Energy Hike/Cheap Energy Club Scaremongering

Capyboppy

Had the usual email this morning to say the start of the fuel rises are about to happen. This was captioned by 'Urgent' followed by the incitement to rush and change to the Energy Club as I would be losing out.

I should imagine the majority of MSE folk are like me and are on fixed tariffs, so at least for now there is no concern (further down the line is a different matter).

For those less savvy I am concerned the 'fright tactic' will lead to some MSEers rush to end their current deal before they need to. Normally these hikes are for the standard tariff.

Thoughts?

footyguy

Capyboppy wrote: »

Had the usual email this morning to say the start of the fuel rises are about to happen. This was captioned by 'Urgent' followed by the incitement to rush and change to the Energy Club as I would be losing out.

I should imagine the majority of MSE folk are like me and are on fixed tariffs, so at least for now there is no concern (further down the line is a different matter).

For those less savvy I am concerned the 'fright tactic' will lead to some MSEers rush to end their current deal before they need to. Normally these hikes are for the standard tariff.

Thoughts?

Of course, if you are already tied into a fixed price tariff, the price of that tariff will not change over the agreed term.

Which particular comments are you referring to?

In this weeks email (08 February 2017) it says:

Npower is raising its standard elec prices by 15% and gas by 4.8% (about 10% for dual fuel) on 16 March, joining EDF as the 2nd giant to announce March hikes. Others are only promising to freeze prices till spring and we expect them to soar then. Yet today's top deals are £100s/yr cheaper and because they're fixed will protect you from the hikes....

and the CEC says:

URGENT: PRICES RISES ARE COMING - FIX TO LOCK IN AND BEAT THE HIKES NOW

Scottish Power is hiking its standard prices by a whopping 7.8%, following EDF and Npower as the third of the big six suppliers to announce hikes in spring – and even though British Gas is freezing its standard prices, the message is still simple...

If you're on a supplier's standard tariff, you're massively overpaying. The top deals are £100s/yr cheaper and because they're fixed they'll protect you from the hikes. So check NOW if you can save a possible £300+/yr.

(my highlighting)

Capyboppy

This is the one I received foot guy. It made just the one reference to 'standard' which I admit I missed. But the 'be sure to switch when your fix ends' is implying that the energy club is going to be automatically cheaper. How do they know SP are not going to give me a better deal? They can't until another year passes. Now if they said: 'Be sure to login to the Energy Club to compare deals and see if we can beat your renewal quote' I would have more respect.

Urgent: Your provider Scottish Power is hiking its standard dual fuel prices by 7.8%

Your prices are fixed for now - but be sure to switch when your fix ends to avoid being hit by the hikes

System

Capyboppy wrote: »

This is the one I received foot guy. It made just the one reference to 'standard' which I admit I missed. But the 'be sure to switch when your fix ends' is implying that the energy club is going to be automatically cheaper. How do they know SP are not going to give me a better deal? They can't until another year passes. Now if they said: 'Be sure to login to the Energy Club to compare deals and see if we can beat your renewal quote' I would have more respect.

Urgent: Your provider Scottish Power is hiking its standard dual fuel prices by 7.8%

Your prices are fixed for now - but be sure to switch when your fix ends to avoid being hit by the hikes

MSE CEC is an Ofgem-accredited price comparison website (via its links with Moneysupermarket.com). I have never encountered a situation where the tariffs available to me on MSE CEC differed in anyway from the tariffs available to me on a supplier's website. Energy is not like Sky where a customer threatens to leave and Sky comes up with an inducement to stay.

Capyboppy

I beg to differ I'm afraid. Every time I have put my details in and checked out what has come up from the energy club based on my useage in kWh over the year, monthly payments, and also allowing for being well in credit; the charges have been very high. I.e.: paying £35 a month agsinst a quote of anything up to £70 a month. It just can't be right. Even if I asked for my credit back in a cheque it wouldn't go up to that much.

System

Capyboppy wrote: »

I beg to differ I'm afraid. Every time I have put my details in and checked out what has come up from the energy club based on my useage in kWh over the year, monthly payments, and also allowing for being well in credit; the charges have been very high. I.e.: paying £35 a month agsinst a quote of anything up to £70 a month. It just can't be right. Even if I asked for my credit back in a cheque it wouldn't go up to that much.

