Age Concern and Eon

Richie-from-the-Boro

I watched the Ian Foy interview live and the interview[er] was useless. He did quiz Foy on the numbers I gave a few days ago , Foy parried with the usual "social enterprise - good works" spend mentioning pensioner groups he was not asked whether all the money raised in the UK was spent in the UK or on pensioner groups in the UK and whether any went to support work in other countries or if money raised in this country was used to lobby UK GOV for helping to change UK global policies and practices and delivering direct help to people overseas.

On a separate point Foy was not asked to explain how Age UK calculated the 'magic' that transformed the ridiculous rate comparison's URL="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35536930"]2 year compared to 1 year[/URL they used to make their point.

b33r

This is a really tough one in my opinion, no doubt what so ever it's totally wrong however i genuinely think it was probably done with the best intentions, it was just a pants deal which is the problem.

The problem goes much deeper though, the whole energy, insurance and service industry is total poison. Only the most savvy of us are on all the best deals possible, sadly the ones paying the most are probably the most vulnerable.

My wife is type one diabetic, when we're doing her car insurance or travel insurance we always check the Diabetes UK insurance services (which is a trading name of another insurance company who make a donation for every policy sold), but, guess what, they've never been the cheapest!

I'm honestly not sure what the answer is, a massive shakeup is needed. I bet a lot of companies are praying this doesn't turn in to the next scandal.

[Deleted User]

Heard the boss of Age UK on the box today defending the company and to be fair I think they had a lot to do with getting the old boys and girls away from a high BG standard tariff for the first time in their lives. I read meters for BG mostly and nearly all my normal quarterly reads are with O.A Ps on standard. Many dont have a broadband connection and never will. I ve seen Age UK customers who are happy to drop in their very friendly offices getting signed up for an Eon tariff and away from the clutches of good old British Gas. It will be one of the easiest way for someone not familiar with the net to actually shift away from a high standard tariff, especially since the doorstep sellers are banned. At least it was a start in breaking the mould and moving from the UKs dearest tariffs. It was nt too long ago that Martin Lewis was saying it was a no brainer to go on a 2 year fix with climbing prices. In my experience of many years chatting to OAPs ( and trying to get them to switch ) they re not happy about direct debits and like two different suppliers, so Age UK do a good job starting the ball rolling to cut their bills.
Another plus point about Age UK using Eon is they chose wisely and stopped people falling into the clutches of the likes of Npower, Scot Power. F. U. Spark etc..Eon are well run and one of the few suppliers I would dare advise anyone to switch too.

Wolf3

Age UK say they got only about £10 per head for this process-which means that, to receive £6.3m in commission, they had to sign up 630,000 customers to this tariff. The Sun article gives a figure of 152,000 customers. They can't both be right.
Neither Age UK nor E.on have covered themselves in glory here. However, the Sun is guilty of some fairly sloppy journalism in comparing a 2 year fix to a 1 year fix. At the the time most of these deals were done, prices were rising once or twice a year steeply, and many people went for a more expensive 2 or even 3 year fix to protect against further increases. Most of us now are even wondering if a one year fix is too long in a new era of falling prices?
But of course, that requires some understanding of the market, whereas a headline 'Age UK pockets £6m bung' just sells more papers.

I was originally disgusted to think Eon would bung this amount for commission as the article in question alluded to, approx £40 per sale. Aside from comparing the 2yr fixed Age UK tariff to the cheaper 1yr fixed Eon tariff, as most people understand, the 2 yr fixes are more expensive and were pushed as a "no brainer" a couple of years ago with rising energy prices. As the wholesale prices have fallen so fast in the last year and energy companies only reducing by a fraction of these reductions, they are an easy target for lazy tabloid journalism. the figure of £6.3m involved, also includes the redress for the £12m fine Eon received for doorstep mis-selling from 2010 - 2012, which was to go and help elderly and vulnerable customers. the tabloid's sister paper then also ran an article on Sunday which pointed to this fine, but hasn't retracted any of its ramblings or accusations. Nothing improper will be found in whichever of the multiple investigation's to be launched and at the end of it all, the cost of these investigations will be passed on through every customers bills to pay for it all :T

Cardew

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36083194


Criticised but no action necessary!


So for at least 11 years lots of pensioners have been paying well over the odds because they trusted Age-UK