Switching providors - Cost or Customer Service

mrgeeza

Hi there

My first post to MSE! Yay

I am currently with Scottish power for my electricity supply. I have no other services to my flat, so all my heating, hot water, cooking etc is provided powered using electricity via an Economy 7 meter. My direct debit currently stands at about £94 a month and last year I used 9906KwH.

My issue is that according to the switching sites I can make a saving, but when looking at the best deals these companies have low customer satisfaction scores.

Do I grab a bargain or go with customer satisfaction. Am I asking a pointless question?! :rotfl:

Thanks in advance!

MrGeeza :cool:

JJ_Egan

Not a pointless question its something to bear in mind .
Bear in mind that your current supplier is one with multiple complaints at present .

System

Welcome. You are not asking a pointless question. I am a serial switcher and I have had issues with suppliers big and small. For example, I was with EDF when it had a computer systems melt down a few years ago; I was with E.oN whose customer service was particularly slow and with Ovo who failed to notice that my gas switch had failed to go through. I keep a very close eye on my energy accounts so I am never shocked when things go wrong.

I switched my electricity supply away from Ovo last month and I am now with GBEnergy for the first time. They have keep me informed throughout the switching process and I am now enjoying the cheapest electricity available in my region on their standard variable tariff. (Unlike most other companies, GBEnergy's standard variable tariff is the cheapest that they offer)

What have you got to lose? You can leave it to the new supplier to manage the switch. Make sure that you provide the new supplier with frequent meter readings, and if there are any billing problems then just switch away.

macman

All they have to do is bill you correctly. There's not much more to CS with gas or electricity supply, as everything else is the same, regardless of supplier.
If you can put up with the poor level of CS offered by SP then you can probably cope with someone else, though I might draw the line at FU with it's recent severe billing issues: see the thread below this one.

backfoot

A lot of good points made already.

Provided you keep a close eye on your switch and the bills/accounts then I go for cost.

I take the view that if they mess it up, I will be claiming compensation and in my experience, nearly all Suppliers manage to get something wrong. If it's a significant issue, you can gain between £50 to £150 alone in compensation payments.

I have the time to both monitor the accounts as well as persevere with any complaint issues. I recently switched to NPower and already they seem to be messing up the gas account.

If you don't enjoy the hassle then avoid the current ones at the top of the Complaints Stats like Scottish Power, Npower, First Utility.

Tykva

backfoot wrote: »

A lot of good points made already.

Provided you keep a close eye on your switch and the bills/accounts then I go for cost.

I take the view that if they mess it up, I will be claiming compensation and in my experience, nearly all Suppliers manage to get something wrong. If it's a significant issue, you can gain between £50 to £150 alone in compensation payments.

I have the time to both monitor the accounts as well as persevere with any complaint issues. I recently switched to NPower and already they seem to be messing up the gas account.

If you don't enjoy the hassle then avoid the current ones at the top of the Complaints Stats like Scottish Power, Npower, First Utility.

Hi backfoot,

You are probably the one who could help me. I'm not sure what went wrong so any advice would be helpful.

I helped my father in law to switch from Npower in October, 2015. There was an offer from https://thebigdeal.com/ which recommended First utility. Last week my father in law received his first bill from First utility for £90, whilst he was paying £82 in Npower and was always in credit so that so in their last letter Npower dropped his fee to £42! can somebody explain what went wrong? any advice how to proceed?

I contacted The big deal, who told me to "to regularly provide First Utility with meter readings, as if his usage is very low they will no doubt adjust the direct debit downwards.", which is not exactly helpful.

backfoot

Hi Tykva,

I am sure there are many posters who can offer good advice but I will certainly try and help.

It looks like the 'Big Deal' are a Collective switch operator where they get a group of customers to effectively agree a one off energy deal for that group of customers. Their website appears very anti the Big Six Suppliers and they obviously struck your deal with First Utility.

The key is what are the price per unit of gas and electricity and the standing charges. It will be interesting to see how that compares with the Npower Tariff you were paying.

The big variable is the consumption of gas and electricity and that will determine your actual bills and cost of the contract. Other things being equal due to the very mild winter to date, I would have expected your heating levels to have been lower than last year. That may change going forward.First Utility should have given you an estimate on the latest bill of what they believe the anual consumption to be.

They have asked you for a monthly Direct Debit of £90 which is not your bill but a payment on account towards your energy costs. It may be that they have veered towards the side of caution based on assumptions of your annual usage. By submitting monthly readings they will reassess those estimates. In the meantime you may be building up a credit on your account but given that you started in the winter period with them that is quite unusual.

What is the length of the contract and are there exit fees for early termination?

If there are better rates around it may be beneficial to switch again.

Let us know the rates you are paying and what Kwh consumption you are using per year.