Loyal Customers now penalised.

Cardew

I started the thread below about Eon introducing a cheap new tariff that is only available to new customers, existing Eon customers are not allowed to have this tariff and thus can pay £hundreds more if they stay with Eon.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5531925

However many of the other energy companies have now climbed on the Bandwagon and adopted the same practice. I have started this thread because many readers on MSE will not have read the Eon thread.

The BBC have just caught on and this programme is well worth listening to, particularly the disgraceful (IMO) comments by the Ofgem spokesman who condones the practice.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04czf7x

The irony is that Ofgem produced an edict in 2014 that companies must make tariffs easier to understand, particularly for those who find the energy market difficult to fathom.

Time to write to our MPs??

Andy_WSM

Cardew wrote: »

Time to write to our MPs??

What's the point? They don't work for us any longer, they work only to better themselves & their friends financially.

The whole energy markey has become a sorry mess. You shouldn't HAVE to keep changing suppliers - doing so is costing us all a lot of money as they switching companies are earning small fortunes out of it.

poppasmurf_bewdley

All these power companies will soon learn that offers for 'new customers only' will be an encouragement to customers to move.

My sister moved onto the Eon deal with MSE last year after being with SSE for years at my instigation and is now in the throws of moving to the British Gas offer, again at my urging.

Loyalty means nothing these days.

Cardew

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

All these power companies will soon learn that offers for 'new customers only' will be an encouragement to customers to move.


Loyalty means nothing these days.

The problem is that many customers - the great majority - will not know about their company's 'secret' cheaper tariff. As you will see from that BBC programme the call centre staff don't mention that a cheaper tariff is available.

To now get the cheapest tariffs - the collective tariffs - you have to be on-line, which many older people are not, and join websites like MSE, Uswitch, etc.

molerat

It is appalling that the current E.On fix is the cheapest available for me by £42 but as I am an existing customer I am not eligible. How can OFGEM sanction this behaviour ? Both OFGEM and the suppliers need investigating. Someone like Which? etc needs to bring this up as a super complaint or one of the investigative programs take it direct to Greg Clark.

And how does this fit in with the new supporting vulnerable customers rules!

Cardew

molerat wrote: »

It is appalling that the current E.On fix is the cheapest available for me by £42 but as I am an existing customer I am not eligible. How can OFGEM sanction this behaviour ? Both OFGEM and the suppliers need investigating. Someone like Which? etc needs to bring this up as a super complaint or one of the investigative programs take it direct to Greg Clark.

And how does this fit in with the new supporting vulnerable customers rules!

This practice will mean that a lot more people will be using comparison websites to switch; so we are hardly likely to see these websites howling in protest; and WHICH runs a comparison website.

angelin77

You just have to play these companies at their own game. It is also similar conduct in car insurance. I received a renewal notice for my comprehensive car insurance from a well known supermarket brand. This renewal cost was an increase of nearly £180 on the previous year. I went on a comparison website and found one of the cheapest to be slightly less than my previous year's cost. So I purchased this policy. It happened to be with the same supermarket brand. They even asked for the previous provider's proof of NCB. I received a meerkat toy as a bonus for using the comparison site. It was they same a couple of years ago with Saga. They used to increase renewals by hundreds until it was featured on the same BBC program and this helped persuade them to offer loyal customers reasonable renewal rates. Hopefully it may have the same effect with energy companies.

redux

There was a similar report a week or two ago, but I can't remember where.

I've noticed this for a year or two anyway. There would be a new MSE collective deal, with loads of promotion, and the chosen company would also have its own tariff fairly well up the list, though slightly lower. But a couple of months later the same company wasn't competitive at all, maybe £100 or £150 away from the best deals.

In a time of flat or increasing tariffs, this wouldn't matter, but when things were heading generally downwards, for a couple of years until a few months ago, it would, or at least should, have been worth changing to a later tariff with the same supplier, or even switching if there was no exit fee.

Not all companies have behaved like that though. Some have had a decent deal available all the time. And perhaps they don't need to pay commission or have occasional manic promotions to drag people in, but with dull spots in between.

Thus this house has been with the same supplier, but changed tariff about 5 times last year and 6 or 7 times the year before. It would not have been possible to save even £5 with any other. But that certainly doesn't seem to be the way things work with some firms.

Farway

angelin77 wrote: »

It was they same a couple of years ago with Saga. They used to increase renewals by hundreds until it was featured on the same BBC program and this helped persuade them to offer loyal customers reasonable renewal rates. .

Ahh, that explains why my Saga insurance renewals have not been so daft the past few years. Thanks