£80 a month debit indefinitely with scottish power...what are my options?

Savingdad

Fixed price means one unit of energy will cost the same for the entire fixed term.
They estimated you would have to pay £52 a month to cover what you would used based on the figures you put in when lat the tariff.
I suspect that since you though you could use as much gas and electricity as you wanted for the fixed term your heating has been on more and you have been using all the lights and gadgets at once and they have had to revise their estimation of your usage and raised your direct debit to cover the new estimate.
You may well be in credit with them and they will want to keep that but remember if you demand it all back and get it thenyour summer bills will be cheap and your winter bill high,I prefer to pay £96 a month all year, build up a good £400-£500 credit for wi ter and then have them revise my dd in march as they currently do.

CashStrapped

Cashmonger -

Firstly, energy companies have lots of various tariffs, some are expensive, some are more competative. If you do not check which tariff you are on, they will eventually put you on a standard tariff which is usually their most expensive. That seems to be what you are on.

The direct debit is to cover how much they think you will use you each month (on average for the year).

The tariff determines what you actually pay for the energy you have used when you get a bill.


Normally, people use very little in the summer (far less than the direct debit amount) so a credit balance builds up. This [the credit balance] is gradually used up during the winter months as you use a lot more electricity (far more than the direct debit amount) .

So the direct debit should cover your average predicted usage for the year.

However, it is a prediction of what you might use. The energy companies cover themselvs over estimating your use. They never want you to be in a debit balance. However, this can sometimes go wrong, and the energy company will over estimate by too much.

So overtime the direct debit amount may get a bit artificially high and a large credit balance builds up.

It is up to you to keep an eye on it, ensure you are on a competative tariff and ensure your account is neither in a too large a debit or credit.

So the solution to this is simple:

1. Ring them or go online and switch to their cheapest avaliable tariff.

2. It should ask you for a meter reading at this point. This will ensure your account is now up to date and give you a true account balance.

3. If based on your recent usage your account is still in a decent credit position, ring them and ask them to transfer the credit balance (all or some) to you.

4. To have a good idea of what you actually use per year, calculate your yearly use in KWH based on your meter readings from 08/01/14 to 08/01/15. Then you have an annual KWH figure (of past use) to compare elsewhere.

NICHOLAS_2

I am single in a 2 bed apartnment, my energy bill with Npower was £1500. About 900 for gas and 600 for electric.

I was on standard tarriffs and they were robbing me. I moved to Ebico, owned by SSE, for the gas and electric. The deal on the electric is good but the gas one may work out more expensive than the npower, i havent done the maths yet.

You have to shop around for your energy or they basically rip you off to the tune of around 50% it would seem.

cashmonger

Ok I guess I will just swap to the 52 a month one and figure out how it works from there.

Thanks for the good advice all.

keith1950

You are still concentrating on the direct debit and not your actual usage.

Find out you usage in kWh for a complete year and enter those figures into a comparison site.

This will show what you annual usage was on your tariff.

Even on electricity you generally use slightly more in winter than in summer so direct debit ESTIMATES are set to account for this .

They will generally want your account to run into credit in the run up to winter so you stay in credit.

Do some research, find out your actual annual usage .

You appear to only want to reveal some figures, post you full usage details and you will get some accurate advice.

The price per unit is fixed.....if you use twice as many units you will pay twice as much......simples !

System

cashmonger wrote: »

So why dont I pay 52 a month now on my current if that is how much they think I use? Why am i paying 80 when they predict I use less

My last post on this subject. Only you know how much energy you are likely to use in a year - based normally on YOUR average consumption in the previous years. I use figures of 2400 kWhs for electricity and 10400 kWh for gas. I place these figures into a comparison site and the site calculates which is the best deal for me at the moment. If I was to use 3500 kWhs for electricity and 13500 kWhs for gas, the site might well come up with a different 'best deal' for me.

If you cannot work this out for yourself, then go to your local CAB office with all your past bills and up to date meter readings. ML has donated some of his profits to the CAB so I am sure that they will help.

saveallmymoney

keith1950 wrote: »

You are still concentrating on the direct debit and not your actual usage.

This is SO common...

cashmonger

I havent been trying to hide my figures its just im not allowed to post screen dumps so its been hard to format the data.

keith1950 wrote: »

You are still concentrating on the direct debit and not your actual usage.

Find out you usage in kWh for a complete year and enter those figures into a comparison site.

This will show what you annual usage was on your tariff.

Even on electricity you generally use slightly more in winter than in summer so direct debit ESTIMATES are set to account for this .

They will generally want your account to run into credit in the run up to winter so you stay in credit.

Do some research, find out your actual annual usage .

You appear to only want to reveal some figures, post you full usage details and you will get some accurate advice.

The price per unit is fixed.....if you use twice as many units you will pay twice as much......simples !

System

One final go. No screen dump is required. Look at your bills and try and find 2 actual readings a year apart. The key point is that they have to be accurate readings - either taken by yourself or a meter reader.

keith1950

As above.....all you need is your total accurate kWh for a 12 month period and the tariff name you are on. There's no need for screen dumps or anything else.