Ferkin' Powergen !!

seven-day-weekend

I perrsonally have found Powergen really efficient and their customer service excellent. (This is for my UK house). I have been with them for about fifteen months.

I have reduced the d/d from £100 to £85 as I was £100s in credit even in the winter! I had £200 refund. At the moment I am over £200 in credit again but next month the central heating will go on so the bills will be bigger for the next few months.. I expect to be in credit in the summer and use the credit up in the winter. If I am still paying too much after the winter I will reduce it again.

The meters are read every month by my son and I provide the readings to Powergen. This way I do not get an estimated bill.

I consider it my responsibility to work out how much I should pay, not Powergen's. If you monitor your bills/payments and adjust accordingly there should not be any major surprises.

Peartree

I'm just leaving Powergen, not because I was particularly unhappy with their service (personally I think all the big suppliers are pretty much the same and you need to keep an eye on them) but because I think it is better to keep comparing the deal you're getting on these things.

However, I did find that they changed my direct debit on a completely arbitrary basis. I let the estimated bills rack up without giving them a proper reading and they kept increasing my direct debit. When I was thinking of doing a comparison I asked them to send me a complete breakdown of my account from the last actual reading. I didn't give them any info on the actual reading at that point. Mysteriously, a few days later, I got a letter reducing my direct debit quite significantly! I'm certain it was because I'd asked questions and they suspected I was leaving! They had no new figures on which to reassess my account. When I did give them a proper reading, the immediately reduced the direct debit again. Subsequently, I discovered that I was over £300 in credit. Entirely my own fault - as the previous poster says you really need to keep your eye on your account - I could have been earning interest on that money.

To their credit, I have had a very prompt reply to every e-mail I've sent with very detailed information with a very good monthly projection of usage based on my annual reading. I also asked for the £300 to be credited to me (as I wanted to ensure I had a zero balance when I switched) and they did so immediately.

Funnily enough, I've just had a call from them re my switch. The guy said they have other tarrifs they could offer me. I said 'well you should have offered them to me before then shouldn't you?' He laughed and said I was probably right and they'd sort out my switch straight away.

I have found their customer service pretty good. I've learnt my lesson and will keep a much closer eye on my usage and will provide regular readings in future so I'm more educated about what they're doing with my direct debit and so I don't build up a debit to pay off or lose interest by building up too big a credit over the course of the year. Also, if you keep on top of what you're actually using it makes it much easier to know if your supplier is giving you the best deal in the market.

Sometimes this moneysaving business is flipping hard work though isn't it? By switching my utilities and my home insurance I've saved quite a few hundred pounds this year but it took every lunchtime for a fortnight to sort it all out. Still, remember what it was like when you had no choice of supplier and you didn't have the internet, MSE, price comparison sites and cashback sites to help?!

crankup

We were paying £49 a month for our Powergen DD. I could see it was barely covering it at best and indeed we were mostly in the red all the time.
Every time the bill came in it went heavily into the red and over the next few months it was almost paid off. It was no surprise when they also sent us a letter last week upping it to £113. We had £200 outstanding. I paid it off online, then phoned them and asked for a reduction. I said we do about £800 a year on gas/electric. The Powergen lad agreed and reduced it to £67 a month. Seemed fair to me.