Existing energy supplier credit check?

alreeve27

Hi, we're in the process of looking for a new house and our current electricity tariff is due to expire later this month. We have our decision in principle from around a month ago, but are yet to find anything suitable or have any offers on our current place. We aren't doing anything that could possible affect the mortgage (I assume the lender will do a credit check again when we actually arrange the mortgage?).

We did our research and found a good energy deal, but then saw that we would need a credit check, so we backed out. Our current supplier is Eon and they have another fixed tariff we could switch to, which would save money vs their variable rate, although is more expensive than the other supplier we had chosen. My question is will Eon carry out a credit check on us again as we are signing up to a new tariff (which is more expensive than when we joined them last year), even though we are existing customers? If so, would they still do the check if we just left it and went onto their variable rate? Alternatively are there suppliers who absolutely do not carry out these checks?

Thanks

Chappaz

Call up and ask.

alreeve27

I tried that first but closed until Monday, so thought I'd ask here

Ben8282

If you will be moving house soon why bother? Just carry on as you are for the moment with e-on and wait until you move into your new home to change supplier.

GingerBob_3

And then go to EDF. They don't smack you with a credit check at all.

alreeve27

Thanks that's good to know about EDF. Re moving house, our tariff ends next week, and we have no offers on our property yet, nor have we seen found anything ourselves. It could be many months until anything happens, hence why I wanted to lock in a new tariff

sargeantsalt

@Gbob. How do you know EDF don't use CRAs? I checked their T&C and it says they can? It may be that small print is just there in case a customer turns bad so I'd like to know what they do in practice.

GingerBob_3

sargeantsalt wrote: »

@Gbob. How do you know EDF don't use CRAs? I checked their T&C and it says they can? It may be that small print is just there in case a customer turns bad so I'd like to know what they do in practice.

Yes, I have seen that in the T&Cs. It's always been in. I guess it's there to cover all eventualities. When I first signed up with EDF a few years ago I explicitly asked them about credit checking and they said they didn't do it. Also, the T&Cs appear to be a version of an industry standard, but crucially for the EDF T&Cs no mention is made of which CRAs they use. One might assume from this, therefore, that although they reserve the right to interact with the CRAs, they don't actually do so.

MHOWARD_2

sargeantsalt wrote: »

@Gbob. How do you know EDF don't use CRAs? I checked their T&C and it says they can? It may be that small print is just there in case a customer turns bad so I'd like to know what they do in practice.

EDF do not credit check or report to CRA's my friend works for them and told me. Even if they take court action to install prepayment meters they still do not report to CRA's.

GingerBob_3

MHOWARD wrote: »

EDF do not credit check or report to CRA's my friend works for them and told me. Even if they take court action to install prepayment meters they still do not report to CRA's.

Thanks for confirming this. On this basis alone they should be everyone's supplier of choice.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

alreeve27 wrote: »

Hi, we're in the process of looking for a new house and our current electricity tariff is due to expire later this month. We have our decision in principle from around a month ago, but are yet to find anything suitable or have any offers on our current place. We aren't doing anything that could possible affect the mortgage (I assume the lender will do a credit check again when we actually arrange the mortgage?).

We did our research and found a good energy deal, but then saw that we would need a credit check, so we backed out. Our current supplier is Eon and they have another fixed tariff we could switch to, which would save money vs their variable rate, although is more expensive than the other supplier we had chosen. My question is will Eon carry out a credit check on us again as we are signing up to a new tariff (which is more expensive than when we joined them last year), even though we are existing customers? If so, would they still do the check if we just left it and went onto their variable rate? Alternatively are there suppliers who absolutely do not carry out these checks?

Thanks

Hello alreeve27 and to confirm, we carry out a credit check when customers look to move to a new fixed term product when an existing contract comes to an end. This doesn't happen when automatically going on to our standard variable tariff.

We also share payment information with the Credit Reference Agency, Equifax. Each month, we give them a true reflection of the status of an account at the time of the share. As well as sharing details of accounts in debt, we also give positive reports where accounts are paid promptly.

Hope this answers your question alreeve27.

Malc