First Utility putting price up

firefox1956

Presumably it requires regular monthly meter reads from the customer.
Yes
Does the company send a monthly email asking for the meter reads
Yes
What happens if the meter reads are occasionally not sent, or sent late?
No idea

alderpoint

modsandmockers wrote: »

I'm interested in how the First Utility monthly variable DD scheme works. Presumably it requires regular monthly meter reads from the customer. Does the company send a monthly email asking for the meter reads, or does the customer have to remember? What happens if the meter reads are occasionally not sent, or sent late?

The send monthly reminder emails. Mine normally arrives on about the 25th of the month asking me to submit a reading by the ~29th. They then another email on ~3rd which tells me the bill is available online, looking at the bill tells me the amount and that it will be collected about 10 days later.

If you don't submit a reading by the requested date, they just estimate it, but issue the bill as described above.

It works very well - at least it has done for me for the last two years: I joined FD in Nov 2012 and moved onto variable direct debit billing in Nov 2013:

17-Nov-13 79.90
12-Dec-13 100.05
12-Feb-14 258.42
12-Mar-14 152.98
8-Apr-14 133.56
14-May-14 103.08
10-Jun-14 53.32
11-Jul-14 46.22
13-Aug-14 56.47
16-Sep-14 43.88
17-Oct-14 54.09
13-Nov-14 56.01
11-Dec-14 148.52
15-Jan-15 107.67
11-Feb-15 163.04
16-Mar-15 170.90
14-Apr-15 100.71
11-May-15 76.27
13-Jun-15 68.80
11-Jul-15 44.66
11-Aug-15 52.30
11-Sep-15 37.24

Swipe

I only get the meter reading email. They don't send me one to say my bill is ready

alderpoint

Swipe wrote: »

I only get the meter reading email. They don't send me one to say my bill is ready

Are you on fixed or variable direct debit?

The DD guarantee requires that they tell you in advance of the amount to be debited. If you are on fixed, they don't need to tell you each time (as it's fixed) so arguably no need to tell you the bill is ready, but if it's variable, then they should (IMO) actively tell you the amount and an email to say the bill is ready seems a logical solution.

If you are on variable DD and don't get the email, then it's probably just a good demonstration of the inconsistency of the FU systems!

jbuchanangb

Like Swipe, I get the meter reading request, but not a bill notification.

footyguy

GalaxyStar wrote: »

I'm hoping someone can explain this because I don't understand it. When we got our house in July last year we were on £56 per month to First Utility for both gas and electric. We weren't living in the house until November but used the steamer for wallpaper stripping etc and had built up a bit of credit.

In November or there abouts First Utility decided we weren't paying enough to cover our bills for the rest of the year - slightly unfair as they used the few winter months to calculate this even though we never actually went over our bill - and it's now going to cost us £70pm. Now our contract is ending so we upgraded the tariff to them but at a slightly lower cost it said would cover it - this is to start on 1st Oct. Today they have sent a message saying they're putting our price up AGAIN to £82 starting the 2nd oct! Now I can't tell what price we will be paying when october comes, but in the email with my "personalised" video it says;

"To make sure your fixed Direct Debit payment is right for the
amount of energy you use, every six months we run a
payment review to ensure you’re not building up too much
credit or debit."

We are currently £233 in CREDIT to them, how can they say we're not paying enough? There's only two of us, maybe I'm just bad at maths but I can't see the reasoning behind this?

You've not really given us enough information to help you as to whether the supplier have got their sums and/or assumptions right.

If you are confused, I would suggest the first thing you do is contact your supplier and ask them for an explanation.
You may still be confused after speaking with them, but you should be able to get to a few fundamentals of how they go about calculating the monthly amount.

e.g.
Does the supplier simply take your ancipated annual cost and divide it by 12 for a monthly payment?
(This is how most suppliers do it, but some may not preferring you not to ever go into debt or may want the account to be zero on a certain date)

What is the anticipated annual consumption in kWh they are using?
- you need to then check if that is reasonable by comparing to (a) what you used when you switched supplier and (b) the actual usage over the last 12 months. But that may not be the end of it, as you say you didn't actually live in the property for the initial 4 months.

