Help with changing elderly parents suppliers

lrlrip

I am looking at changing my elderly mothers gas and electric suppliers to try save her some money. She is currently with British Gas for gas and SSE Scottish Hydro for electric. She is happy with her current suppliers ie. the read the meters and she gets her three monthly bill which she pays by either cheque or cash. Apart from saving her money, transferring to direct debit, I need a supplier that will move everything smoothly and still continue to read the meters etc. for her as she has no access for online readings. Any recommendations please?

[Deleted User]

BG ( and Sainsburys Energy ) are about the only one I know who still do quarterly reads. I work for them mostly and I would say 70% of my work are with the elderly who dont want to take up with computors and probably never will. BG are not that cheap but Sainsburys Energy who are under the BG umbrella are one of the top 6 in my area.These are only direct debit dual fuel on a one year July 2016 fix.We come round every quarter for BG and Sainsburys Energy . I ve been with Sainsburys myself for 6 months and everything has gone smoothly as befits the most reliable supplier out there ( BG ) .EDF and EON are the only other two I dare recommend for reliability.
Npower, Eon EDF and Scot Power are 6 monthly reads, so if you miss one thats once a year..not good enough for the old uns who are used to the gas man knocking every 13 weeks. BG ( and Sainsburys Energy ) are way ahead of all the others in the smart meter roll out, over 7 years they have been installing them.. Some of the other big six have nt even started yet..EDF and Scot Power in my area ( South Yorks ) .Smart meters would be the best for your parents.BG let you request one.They do the mobile phone text things but people forget that the very elderly are not good with mobiles and also many can not get down under the cupboards to actually see the meters , and if they did manage to get down, they would nt be able to get up.One thing BG do, which I hate , is to pester the elderly and infirm with some call centre kid trying to gather readings over the phone..scandalous..Simple answer tho..slam phone down

System

Think laterally. Why not look at the best deal and see which of the suppliers would install smart meters. Ovo comes to mind. Your parents could have monthly billing which you could monitor for her. She would need to set up a DD to get the best discount.

modsandmockers

Most suppliers rarely read the meters, and, unless the customer provides regular readings, then the suppliers will happily rely upon estimated readings which probably always work in their own favour. Maybe one of the reasons why BG is so expensive is because they bear the cost of quarterly readings. Your mother may be mistaken in believing that both of her energy bills are based upon actual quarterly readings.

It’s certain that both of the existing suppliers will be very happy to switch your mother’s payments onto a monthly direct debit plan, and they will almost certainly have a more favourable tariff as well. Switching tariffs will be less stressful than switching suppliers, but bear in mind that the cheaper tariffs are usually ‘fixed’ for a specified period of time, and there is sometimes an exit fee to be paid if you decide to ‘move on’ before the tariff’s expiry date.

Customer meter readings can be submitted by phone (usually on an automated system which is quick and easy) as well as online. Estimated bills can easily lead to large discrepancies.

ps - I would agree that EDF and Eon both appear to provide a reasonable level of customer service. I am with EDF and my partner is with Eon and (speaking for myself) I would not switch away from EDF unless the savings become too good to resist...

footyguy

lrlrip wrote: »

I am looking at changing my elderly mothers gas and electric suppliers to try save her some money. She is currently with British Gas for gas and SSE Scottish Hydro for electric. She is happy with her current suppliers ie. the read the meters and she gets her three monthly bill which she pays by either cheque or cash. Apart from saving her money, transferring to direct debit, I need a supplier that will move everything smoothly and still continue to read the meters etc. for her as she has no access for online readings. Any recommendations please?

SSE for one do not actually do regular quarterly meter reads, so if your mother is happy, she is presumably happy with some estimated bills (unless she is giving her own readings)

Consult a comparison site and choose 'pay on receipt of bill' as payment option.

Then discard any supplier/tariff that has either 'paperless' billing or 'online' in the tariff detail.

Be careful if Eon comes up as the best supplier, as I believe they bill new customers monthly, not quarterly (Double check with you mother that she would not want a monthly bill to pay)

Finally, do continue to consider separate suppliers - it's often cheaper.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

footyguy wrote: »

Be careful if Eon comes up as the best supplier, as I believe they bill new customers monthly, not quarterly (Double check with you mother that she would not want a monthly bill to pay)

Just to let you know footguy, how often we send bills depends on the payment method and the outcome of a credit check. Many new customers are offered quarterly billing if their circumstances allow.

Malc

macman

Can you not arrange for a friend or neighbour to read the meters quarterly and send you the readings? You can then administrate the whole account online for her.
The majority (though not all) of the cheaper tariffs require DD payment and online billing, so if you opt out of those, you are screening out the majority of the more competitive deals.
The supplier is only required to read the meter once every two years.

Farway

Irlrp, your mum sounds like mine was

They grew up in years of the nationalised gas board and electricity board, some one comes along, reads the meter, sends you a bill, by post, and you pay it, cash or cheque

If your mum can afford it, do not try & fix what is not broke, your mum, like mine and knew who to call if supply problems arose

[Deleted User]

A lot of the old generation are happy to pay by cash and cheques and have no desire to set up direct debits everywhere just because you get an extra tree fiddy off a year.

The older generation never had as much debt as us either as they kept track of every penny they had. No dipping into overdrafts without realising stuff like that.

[Deleted User]

Deleted_User wrote: »

A lot of the old generation are happy to pay by cash and cheques and have no desire to set up direct debits everywhere just because you get an extra tree fiddy off a year.

The older generation never had as much debt as us either as they kept track of every penny they had. No dipping into overdrafts without realising stuff like that.

But the older generation are exactly the ones who should be making the most of the huge discount ( at least 25% and more ) by paying by direct debits. A lot are living on a shrinking real value state pension and the £300 quid a year reduction in energy bills is worth their hatred and mistrust of direct debit. When its explained how the system works, its just good economics not to be throwing away money just because they re used to paying at the post office.Eg, a winter gas bill of say,£372 , not unusual for O.A.Ps would drop to £287 electing for a cheaper direct debit tariff.This would be a BG standard tariff for gas of 13.2 p/kwhr compared to the 9.7 p/kwhr which Sainsburys Energy ( BG ) offer..serious money being thrown away by sticking to paying on the bill

[Deleted User]

sacsquacco wrote: »

But the older generation are exactly the ones who should be making the most of the huge discount ( at least 25% and more ) by paying by direct debits. A lot are living on a shrinking real value state pension and the £300 quid a year reduction in energy bills is worth their hatred and mistrust of direct debit. When its explained how the system works, its just good economics not to be throwing away money just because they re used to paying at the post office.Eg, a winter gas bill of say,£372 , not unusual for O.A.Ps would drop to £287 electing for a cheaper direct debit tariff.This would be a BG standard tariff for gas of 13.2 p/kwhr compared to the 9.7 p/kwhr which Sainsburys Energy ( BG ) offer..serious money being thrown away by sticking to paying on the bill

Well I beg to differ, I've already checked my old granny's electric and gas. They are on EDF blue promise quarterly cash. Paying DD only saves £1 a month.

Yes they use gas in the winter all day but electric not so much. Remember old people don't have all the power sucking gadgets we have.