Switch your Gran - Need many email addresses?

Bex_123

Hello

Apologies if this is the wrong place to post! I am switching my Gran (or to be more correct, my partner's parents). At the moment, I am a member of the Cheap Energy Club :beer:

I had hoped there was a way to have multiple accounts on the same login but there doesn't appear to be. Seeing :money: is so keen on getting you to "Switch your Gran", are there any plans to allow there to be multiple energy accounts for electric/gas on the same login?

Just wondering. It's not a major thing - I've nicked the Other Half's email for his parents.

matelodave

It's not hard to set up another e-mail address, Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail (or whatever it's called nowadays) all do free e-mail addresses. I've got three for various uses and my wife has seven or eight - her personal one and any that she uses for on-line purchases or specific websites that she doesn't want to share around.

So set one up for Gran so you can keep it all separate from your own stuff.

The other advantage of having a non service provider e-mail address (like @talk-talk, @sky or @BT etc) is that you can change your broadband supplier without all the rigmarole of changing your e-mail address and having to notify everyone

System

What you are trying to do is well-intentioned but illegal unless you have a Lasting Power of Attorney in place in respect of the other person's financial affairs. Any sensible switching site will not allow you to operate in this way. I appreciate that you are only trying to help other family members but who, for example, gets the cash back, and who is the contract between if you have effected the switch? The best way of doing it is to set up separate switching accounts and do the switch with the other person present when you do it. Effectively, they are then carrying out the switch with your help thus avoiding all legal potholes.

quaybab

This is the first stumbling block on an adventure full of pit falls.
As MSEers know, switching energy never goes smoothly. Grans new supplier ignores the opening meter readings which initiates a complaint where the old supplier starts sending demands for money not owned, causing upset. Offline relative blames you and causes a family argument.
If your unlucky, you'll have to take it to the energy ombudsman. Because your inspired by MSE and switched before, this is a familiar process.
The ombudsman susses you out for being a bit clued up about how they operate and the poor customer service with excuses they give. You end up getting black listed along with Gran and her property over customers colluding and using different names and addresses. A vulnerable pensioner loses access to a statutory service and your no longer beneficiary of the will your were ultimately hoping would be a bigger slice saved by not going to the energy companies.
Its a nice idea but in practice, not worth it unless you don't like your family.
BTW, gmx.com gives you 9 disposable email aliases on the one login.

cajef

Why resurrect a thread that is twelve months old and the OP has not been online since?