote: »

I have a question for anyone who can answer:

How does this work in other countries?

In Germany it has become possible to switch suppliers ... sometimes.

It depends where you live as not all suppliers operate in all regions.
Also you may already be tied to one supplier in a contract. No cheap way out like in the UK where you pay £10, £20 or £50 to get out. In Germany you cannot get out of the contract. You may even be tied in if you move to a new home and the supplier has a contract to supply that particular property.
These contracts can be for 1 year or more.

Anyway, if you can switch supplier, you normally need to give 6 weeks notice. Then it can take 3 months to actually switch the supplier over. That's German efficiency for you. :rotfl:

maggiej_2

17 days to switch with SSE - I doubt it very much! At present they are struggling big time just to try and accommodate existing customers' requests to change tariffs.

Our tariff came mid October. We applied for a new tariff via online 'My account' well before the expiry date. We are still waiting to be changed over. Apart from a standard email acknowledgment - nothing has been done. On telephoning SSE customer services last week to ask how much longer it would take for the change to take place, was advised that there is currently a 4 to 5 week delay in processing switches/changes - they were working on applications received 1st week of October. :eek:.

I would echo the concerns raised by Michaels in as much as will applications/changes received following the '17 days ' announcement take precedence over older applications such as ours stuck in the existing back log??? Will wait and see.

Last time we changed tariff with SSE 2 years ago it was very straightforward and painless. Not the case this time. Up until now have always been very happy with the service received.

MegaMiniMouse

maggiej wrote: »

17 days to switch with SSE - I doubt it very much! At present they are struggling big time just to try and accommodate existing customers' requests to change tariffs.

Our tariff came mid October. We applied for a new tariff via online 'My account' well before the expiry date. We are still waiting to be changed over. Apart from a standard email acknowledgment - nothing has been done. On telephoning SSE customer services last week to ask how much longer it would take for the change to take place, was advised that there is currently a 4 to 5 week delay in processing switches/changes - they were working on applications received 1st week of October. :eek:.

I would echo the concerns raised by Michaels in as much as will applications/changes received following the '17 days ' announcement take precedence over older applications such as ours stuck in the existing back log??? Will wait and see.

Last time we changed tariff with SSE 2 years ago it was very straightforward and painless. Not the case this time. Up until now have always been very happy with the service received.

Since June, I have been struggling to get some sense out of SSE ever since their computer system switched some or all of their customers onto their standard tariff irrespective of the t&c's of the 1-year fix which was scheduled to end on November 4th.

I switched a month ago, and managed to get a manually calculated final bill (which matched my own calculations perfectly), and a refund of the credit which was due to me. But last week I received the official computer-generated final bill which included several unintelligible and inaccurate figures about payments and adjustments to the account, as well as an unexplained price increase on September 16th.

I have challenged the demand for a payment of £2.33.

These organisations are simply not fit for purpose - with very rare exceptions, most people's gas and electricity supply continues without fail throughout the years, but the struggle to get any kind of quality of service out of the people who charge us for the privilege and masquerade as energy suppliers defies understanding.

thor

MegaMiniMouse wrote: »

The new 17-day energy switch includes the existing 14-day cooling-off period. Why is it necessary for energy switches to have a 14-day cooling-off period?

According to the MSE News Story, Ofgem's target is to have one-day switches in place by 2018, with a 14-day cooling-off period which begins after the switch. What will change between now and 2018 which will allow the energy providers to reduce their switching times from three days to one day?

If switching times are reduced to one day, what steps will the energy providers take in order to prevent people logging on over breakfast, and switching supplier on a daily basis?

My npower one year fix ends on the 30th of november and I was going to wait another couple of weeks before starting to look around for my next supplier as I had thought(mistakenly I realise now) that the utilities had already got down close to one day switching.
If the target is only 17 days then it looks like I better start hitting the comparison sites this week.

isayoldchap

SSE were charging very good prices last October so we fixed in for a year.Problem is companies are quick to increase those prices which is causing the shift around.
Do you hear of any utilities price matching each other?

I did read a post on here about a member complaining that it's all because of us moving that their are problems...really?

Thing is if you are used to buying your 4pints of milk at £1 then the same company wants £1.39(Morrissons) you maybe tempted to do a shop elsewhere where you can buy Milk for 89p(Iceland)
It would be nice for shops to advertise our usually price of milk throughout say the last few months is £1 but now we would like to sell it at £1.39 or was
£1 but now just 89p,oh and we have not taken anything from the farmer

That 39% increase or 11% decrease is why we are moving
Us being savvy is why companies are competing and we have to keep an eye on them
Hopefully we all will have an app on our phones soon showing up to date prices
what we should be paying for products including for steak,fish etc 'per kg' prices
so you are not just tempted with the 3 for 2 offers where usually the kg price has actually doubled overnight.
Or maybe they should sign their stores in saying we use to make loads of profit but not anymore
Where did we go wrong?....please come back