Ovo has quite a good paper on how they calculate monthly payments.
http://www.ovoenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Understanding_the_link_between_your_Direct_Debit_and_energy_consumption.pdf

Your supplier may not do it exactly the same way, but you won't be too far wrong if you follow the Ovo method.

So look at your last 6 months usage on a month by month basis and see what that would indicate an anticipated annaul consumption level would be for both gas & electricity.

Then you need to calculate the annual cost of this consumption based on your tariff (or use a comparison site) and then work out what the monthly cost would need to be.

Take into account the credit you have accrued, and compare that with what you really should have accrued at this time of year.

Once you have done all the calculations, if you still feel the monthly amount is unfair or unreasonable, then contact your supplier again with details of what you think is fair/reasonable and why.

This MSE article may be useful too.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/lower-energy-direct-debits

Good luck!

Feel free to run your explanation/calculation by the forum members here first as a 'dry-run' if you like before taking it to the supplier.

Nada666

footyguy wrote: »

You've not really given us enough information to help you as to whether the supplier have got their sums and/or assumptions right.

If you are confused, I would suggest the first thing you do is contact your supplier and ask them for an explanation.
You may still be confused after speaking with them, but you should be able to get to a few fundamentals of how they go about calculating the monthly amount.

e.g.
Does the supplier simply take your ancipated annual cost and divide it by 12 for a monthly payment?
(This is how most suppliers do it, but some may not preferring you not to ever go into debt or may want the account to be zero on a certain date)

What is the anticipated annual consumption in kWh they are using?
- you need to then check if that is reasonable by comparing to (a) what you used when you switched supplier and (b) the actual usage over the last 12 months. But that may not be the end of it, as you say you didn't actually live in the property for the initial 4 months.

Ovo has quite a good paper on how they calculate monthly payments.
http://www.ovoenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Understanding_the_link_between_your_Direct_Debit_and_energy_consumption.pdf

Your supplier may not do it exactly the same way, but you won't be too far wrong if you follow the Ovo method.

So look at your last 6 months usage on a month by month basis and see what that would indicate an anticipated annaul consumption level would be for both gas & electricity.

Then you need to calculate the annual cost of this consumption based on your tariff (or use a comparison site) and then work out what the monthly cost would need to be.

Take into account the credit you have accrued, and compare that with what you really should have accrued at this time of year.

Once you have done all the calculations, if you still feel the monthly amount is unfair or unreasonable, then contact your supplier again with details of what you think is fair/reasonable and why.

This MSE article may be useful too.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/lower-energy-direct-debits

Good luck!

Feel free to run your explanation/calculation by the forum members here first as a 'dry-run' if you like before taking it to the supplier.

That is a helpful reply to the original post. But did you miss post #5 by the OP?

System

Forgive me guys, but the answer is at #8. As per their FAQs, First Utility appears to ignore any customer annual protections and it bases its usage calculations (and monthly DD) on previous historical data: the EAC and AQ. It follows that if someone moves into the property, and uses less energy, then it will take up to a year for First Utility's system to catch up. I suspect that most energy companies work in the same way: they are just not so upfront about it.

his_missus

When I was with first utility on a fixed tariff, they told me they were going to increase my monthly DD payment from £44 to £62 in the October because they thought my account would be owing to them in March even though I was in credit with them.


I contacted them via email and explained that as I saw things they were predicting that not only would I be using £18 extra per month but I would also be using the £xx I was currently in credit by over those next 6 months.
I then showed them my predicted usage calculations based on my previous usage and stated that I predicted I would be £xxx in credit in March and asked if they could revert back to the previous £44 monthly DD. If in March I was in debit to them, I would pay in full.


They did actually change my DD payment as I'd requested and when I switched from them in May, my account was over £100 in credit.


It may be worth emailing them.

modsandmockers

I’ve posted before that, imo, monthly DD payment schemes frequently do not work to the customer’s advantage. Customers are led to believe that the monthly payment is an accurate calculation of their monthly energy costs and that the figure will only change occasionally and only by a manageable amount. But, rightly or wrongly, their experience is that their monthly payments fluctuate wildly, inexplicably, and at random intervals. I seriously wonder if a return to quarterly variable payments would result in fewer difficulties. Monthly variable payments might be even better but, above all, I think it should be made more widely known that energy suppliers no longer take responsibility for providing accurate bills - it is now the customer’s responsibility to provide the necessary meter readings.