Small Supplier v Recognised Supplier

TCA

victor2 wrote: »

You'll almost certainly be on a "deemed" account with OVO at the new place. Contact them with your opening readings and contact details on day one, and find out what tariff you are on. Then you'll be a "switcher" if you leave...

Thanks, that makes sense, but I'd still rather avoid the possible pain of switching (for sake of £30 cashback) and Ovo still looks a decent bet for customer service and has a competitive 12 month fixed tariff with no exit fees.

footyguy

TCA wrote: »

Potential savings are as detailed in my opening post.

Supply area code: 18
Gas usage: 7438 kWh per year
Electric usage: 1288 kWh per year

It would appear that my concerns over the accuracy of your comment "as the others are much of a muchness from a financial perspective" was well founded

Scottish Power would charge you on their cheapest tariff £553 per annum.

Ovo would charge you £507 for the same gas & electricity.

The cheapest dual fuel supplier for you (GB Energy) would charge you just £446 for the same gas & electricity.

And if you followed my suggestion of looking at separate suppliers, that cost would reduce to just £442 pa ... but that does use GB Energy for electricity.

If I understand you correctly, you do not wish to use GB energy, but then you could still buy the electricity from Extra Energy for just £7 per year more.

In fact there are a number of suppliers to choose from that could provide you the same gas & electricity for between £442 p.a and £460p.a

But instead you have appear to have decided to pay at least £47 p.a or 10%+ more for exactly the same gas & electricity because you are not prepared to switch supplier.

Furthermore, if you were to switch supplier(s) , there is also the possibility of about £30 cashback too, but this shouldn't be the decision maker.

But I suppose you could be paying as much as £879 to a dual fuel supplier or even £882 to individual suppliers if you wanted to.

So quite a large range of costs for exactly the same gas & electricity ...

Pincher

You are moving during low season, and you have low consumption anyway. I would just do nothing and stick with Ovo for now, and stay exit penalty free.

The crude oil price has just collapsed, again, so I'm hoping for a bumper crop of cheap one year fixes coming up.

TCA

footyguy wrote: »

It would appear that my concerns over the accuracy of your comment "as the others are much of a muchness from a financial perspective" was well founded

Thanks for taking the time.

footyguy wrote: »

Scottish Power would charge you on their cheapest tariff £553 per annum.

It's £533, not £553

footyguy wrote: »

Ovo would charge you £507 for the same gas & electricity.

The Cheap Energy Club calcs do not include online discounts. Scottish Power is £21 p.a. for dual fuel and Ovo is £60 p.a. for dual fuel

footyguy wrote: »

The cheapest dual fuel supplier for you (GB Energy) would charge you just £446 for the same gas & electricity.

GB Energy and Extra Energy both sound absolute disasters. Reading the feedback threads on them would not convince me to even try them.

footyguy wrote: »

But instead you have appear to have decided to pay at least £47 p.a or 10%+ more for exactly the same gas & electricity because you are not prepared to switch supplier.

I'm not prepared to switch to an inferior supplier and experience the headaches I'm reading about from customers of many of the small suppliers. But as said above, Ovo gets decent reports and still beats the majority once you include online discounts, so I'm still not persuaded to try elsewhere.

WatlingA5

We 'inherited' Ovo when we moved just a year ago (suppliers at old house were Eon and BG). We decided to give Ovo a chance and have not regretted it. Apart from an initial hiccup when our emailed name was mangled somewhere in the system and prevented the initial DD being set up, we have been very pleased with customer service.

That hiccup was sorted with one phone call and the DDs went ahead. We're paying a regular monthly amount and with the summer it means we are getting interest paid on our payments surplus. It's not a lot per month, but it's appreciated.

Our initial contract is about to expire and we will be sticking with Ovo.

To be fair, we never had problems with our previous suppliers but reckon we've saved quite a bit over the year.

TCA

WatlingA5 wrote: »

We decided to give Ovo a chance and have not regretted it.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I think Ovo are getting my business unless they have some sort of meteoric failure between now and October.

footyguy

TCA wrote: »

It's £533, not £553

Whoops, yes you are correct (my typo )

The Cheap Energy Club calcs do not include online discounts. Scottish Power is £21 p.a. for dual fuel and Ovo is £60 p.a. for dual fuel

I didn't use the CEC, I used EHL.

It says the discounts for the SP tariff are:

Dual fuel discount of £5.25 per fuel per year. Online discount of £5.25 per fuel per year.

so £21 total, yes, but that these are already included in the cost shown

For ovo:

Customers signing up to this tariff will receive a discount of £30 per fuel for managing their bills online.

and this is already included in the cost shown too.