You cannot do a meaningful comparison based on kWhs, £s and credit. To get an accurate result, comparisons have to be based on kWhs/year for gas and electricity. MSE CEC, if set up properly, will give you a very simple comparison based on 'your present tariff times kWhs' compared all the other 'new tariff times kWhs'. If you are getting an erroneous result then I suspect that it is down to your calculations.

For example, I base my comparisons on 10000kWhs/year for gas and 3000kWhs/year for electricity. My present tariffs and projected usage are set up in MSE CEC. It shows that if I wanted to switch today, I would have to pay £78 per year more.

Clearly, if I have used less or more than the estimated usage over the past year, then I need to edit this usage in MSE CEC to get an accurate comparison.

d0nkeyk0ng

Capyboppy wrote: »

Had the usual email this morning to say the start of the fuel rises are about to happen.

TBH, it's already happening. I was looking in early January for new deals. I have a spreadsheet with deals from 2016. All of the same companies I looked at last year were now quoting £150-250 more in terms of cost for the same usage.

I decided to hang fire and looked again at the beginning of Feb. A lot of the cheaper tariffs from smaller companies had gone and were now replaced with different tariffs with a higher price and the difference between a new tariff with my current supplier and the cheapest tariff from an independent had decreased by over £50.

Capyboppy

Hengus: maybe you have misunderstood. I have done it the same way as yourself. Taken the kWh for the year of both electric and gas and I have inputted to the various comparison sites including the energy club. There has often been done variations between the sites. For example: uswitch may say Npower while Energy Club says another. While I will still occasionally use these sites out of interest, I tend to do it the long harder way which is more reliable. That is to go to each suppliers website to get their tariffs for my area and calculate using my yearly figures as above.

System

Capyboppy wrote: »

Hengus: maybe you have misunderstood. I have done it the same way as yourself. Taken the kWh for the year of both electric and gas and I have inputted to the various comparison sites including the energy club. There has often been done variations between the sites. For example: uswitch may say Npower while Energy Club says another. While I will still occasionally use these sites out of interest, I tend to do it the long harder way which is more reliable. That is to go to each suppliers website to get their tariffs for my area and calculate using my yearly figures as above.

I am clearly missing something. You appear to be confusing the annual cost of a tariff with what you will pay. For example, you mention a credit balance when this is immaterial to the calculation going forward other than it suggests that the annual usage used in the calculation may be flawed OR the supplier's algorithms have over estimated your annual usage.. In my many many switches over the past few years, I have never found a comparison site that has given false information. That is not the same as saying that all comparison sites show all the available tariffs.

The one PCW that does show all available tariffs is on the Citizens' Advice website.

Any variations are usually down to one thing: VAT. All PCWs include VAT but not all suppliers' websites do (other than in their annual cost).

I would be interested in seeing an example of where you believe that PCWs are giving false information. I am sure that Ofgem would be interested as well.

teddysmum

Some people may be panicked into moving before their fix ends (possibly quite soon) but would need to look at the risk of paying £40 to £60 penalty and the 'saving' by remaining on their current cheaper tariff (likely to be cheaper than current offers as well as the soon to be increased ones.)


Yes the proposed increases are on standard tariffs, but the whole range open for new deals will increase in some way.

Capyboppy

Hengus wrote: »

I
I would be interested in seeing an example of where you believe that PCWs are giving false information. I am sure that Ofgem would be interested as well.

I didn't say they were giving false information. I said that I had variations of what was the best deal for me. I appreciate that having a large amount of credit will have a bearing on the results, which is why I always base it on the annual kilowatt hours used. That way the comparison sites should be able to go by a 'level playing field'.

The thing I am always puzzled about is why often they quote different companies as the best one for me? This includes when I make sure 'show all tariffs' are included. It has always been recommended that using the actual kilowatt hours is the best way of inputting in the comparison sites, or in fact any energy website when comparing deals.

I stress I did not say it was false. Whatever results the comparison sites come up with, I still double-check these. Such as making sure the prices per unit is the same or cheaper compared to the individual company's website. If the comparison site has a cheaper tariff if going through them; great. But at the end of the day it still comes down to checking carefully the statistics. Often energy companies have a 2-tier system for usage. This can go way out of an estimate depending on whether we have a good/bad Summer or Winter; but I guess that is a whole different topic.