Switching Gas & Electricity

Sulie

Couple of things to be aware of when switching energy suppliers:
I switched electricity to Sainsbury's Energy Feb 2015. Paid a DD of £40.50 per month. I switched Electricity to British Gas in October 2016 but since switching, Sainsbury's Energy have sent me a final bill of £1044.00 apparently underpaid!

Advice I would like to pass on is this, take a meter reading once per month and log it with your provider. Keep an eye on the amount owing and question 'does your DD cover it'.

After discussions with Sainsbury's Energy my DD should have been £91 per month for those 23 months! Which brings about another question was their electricity cheaper than the previous provider sadly the answer is no it wasn't!

I live alone and work full time, out 12 hours per day 5-days per week and away most weekends. Where did I use £91 per month, can I figure that out, unfortunately not!

Moral of the story is this, do not trust or take for granted that your new supplier is indeed cheaper as promised or indeed your new tariff is right for you. Continually take readings, submit them and keep an eye on your bills. Question seemingly increased usage; if usage has changed then alter your DD accordingly if it hasn't then request an investigation. Remember the supplier will charge a hefty price for a house call!

Hope this helps towards a debt free year!
Best wishes

footyguy

Sulie wrote: »

Couple of things to be aware of when switching energy suppliers:
I switched electricity to Sainsbury's Energy Feb 2015. Paid a DD of £40.50 per month. I switched Electricity to British Gas in October 2016 but since switching, Sainsbury's Energy have sent me a final bill of £1044.00 apparently underpaid!

Advice I would like to pass on is this, take a meter reading once per month and log it with your provider. Keep an eye on the amount owing and question 'does your DD cover it'.

After discussions with Sainsbury's Energy my DD should have been £91 per month for those 23 months! Which brings about another question was their electricity cheaper than the previous provider sadly the answer is no it wasn't!

I live alone and work full time, out 12 hours per day 5-days per week and away most weekends. Where did I use £91 per month, can I figure that out, unfortunately not!

Moral of the story is this, do not trust or take for granted that your new supplier is indeed cheaper as promised or indeed your new tariff is right for you. Continually take readings, submit them and keep an eye on your bills. Question seemingly increased usage; if usage has changed then alter your DD accordingly if it hasn't then request an investigation. Remember the supplier will charge a hefty price for a house call!

Hope this helps towards a debt free year!
Best wishes

Welcome back after 11 years!!!

It's worse than what you describe. If you used over £1000 worth of energy more than you anticipated in a little over 18 months, you input entirely the wrong info into the comparison site when you elected to go with Sainsburys in the first place.

They may have been cheap for the anticipated consumption you input, but I doubt they were for what you actually used.

Moral of the story ... well I'm not going there so you can then report me with soimeone that comes back after 11 years.

Good luck!

macman

Your supplier's rate may indeed have been the cheapest. But this was based on you using x kWh pa, when you have in fact used more than twice x.
The annual DD is based on a 1/12 of your predicted annual usage, and if the annual kWh consumption figure that you give to the new supplier is way under, then the inevitable result (compounded by a failure to give meter readings or check your estimated bills against actual metered usage) is a huge catch up bill further down the line.
You have come to exactly the right conclusions, but unfortunately only after the damage has been done.

flashgit

Changing supplier is never as easy as is made out. I have changed several times over the years and invariably trouble crops up. Last time I changed from Eon to British Gas (as part of the MSE collective switch). Except Eon compiled a final bill based on estimated figures, when actual readings had been submitted. Those estimated figures meant they charged for energy I had not used ananat their standard tariff. Consequently, when British Gas issued their first bill I was charged twice for the same energy. After much wrangling Eon did issue a refund but this highlights another pitfall of changing supplier - the whole process needs to be carefully monitored.

This time I changed from British Gas to Scottish Power. Having overpaid by DD, British Gas did not issue a refund until I requested it several times and lodged complaints. In addition, the manner in which they calculated their final bill, not having issued one for six months previously, was exceedingly convoluted and took me several attempts and a good few hours of study to unravel. Most people would not stand a chance of understanding how they performed their calculations.

In view of the above, I would caution anyone thinking of switching supplier to do so only if they are prepared to spend the time and effort ensuring things do not go wrong and have the tenacity to get things put right afterwards. If I did not expend as much time and effort on both switching occasions any advantage to switching would easily have been wiped out by money lost in the process. The MSE site would do well to forewarn customers of these (and other) pitfalls when switching supplier rather than making it out to be a simple and straightforward process.

footyguy

flashgit wrote: »

Changing supplier is never as easy as is made out. I have changed several times over the years and invariably trouble crops up. Last time I changed from Eon to British Gas (as part of the MSE collective switch). Except Eon compiled a final bill based on estimated figures, when actual readings had been submitted. Those estimated figures meant they charged for energy I had not used ananat their standard tariff. Consequently, when British Gas issued their first bill I was charged twice for the same energy. After much wrangling Eon did issue a refund but this highlights another pitfall of changing supplier - the whole process needs to be carefully monitored.

This time I changed from British Gas to Scottish Power. Having overpaid by DD, British Gas did not issue a refund until I requested it several times and lodged complaints. In addition, the manner in which they calculated their final bill, not having issued one for six months previously, was exceedingly convoluted and took me several attempts and a good few hours of study to unravel. Most people would not stand a chance of understanding how they performed their calculations.

In view of the above, I would caution anyone thinking of switching supplier to do so only if they are prepared to spend the time and effort ensuring things do not go wrong and have the tenacity to get things put right afterwards. If I did not expend as much time and effort on both switching occasions any advantage to switching would easily have been wiped out by money lost in the process. The MSE site would do well to forewarn customers of these (and other) pitfalls when switching supplier rather than making it out to be a simple and straightforward process.

Is this not Malc from Eon explained to you 2 years ago?
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=67411826&postcount=253

Most people here have no significant issues when switching supplier, and some of us have switched many, many times.

If it's all too much for you, stick with your current supplier, but ensure you are getting the best tariff from them

Honeydelight

Following persistent telephone calls from Energy Helpline I have just changed supplier from Utility Warehouse to Green Energy. My monthly payment was reduced by £25.00 which I thought was great, the only trouble is I have received my final bill from UW and find I owe them over £400.00. My saving of £25.00 per month will not happen until I have written off the debt. Not their fault but mine for not realising but I would warn anyone who is thinking of changing supplier to do it after the summer months when you usually have a debit balance. Lesson learned.

Robin9

Sulie -

My question to you is what are your bills to BG coming out like.

As you said in your post - are you continually taking readings and keeping an eye on your bills.

Can you post your readings you gave when you switched in October and what are they today ?

Patrick_Stewart

I switched to Sainsbury's Energy a few months ago and their customer services were really great. They couldn't do more to help.
Because I don't often swap around often I wanted to make sure they were billing me correctly and added up the Kw/h usage , standing charge etc and contacted them to check it was correct.
My maths was slightly off and they sent a full email showing all the calculations itemised of how they reached the sum on my bill.
All very clear and considerate.