NO CREDIT CHECK Energy Companies

EdwardB

Is there a list of energy suppliers that do NOT do credit checks?

I gather that Scottish Power only check you if you go into arrears, that seems fair enough to me.

We will all be moved to paying monthly with these useless smart meters anyway, no benefit for us just the energy companies who still rip us off by installing kit we do not need, that costs us money to run and becomes useless if we change supplier.

I do not want soft credit checks, I do not want soft credit checks, I do not want my credit checked at all because of the total abuse of data and how it is shared by the Credit Checking Companies.

If people want to list companies they KNOW do not search I will maintain a list.

1. Scottish Power

GingerBob_3

EDF do not hit you with a credit check, nor do they report your account to the CRAs. I'm with them for that reason.


There was some talk about SSE only reporting accounts in default but I'm not sure of the exact status of that company.


Some of the smaller companies have not yet been seduced into checking and reporting by the CRAs - not sure which ones at the moment. Occasionally people identify them in posts here.

csgohan4

how about ID checks? Insurance companies do these

Keith_F

Scottish power do credit check, they also credit check to switch from prepayment to credit account.
What’s more it is a hard check, so it degrades your credit score.
It’s a scandal that they can degrade your credit history with hard checks even before telling you whether you are likely to be accepted as a customer.

House_Martin

EDF also credit check but it is a "soft check ".
Personally I think EDF are off their rockers not applying "due diligence " in weeding out the "professional "switchers who move to to EDF simply to escape a bad credit trail so they can go ahead and defraud a supplier in racking up large debts then moving onto another property and another identity.
EDF will pass on all the bad debts onto the rest of us to pay, like many suppliers do.They cannot absorb all these large frauds or they would nt be able to operate at a profit.
Npower was so bad at billing they were giving away a free years electricity to thousands.They would nt be paying themselves for all this largesse but passing it on to the National Grid to absorb.
This is allowed to happen on electricity accounts but not gas where all losses have to be repaid to the grid

House_Martin

Keith_F wrote: »

Scottish power do credit check, they also credit check to switch from prepayment to credit account.
What’s more it is a hard check, so it degrades your credit score.
It’s a scandal that they can degrade your credit history with hard checks even before telling you whether you are likely to be accepted as a customer.

Its a much bigger "scandal " that suppliers allow frauds onto their books to get away with many thousands before the supplier pulls the plug on them.
Its too late by then because the frauds are off and away to find another mug supplier, usually EDF

Raxiel

It's not just about credit checks either.

Go to the credit board, and they'll tell you. Your 'Credit Score' is pretty meaningless, institutions offering credit will approve or deny on their own criteria.

British Gas are notorious for refusing prepay-to-credit meter switches for people who have a relatively clean history - even people who were able to convince a bank to lend them tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds for a mortgage - get refused.

It's not down to any negative factors on the account, and can only be down the fact that, as most suppliers don't report to the CRA's (even if they credit check), most people don't have a history of managing an energy account on their file

tenchy

House_Martin wrote: »

EDF also credit check but it is a "soft check ".
Personally I think EDF are off their rockers not applying "due diligence " in weeding out the "professional "switchers who move to to EDF simply to escape a bad credit trail so they can go ahead and defraud a supplier in racking up large debts then moving onto another property and another identity.
EDF will pass on all the bad debts onto the rest of us to pay, like many suppliers do.They cannot absorb all these large frauds or they would nt be able to operate at a profit.
Npower was so bad at billing they were giving away a free years electricity to thousands.They would nt be paying themselves for all this largesse but passing it on to the National Grid to absorb.
This is allowed to happen on electricity accounts but not gas where all losses have to be repaid to the grid

EDF doing credit checking (soft) is not my understanding. Do you have a reference for this? They would only be able to credit check if they also reported accounts to the bureaus, which they don't. As to why they don't, it obviously makes business sense not to waste money on having anything to do with credit bureaus. I assume this is because as a supplier they can't suddenly stop servicing you. No doubt their analysis has shown that a relationship with CRA is not cost effective.

Michaelw

Be careful leaving prepayment you might find the unit price rises on standard tarriff.Moving between prepayment and credit on British Gas smart meter did this to me and I am now desperate to get back on prepayment.It can add up to 30p plus a day.

anniecave

Michaelw wrote: »

Be careful leaving prepayment you might find the unit price rises on standard tarriff.Moving between prepayment and credit on British Gas smart meter did this to me and I am now desperate to get back on prepayment.It can add up to 30p plus a day.

There are so many possible non-prepayment suppliers and tariffs and they are many that are much cheaper normally than the pre-payment options. Can you not swap to another supplier or tariff? The standing charge is only one aspect, you need to look at your unit price and other factors such as direct debit discounts as well.

anniecave

I was with First Utility between July 2016 and July 2017 and no credit checks or reporting are showing on my credit file on Experian.

I moved to Scottish Power in July 2017 (never been in arrears) and there is no reporting or checks listed at all on Experian.

British Gas reported to Experian (at least) for the brief month I was with them. They were very aggressive with me when I moved in to a new (to me) property with them (Sainsbury's) as existing supplier - they told me either I could be credit checked or I had to sign up on direct debit and were forcing me to chose tariffs over the phone with no time to consider. Needless to say I changed supplier ASAP!