SSE Shenanigans - Disingenuous or What?

Sosumi

Look on any decent comparison website, such as Energy Helpline, at the moment and you’ll likely be struck by a prominent new dual-fuel offering with SSE called “SSE 1 Year Fixed v8”. (NB. That “v8” bit is most important. As I’m about to explain...)

For many, it will be an appealing tariff and it’s not a collective fix; you don’t have to have registered with anyone in advance to see it and apply for it, it’s available to all. You can just click on the supplied link at the comparison site to secure it.

In my region and for my household’s (apparently “high”) annual energy consumption it comes straight in at second cheapest on the list, just £9 more expensive than GB Energy Supply’s “Fixed 1 Year Crystal”.

And, since Energy Helpline doesn’t, itself, offer a switch to the GB Energy Supply deal, SEE’s v8 tariff currently comes out as top of what’s available.

Better yet, if you navigate to Energy Helpline’s site via Quidco you’ll get a cashback of £30; go via Top Cashback and it’s £32.32. :money:

Look again, however, and you’ll observe that if you go straight to SSE itself via Quidco the cashback is £46.40 and via Top Cashback it’s £46.86. Don’t be misled. This seems even tastier at first sight. But there’s a catch. With both of those you are forwarded to SSE’s “1 Year Fixed v7” instead.

And that’s exactly the same tariff you are offered if you simply go directly (with no cashback) to SSE’s own site. The “SSE 1 Year Fixed v7” – of which SSE proclaims:

“Fix your prices for 12 months with our cheapest energy tariff.

When you sign up to our SSE 1 Year Fixed v7 tariff, you'll get our cheapest energy prices.”

It adds, for good measure:

“This tariff is available to all our customers, not just the new ones.”

So, these are SSE’s “cheapest energy prices” (sic), are they?

Like hell they are! Some would call that statement a bare-faced lie by SSE; but to spare MSE’s legal department reaching for the smelling salts, I’ll just describe it, here, as outstandingly lacking in accuracy.

For me, SSE’s “1 Year Fixed v7” tariff, with Gas @ 3.132p and Elx @ 11.470p, would cost £306 a year more than SSE’s own (freely-available on comparison sites, remember) "1 Year Fixed v8" tariff, with Gas @ 2.321p and Elx @ 10,301p.

SSE’s Standing Charges, furthermore, are 23.020p (for each fuel) on v7 but only 20.280p (for each fuel) on v8.

Now, I was only doing these comparisons out of interest – I’m happy with the E.ON 2 Year collective fix I got via EHL last month – but if you’re drawn to the "SSE 1 Year v8" offer and relaxed about SSE’s concept of honesty, make sure you do use a comparison site to apply for it and that you indeed get the v8 tariff, not the v7 tariff.


Of course, if you prefer to use MSE’s wretched “Cheap” Energy Club because it refuses to disclose its telephone number and postal address to its own members , you can – but you’ll get less cashback than you would receive from Top Cashback if you use Top Cashback to navigate to, for example, Energy Helpline to get the v8 tariff. And Energy Helpline happily gives you its postal address and contact telephone number, so you can sort out with a live human being any problems that arise in forwarding your application to SSE

MSE_Roxanne wrote: »

We aren't a company that has a telephone service for users to reach us on.

Happy switching.:D

(But, personally, I shall be keeping well clear of SSE in the future. :cool: )

ladymarmalade222

I am so angry with SSE at the moment. I visited an elderly relative and questioned her gas and electric. She said don't worry I have recently spoken to SSE and they have assured me I am getting a good deal.

I took a quick look at her bills and sure enough she is on standard tariff paying £340 over the odds.

I went on the comparison sites and found SSE were doing V8 which would be the cheapest. Rang SSE and found they were being awkward saying it was another dept dealing with switching tariffs but I could not speak to them but I could swap to V7 there and then which was £200 more expensive!

I asked to be put through to a manager and was told SSE have made a "business decision" to only offer V8 to new customers and existing customers could only go onto V7.

Disgusting service and I will never touch SSE again. I swap all my relatives energy deals for them and will never consider SSE now.

Sosumi

Interesting...

The Devil finds work for hands rendered unseasonably idle by today’s weather, so, out of curiosity, i’ve just experimented with a number of different comparison sites, entering my existing supplier, variously, as SSE and as nPower.

On TheEnergyShop.com, for example, if you put SSE it produces a list with the cheapest SSE tariff being v7. So, it filters you out of an offer on v8.

With Energy Helpline, if you enter your existing supplier as nPower it offers you SSE v8 with the usual little button to click on the right of the page marked “I want this Deal”. If you enter your existing supplier as SSE it still shows SSE v8 but, instead of the button, there is a box that tells you to ring EHL on a Freephone number.

It would be revealing to know what happens if an SSE customer with the same degree of honesty as SSE entered their current supplier as nPower on the EHL site and then went through the automated switch procedure.

After all the jiggery-pokery that took place earlier this year on comparison sites to screen out suppliers’ existing customers who had pre-registered for collective fixes, from seeing and being offered tariffs available to others, I now pre-register for all the various comparison sites’ collective fixes several times, using different email addresses and entering my existing supplier as nPower, First Utility, Extra Energy or one of the other Usual Suspects that I avoid like a weapon-wielding Jihadist.

Glad to be out of it for a while, to be honest, with a recent 2 Year collective fix on E.ON at pre-Referendum rates.



:idea: I wonder what happens if you ask for a quote on the “Cheap” Energy Club, giving SSE as your existing supplier. I mean, it’s not as if, like EHL, they’re going to give you a telephone number (let alone a Freephone number) to ring them, is it? :rotfl: