Which collective switches are yet to come?

martyp

Sorry, I signed up to several and kind of lost track of them now. I know the MSE one didn't come up with anything for England and have had a few others now which haven't beaten my current arrangement.
The 'bigcollectiveswitch' contacted me today (EnergyHelpline) and no savings there. I think the iChoosr one was yesterday with 'personalised offers' rolling out on the 27th?
So far I haven't got reason to disrupt my current switch from the BG Collective Feb 2017 to Iresa for electric and Zog for gas. Both not having any exit fees and fixed for a year...
So far both seem to be keeping me very informed, was pleasantly surprised with Iresa owing to many negative comments about them and that they're probably getting inundated with new switches now.

System

martyp wrote: »

Sorry, I signed up to several and kind of lost track of them now. I know the MSE one didn't come up with anything for England and have had a few others now which haven't beaten my current arrangement.
The 'bigcollectiveswitch' contacted me today (EnergyHelpline) and no savings there. I think the iChoosr one was yesterday with 'personalised offers' rolling out on the 27th?
So far I haven't got reason to disrupt my current switch from the BG Collective Feb 2017 to Iresa for electric and Zog for gas. Both not having any exit fees and fixed for a year...
So far both seem to be keeping me very informed, was pleasantly surprised with Iresa owing to many negative comments about them and that they're probably getting inundated with new switches now.

What makes you think that collective switches will continue to offer the cheapest deals going forward? The simple fact of the matter is that suppliers no longer want to pay PCW referral fees. FlowEnergy has said as much it's FOR SALE statement. All collective switches since Nov16 have failed to undercut the market leading deals.

My own view is that the smaller suppliers will drive change in the sector and we will end up with one PCW paid for by the suppliers: this I recall was the EDF solution.

Personally, I would rather see £60 knocked off my bill than a £30 referral fee and a £30 cashback.

SamNRG

I think it will become more challenging for collective tariffs to be cheapest in the market (we've seen this already).

You have a load of small suppliers who don't make their tariffs available on PCWs so are naturally cheaper than collectives.

I looked at uswitch the other day and you can't switch to any tariffs on their site. I think sites will soon only show tariffs they get money for.

[Deleted User]

Always check tariffs on the Citizens Advice Bureau too at https://energycompare.citizensadvice.org.uk/ . You won't get any cashback from any switch but they do show all the market.

martyp

Thanks all, I honestly don't really pin much hope on any decent collectives based on the ones that have come out so far as they do only seem to rival the big 6 and don't come that close to the smaller suppliers. The BG collective fix 2017 came out as £537 for me over the year and the best I can get now with Iresa and Zog is about £605 so understand that's just down to the prices increasing, especially on the electric. I was on Scottish power for about 10 years before going to the BG switch last year, I didn't consider the smaller suppliers back then so giving them a go now...
Iresa have already set my online account up which is something BG seemed to massively make a mess of so already they're comparable on that part.
I had loads of problems with Scottish Power and again with British Gas including when they charged the direct debit twice by mistake. So really with all the problems I had with the big 6 I am quite prepared for small companies to have problems in the early days and can understand when they're finding their feet. For big established suppliers to make the silly mistakes they did I can't really sympathise.

phillw

willieaames wrote: »

Iresa switches, Where to start? meter readings you submit never get updated to your account. Since joining in March 2016 I have had two electricity bills for zero money as none of the three meter readings I sent in have been registered.

npower didn't bill me for energy for a year, so all the payments I made showed as a massive credit.

After I switched away, I waited for six months for a final bill. Then I discovered that my online account and the paper bills were not linked, the balances on them were consistently £50 different. They tried to correct it by putting through random bill adjustments. The final credit refund wasn't as high as I was expecting, but they had made such a mess of my account that I gave up trying to figure it out.

I'm crossing my fingers that Iresa isn't that bad. Time will tell.

martyp

Well, I got my personal offer for the collective switch that was coming out today that beats the British Gas standard tariff by a whole £29 and would save me -£96 from my current switching...
So definitely agree the collectives aren't really any advantage at the moment.
So far so good with Iresa and Zog though, early days so can't be sure but already they seem to have outshone Scottish Power and British Gas that both manage to make a mess of things. My switch to British Gas messed up somehow and was delayed for about a month with lots of mismatched information on my online account that took them a while to resolve and then came the direct debit taken out twice in two days last year.
Hopefully with these new suppliers I can say goodbye to impersonal scripted e-mail responses from offshore support too. Already I've contacted Iresa a few times and I've been quite impressed considering they're a new small company no doubt being bombarded with switchers.
So far both Iresa and Zog have kept me well informed, Iresa delayed my switch as I requested and picked it up again efficiently and my online account all looks correct and the first direct debit was taken as indicated.
I can understand it being hard to get hold of customer services in the smaller companies but can imagine there's less likelihood of being batted around different departments by undertrained confused advisors (that might answer the call quickly). So far the people I have spoken to know what they're talking about and deal with my query even if it involved a bit of a wait to get a response.
I may be one of the lucky ones, I can't say but so far so good...

bxboards

Hengus wrote: »

Personally, I would rather see £60 knocked off my bill than a £30 referral fee and a £30 cashback.

Agreed, too be quite honest these collectives seem to be set up to benefit the price comparison sites via the referral fees rather than end users.

I have had 4 or 5 collective e-mails, and I can get much better prices going to smaller independents who are not paying commission.

I'd prefer just one non profit making site, paying no referral fees. The industry must be paying 10's of millions in commission to comparison sites, which IMHO would be better funneled towards reducing bills.

System

bxboards wrote: »

Agreed, too be quite honest these collectives seem to be set up to benefit the price comparison sites via the referral fees rather than end users.

I have had 4 or 5 collective e-mails, and I can get much better prices going to smaller independents who are not paying commission.

I'd prefer just one non profit making site, paying no referral fees. The industry must be paying 10's of millions in commission to comparison sites, which IMHO would be better funneled towards reducing bills.

MSE CEC lists all available tariffs. When it says switch directly via the supplier, this is usually an indication that £s are not being handed over to the PCW.

teddysmum

My worry is that if the big companies make so many mistakes, the smaller ones will be worse, due to inexperience. At least the big ones give compensation for errors (Well Npower does. I've earned over £50 in the last year, from small error complaints).

System

teddysmum wrote: »

My worry is that if the big companies make so many mistakes, the smaller ones will be worse, due to inexperience. At least the big ones give compensation for errors (Well Npower does. I've earned over £50 in the last year, from small error complaints).

So if I paid £130* a year more and got £50 back....... I am not sure that I would see it as a win situation.

*The extra that I would would have to pay if I switched to the cheapest larger supplier today.