Comparison Site Rip offs - Be aware of The Cheap Energy Club on this site!

elkss

I have recently been shopping for a new energy supplier as my GB energy deal has come to an end and looked on the MSE Cheap Energy Club amongst other comparison sites. The best cheapest deal I discovered was with a company called Together Energy. This was not listed on the MSE Cheap energy club site but was listed on some other comparison sites, unless I went and put it in as my current supplier and it clearly showed it was the cheapest supplier!

I stumbled across an article on the Express website - Martin-Lewis-money-saving-expert-comparison-site-Compare-the-Market-Go-Compare-uSwitch detailing how some comparison site only display those that pay commission to them

It would appear that Martin has been a little hypocritical as his own promoted site that I noted is run by Money Supermarket that appears on this site is guilty of doing what he is calling a rip off!

RMS2

Three things.

1) Martin sold the site many years ago.

2) It is a commercial site much the same as Uswitch.

3) Together appeared as the cheapest in my cheap fuel search this week.

But yes, it is a commercial site making money these days, just like most others and it has been noted before that the MSE cheap energy club is not necessarily cheap for everyone.

Neil_Jones

The other thing to bear in mind with uSwitch in particular is the way it "calculates" your savings. That and its other bugbear with me of displaying the unit rates ex VAT whereas everybody else does it inc VAT.

But with regards to the calculations what uSwitch and most others do without any choice is display you your savings if you don't switch at some point in the next 12 months and roll onto the standard tariffs. This has the effect of generating a bogus savings figure that's artificially high, especially if you're on a cheap tariff at the time. That's just something to bear in mind, whereas the Energy Club will by default show you the savings based on where you are now, not what will happen if you do nothing six months down the line.

System

Together Energy appears as an option for me with ALL SUPPLIERS ticked. There is no 'rip off' going on here. MSE CEC has always listed suppliers irrespective of any referral fees that they may be paid. I am currently with two suppliers that I selected using a MSE CEC comparison. Neither supplier paid MSE CEC any commission.

Raxiel

Does it still not show up for you OP?

It's perfectly possible you caught a new tariff that hadn't appeared on CEC yet

A couple of weeks ago I discovered a couple of new E.ON tariffs, one of which I wanted. I looked for them on the CEC (for the cashback) and they weren't there, checked one of the other sites and they had them.

Wasn't a scam on the part of CEC, they did show up later that day, I just had to wait for the update.

elkss

Hello
Together energy was listed at the time of the original query if I selected them as my current supplier with the correct tariff but was not showing up on the comparison listings.... So it must have been in the system!
I have just rerun it and it does come up now!

I just think that Although Martin may have sold the CEC club a few years back he is still endorsing it as being linked from his site and it appears it is not alwys listing the best deals as he has mentioned happened in a TV program!

The_Big_Bamboo

elkss wrote: »

Hello
Together energy was listed at the time of the original query if I selected them as my current supplier with the correct tariff but was not showing up on the comparison listings.... So it must have been in the system!
I have just rerun it and it does come up now!

I just think that Although Martin may have sold the CEC club a few years back he is still endorsing it as being linked from his site and it appears it is not alwys listing the best deals as he has mentioned happened in a TV program!

Martin Lewis sold MSE in its entirety to the comparison site in ‘MoneySupermarket’ in 2012. He personally received a ‘reported’ £87 Million from the sale;…made up of £35Miillion cash, £27m in future payments and 22.1 million shares. In July 2015 he sold just over half of his shares holding for £25.2 million.

If you add it up that’s a potential (if he sells his remaining shares for the same price) of £100+ Million. Tidy sum eh?

He’s donated well over £10Miliion to various charities.:T

I don’t believe (but I may well be wrong!) that any of the above info appears on the MSE website.

Raxiel

elkss wrote: »

Hello
Together energy was listed at the time of the original query if I selected them as my current supplier with the correct tariff but was not showing up on the comparison listings.... So it must have been in the system!
I have just rerun it and it does come up now!

I just think that Although Martin may have sold the CEC club a few years back he is still endorsing it as being linked from his site and it appears it is not alwys listing the best deals as he has mentioned happened in a TV program!

I'd still be more inclined to attribute it to Hanlons Razor rather than skulduggery, without knowing how well coded the link between the database and the comparison engine is.

footyguy

elkss wrote: »

I have recently been shopping for a new energy supplier as my GB energy deal has come to an end and looked on the MSE Cheap Energy Club amongst other comparison sites. The best cheapest deal I discovered was with a company called Together Energy. This was not listed on the MSE Cheap energy club site but was listed on some other comparison sites, unless I went and put it in as my current supplier and it clearly showed it was the cheapest supplier!

I stumbled across an article on the Express website - Martin-Lewis-money-saving-expert-comparison-site-Compare-the-Market-Go-Compare-uSwitch detailing how some comparison site only display those that pay commission to them

It would appear that Martin has been a little hypocritical as his own promoted site that I noted is run by Money Supermarket that appears on this site is guilty of doing what he is calling a rip off!

Thanks for joining MSE to share this alarming warning with us. Who'd have thought it? :cool:

I see you posted this at almost 1 o'clock in the morning and can therefore understand how worried you are about this. :cool:

Rest assured, there is no rip off.
This explanatory post by MSE Laura posted on this site about a month ago when a similar question was raised explains the situtaion fully
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=73027443&postcount=2

I suggest you direct your venom to the supplier involved and ask them why they are not willing to share their rate card with MSE/MoneySuperMarket.

Good luck!

wakeupalarm

Maybe Martin could launch a comparison site of Energy comparison sites. Looks like we will need one soon if OFGEM have their way.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36848411

footyguy

wakeupalarm wrote: »

Maybe Martin could launch a comparison site of Energy comparison sites. Looks like we will need one soon if OFGEM have their way.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36848411

You just need a site that offers the whole of market.

He said Citizens Advice already had a website which did that.

That service is provided by EnergyLinx - where you can get upto a possible £34 cashback for switching
http://www.energylinx.co.uk/energy/cashback/

I see the article you link to is over 12 months old, and yet today all the comparison sites listed in the MSE article (which also offer possible cashback of various amounts) still compare the whole of market
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/you-switch-gas-electricity

(except where a supplier refuses to provide traiff details, where the offer is a collective tariff, etc)