Add your feedback on energy supplier Places for People Energy

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Dubswa wrote: »

Avoid Avoid

People are paying too much attention to price comparison sites and not enough to price per kwh. British Gas have deals all the time that are as low as 7 pence per kwh and with a standing charge for 12 pence per day.

You wait until you have equipment issues, my advice is stick with suppliers that employ their own engineers and simply get the best deals by looking at what every 12 months.

Hi - welcome to the forum. Suppliers are not permitted to have 'deals'. Each supplier is allowed 4 tariffs (that said, following the CMA review this may be changing and I see that BG has got approval for a 5th Dual Fuel ToU tariff).

I do though agree with the general thrust of what you are saying. Discounts for dual fuel and online billing disguise the true cost of the energy being purchased. If we have a very cold Winter this year, then standing charges and unit prices may be fixed but then so are the discounts. For this reason, my advice currently is to use separate suppliers for gas and electricity.

I have just looked at BG's website (not a comparison site) and got a quote of £910.24. On my present 'deals' through until May 2017, I pay £631 per year. £270 per year extra is a lot to pay 'just in case' my meter has a fault.

You don't happen to work for BG sales?

Dubswa

No I don't but my advice is correct. Go for lower price kwh if you use a lot or a lower standing charge if you use very little.

My advice is stick with the big suppliers as when it comes to safety the smaller cowboys can't compete. I had a meter fitted by a sub contractor and it ended up reverse polarity.....which can kill.

raefil

Service is very poor, no replies to emails, despite sending meter readings monthly still no bill generated which is very annoying as I like to keep on top of my energy usage.

Frankly my experience, so far, is that this company are useless and not customer orientated at all.

On top of all this the website seems to be down more often than it actually works.

The_Hawk

I'm in the process of switching to Places for People Energy and so far so good. My application went through and my welcome pack arrived very quickly afterwards and the prices in my welcome pack match those quoted when I applied.

I found it easy to register an account on the website and everything seems to be correct on my online account.

I have had no need to contact customer services yet, so I can't comment on that aspect.

The only downside, for me, is that my readings, from my smart meter, will no longer be supplied automatically to my supplier but, the savings were too good to ignore. So, I will just set up a monthly calendar reminder to take and pass on my gas/electricity readings.

Once my switchover is complete, I'll come back and update on things like billing and direct debits.

The_Hawk

Update: Well the transfer from my old supplier seems to have gone through smoothly and I have received my final bill, and refund, from my old supplier.

Today, my first direct debit was taken by Places for People Energy and, again, everything is correct.

So far so good, just waiting for my first bill, from Places for People Energy, but, so far, everything has been correct and I have found Places for People Energy easy to deal with.

davidsuffolk

Been with PfP for more than 6 months now.

Apart from slow replies to emails to start they've been faultless, All meter readings & bills back to when I joined show on website and only small gripe I have is they want monthly meter readings (which others may prefer anyway as it does ensure accurate bills).

energiser

Switched painlessly from BG in March and have waited until now to post as things can change after a few months.

I've had no problems whatsoever. Certainly no billing/tariff issues as mentioned above. Also no problems logging on to their site, which has not been down when I've needed to enter meter readings, which is very easy to do. They email me when they need a reading, no need to set reminders.

I have only called them once, to check whether someone who came round to read the meter was genuine (i had given them my readings the previous week), which he was. Friendly and helpful service. No complaints.

jeffveit

It's very disappointing for me; I've been trying for 5 days to switch, but they've had problems processing my application. Today the price on the 2 year deal is significantly higher. MSE - this should probably no longer be your recommendation. For me it's risen by £350/yr.

greenleaf_2

OK, I have been with PfP for about 7 months.

Initially they were slow to respond to emails - I think they had opened a lot of new accounts.

One annoyance which is continuing - they persist in sending an email "It's time to give us your meter readings" a week before the readings are actually due (so the readings are in effect disregarded unless you wait until the due date).

I have raised this with them but "computer says no" - they can't or won't make the necessary change.

greenleaf

SteGreenall

So far .....so very good

I was with Southern Electric for many years. Changed to Places for People in April. I'm an accountant , so I ought to be as aggressive with home bills as I am at work....however.....stayed too long, lazily, with SE. I have taken average monthly costs of my SE bills over 4 years, and compared with what I am paying PfP, I reckon on saving £600 in the current year. I found the switch over easy. If you don't like a monthly e-mail prompt and then sending a reading in, fair enough.........it takes no more than 5 minutes to read your meters and submit the readings to the PfP website. One hour a year of your life to save £600. I'll live with that. Should I find things aren't as good as I currently feel, I'll write back. I'm new to this forum. But my view is.....go for it