Any feedback on Bulb please?

panang

Hi All

In the current absence of a new group deal, I have been perusing the MSE list. Bulb looked interesting (I'm aware it's not a fixed tariff).

Trustpilot has many positive reviews, although I don't know if the high number is driven by the £50 referral scheme they have.

I would be grateful if anyone could give feedback here please? In particular a couple of the financial arrangements struck me as unusual (gleaned from looking on their website).

1) If you pay monthly, they won't do it via Direct Debit, but take it from your Debit card instead. They say it is as secure as DD, but it's a new one on me.

2) You deposit credit in advance - they "take it from your bank account" - hmm. Not very specific.

The older I get the more paranoid I become - am I being too careful here?

Thanks

Will_at_Bulb

Hi Panang,

I'm a bit of a biased source of opinion on Bulb, so I can't really answer your question about how good we are. But here's a link to our feedback thread on MSE. You'll find opinions about us there - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5382226

I can answer your other questions though.

1) We can take payments by Direct Debit or debit card. We take debit card by default if you sign up through our website. We think it's better because you can't go over drawn with automatic card payments, and if you want to cancel them you can ask your bank to cancel the recurring payment in a very similar way to Direct Debit. If you'd like to pay by Direct Debit, just let us know and we can set that up for you instead.

2) We take payments in advance, rather than arrears. This allows us to buy your energy for cheaper prices sooner. So, we take your payment by either debit card payment on Direct Debit on the day that your switch to us completes. We transfer it to your Bulb account. Then a month later we calculate how much energy you have used and deduct the cost of it from your Bulb account. We then take your payment for the following month and the cycle continues.

Hope this clears things up a bit.

panang

Hi Will

Many thanks for your helpful reply - yes that is all clarified nicely! For banking reasons we need a certain number of Direct Debits linked to an account to gain interest, so we don't want to lose that, when we switch from our current supplier and it's DD.

Also thank you for the link to the MSE Bulb feedback - will look at it all tomorrow. Looks very promising so far!

One more quick question - could I use one of the £50 referral links (as I have found on Trustpilot) whilst still getting an account setup for DD transactions? Would it be a matter of setting it up on the web for the default debit card scenario then phoning to make the switch to DD? Or would it be saner doing on the phone directly if the referral could be used easily that way?

Thanks again for your help.

trickytree1963

The key thing to note about debit card payments is:

a continuous payment authority, or cpa, is a type of recurring payment, similar to a direct debit, whereby you give permission for a company to take money from your account on a regular basis. The difference between a CPA and a direct debit is that a CPA gives the company you are paying permission to take payments whenever they want, and take payments for different amounts, without consulting you beforehand.

r2015

The key thing to note about debit card payments is:

What if you have a Santander 123 account?

You won't get your 2% cashback.

trickytree1963

r2015 wrote: »

What if you have a Santander 123 account?

You won't get your 2% cashback.

I agree, I think Id prefer DD over CPA any day.:)

PixelPound

trickytree1963 wrote: »

The key thing to note about debit card payments is:

a continuous payment authority, or cpa, is a type of recurring payment, similar to a direct debit, whereby you give permission for a company to take money from your account on a regular basis. The difference between a CPA and a direct debit is that a CPA gives the company you are paying permission to take payments whenever they want, and take payments for different amounts, without consulting you beforehand.

And DD don't? You can get variable DD just like credit cards have if you ask to take the full balance each month, DD's don't have to be monthly either.
- A DD is taken that you didn't want, you make an indemnity claim
- A CPA is taken what you didn't want, you do a claw back.

Rinoa

Just switched to Bulb.

Have to say I'm extremely impressed. Very easy online switch and just from my address they know my current supplier and have notified them aleady

Very good prices. OK, not fixed, but companies offering fixes simply build the potential of increased wholesale prices into their offers.

Will_at_Bulb

panang wrote: »

Hi Will

Many thanks for your helpful reply - yes that is all clarified nicely! For banking reasons we need a certain number of Direct Debits linked to an account to gain interest, so we don't want to lose that, when we switch from our current supplier and it's DD.

Also thank you for the link to the MSE Bulb feedback - will look at it all tomorrow. Looks very promising so far!

One more quick question - could I use one of the £50 referral links (as I have found on Trustpilot) whilst still getting an account setup for DD transactions? Would it be a matter of setting it up on the web for the default debit card scenario then phoning to make the switch to DD? Or would it be saner doing on the phone directly if the referral could be used easily that way?

Thanks again for your help.

You're welcome.

Best bet if you want to use a referral link and have a Direct Debit is to sign up through the link and then give us a ring to change your payment type. Sign up takes about 2 minutes and we pick up the phone in about 10 seconds, so you should stay nice and sane through the process

MoneySavingAtWork

As someone currently in the process of leaving them, here is my opinion:

The only bad experience I had with Bulb was a bit of a mix up with my opening electricity reading. I'm not sure if it was down to them or the previous company, but somehow they decided to discard the actual reading and go with an estimated reading which had 3 months worth of extra usage compared to the previous reading one month prior to joining. Naturally this blocked me from putting in genuine meter readings as 2 months later it was yet to reach that estimated joining amount. Thankfully through phoning customer services they were able to adjust the bills accordingly. They were also quick to refund the additional credit that had been accrued as a result of that issue and changing the direct debit date which resulted in 2 payments being taking in one month.

As well as decent customer service agents who seemed well informed and with short wait times the website was also easy to use. In terms of pricing they were one of the very cheapest when I joined, but sadly two prices rises, one of which was during the process of joining no longer makes them competitively priced in my area with my personal level of usage. I hope one day they will be again.

Bobbymax

My elderly mother switched from Bulb at the start of the October because their renewal quote was way too high. Instead of using final meter readings to calculate final bill/refund, they overestimated to an amount equivalent to four months energy consumption and took an additional £74 out of her account and declared it closed. I had to threaten them with everything I could think of before they refunded. Almost seven weeks after switch confirmed, they still haven't managed to send out a final bill or refund the estimated £40 they owe my mother - another threat beckons!