You may want to double check your calculations, despite you apparently coming out the same erroneous result as the CEC. :cool: (allegedly)

TCA wrote: »

GB Energy and Extra Energy both sound absolute disasters. Reading the feedback threads on them would not convince me to even try them.

You really need to read the feedback threads of your supplier of choice and see what is written there too...as I said

TCA wrote: »

...Ovo gets decent reports ...

I fear you either are wearing rose tinted spectacles, or are not reading the feedback thread here, especially the latest comments...
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4415655

But how you then compare those comments to other feedback threads for other suppliers is your own interpretation.

TCA

footyguy wrote: »

I didn't use the CEC, I used EHL..... You may want to double check your calculations, despite you apparently coming out the same erroneous result as the CEC. :cool: (allegedly)

Just tried the Energy Helpline and it doesn't look too different to MSE Cheap Energy Club results. For avoidance of any doubt I'm using Scottish Power's Online Fixed Price Energy August 2016 for comparison and it comes in at £533 p.a, which you seem to agree with.

The winner is GB Energy Supply, coming in at £446 p.a., £87 cheaper per year. The next 4 are fixed tariffs from GnERGY, Green Star, Extra Energy and First Utility, which would only save between £28 and £41 per year. Next is Ovo which would cost £507 annually, saving £26. So I'm still not seeing anything wildly different to my CEC results. Feel free to point out the errors.

As for feedback threads, as you said, it's all down to interpretation. My interpretation is that if Ovo are already the supplier of the property I'm moving into, then that would hopefully avoid many of the issues being reported for them and other small suppliers. It's the least of all evils perhaps.

Reading the summaries from the CEC poll results:

GB Energy Supply is a small new supplier – as such, we have little feedback on its customer service. In the past, a few table-topping new entrants have severely struggled to cope with demand. That may or may not happen with this supplier.

GnERGY is a small new supplier – as such we have little feedback on its customer service. Additionally you will be unable to switch if your gas is provided by an IGT (independent gas transporter).

Extra Energy scored an awful 65% poor in our last poll, and users have reported billing issues (see the Extra Energy MSE news story). If you’ve an Economy 7 meter (peak/off-peak rates), Extra can’t switch you to a single-rate tariff as it can't add the two readings together.

Green Star is a small supplier – as such we've had little feedback about its customer service. However, despite a low number of votes, it scored 77% great in our last poll. It was also a winner in our last Big Switch, and we found it good in dealing with issues.

First Utility - Previously, Energy Club users have reported difficulties with First Utility, but it seems to be improving its service judging by our poll – it scored 48% great and 25% poor.

Ovo Energy - In our last poll Ovo were among the best with a whopping 82% rating it 'great' and only 6% 'poor'. The tariff isn't portable though, so you can't take it with you if you move house. Although it has no exit fees, Ovo's rules around 'tariff-hopping' mean that you can't move to one of its own cheaper deals for free if it releases one while you're in contract. But you can move elsewhere without penalty.

Ovo is also a Which? magazine recommended energy provider, so on balance I'm still inclined to favour them to avoid switching or save a few quid.

System

TCA wrote: »

Ovo Energy - In our last poll Ovo were among the best with a whopping 82% rating it 'great' and only 6% 'poor'. The tariff isn't portable though, so you can't take it with you if you move house. Although it has no exit fees, Ovo's rules around 'tariff-hopping' mean that you can't move to one of its own cheaper deals for free if it releases one while you're in contract. But you can move elsewhere without penalty.

Ovo is also a Which? magazine recommended energy provider, so on balance I'm still inclined to favour them to avoid switching or save a few quid.

EHL has weighted and standard comparisons but you have to dig into the site to find them. The easiest site to get a comparison is, imho, theenergyshop.com.

I am with Ovo at the moment. They do not get everything right but they are better at sorting out issues than some of the Big6. Three things to bear in mind with Ovo (sorry if I have mentioned this before):

1. Online means online management. Too many calls and you will lose your online discount.

2. Accurate statements - based on your meter readings - can be obtained by selecting Statements on Demand. You are required to enter actual meter meter readings once every 90 days. You can, if you wish, get a statement every two weeks.

3. Ovo does not allow tariff hopping. Fixed means fixed. You can leave but if you return to Ovo within 3 months, they will charge you £30 per fuel. This rule is hidden away in the ts and cs.

TCA

Hengus wrote: »

EHL has weighted and standard comparisons but you have to dig into the site to find them. The easiest site to get a comparison is, imho, theenergyshop.com.

Thanks. The Energy Shop also has GB Energy as the winner by £87 annually. Next is an Extra Energy tariff saving £36 per year. Then we have Ovo saving £26 p.a.