Economy Seven Energy reviews: Give your feedback

olympusmegavolt

Interesting, your figures perhaps would suggest they are not as cunning as I gave them credit for and maybe Gerry1 was right by suggesting incompetence. #63
I was just analysing and trying to understand their thinking behind their recent price and DD manipulations.( I am a sad so&so who really ought to do better things with his time, but it does keep my brain going if nothing else!)
For my part, the impending increases on Jan 1st 2019 are:
Gas 35%
Electricity 5.5%
Standing charges 12%

Given that the ratio of my energy usage for Gas/ Electric is around 7:1, then clearly the 35%increase will have a major influence, in fact it adds 20% to my annual projection.
I do however appreciate people with lesser ratios and who perhaps live in a different geographic location (I am in Leicestershire) will be impacted differently and it may well be in their financial interests to stay put.

Frank121

olympusmegavolt wrote: »

Interesting, your figures perhaps would suggest they are not as cunning as I gave them credit for and maybe Gerry1 was right by suggesting incompetence. #63
I was just analysing and trying to understand their thinking behind their recent price and DD manipulations.( I am a sad so&so who really ought to do better things with his time, but it does keep my brain going if nothing else!)
For my part, the impending increases on Jan 1st 2019 are:
Gas 35%
Electricity 5.5%
Standing charges 12%

Given that the ratio of my energy usage for Gas/ Electric is around 7:1, then clearly the 35%increase will have a major influence, in fact it adds 20% to my annual projection.
I do however appreciate people with lesser ratios and who perhaps live in a different geographic location (I am in Leicestershire) will be impacted differently and it may well be in their financial interests to stay put.

It's great that someone takes the time to look into the details if they can. Oh but don't be so forgiving too quickly ;p E7 are indeed sneaky, it's just that my figures are not as neat as yours. When did you join E7 as that might have some bearing on how they calculate there figures?



I only joined at the beginning of October. Let me add some detail: (I only have electricity on a E7 dual tariff)



- I Joined 6th October on their "7 Heaven July Tariff". Based on the annual usage I gave to them my annual usage which is £700.43/58.36 Per Month. (according to my excel)
- Welcome letter received confirming the July tariff and that my direct debit is set to £58.37. All good.

- My 1st bill received on the 5th November craftily states that my tariff is still "7 Heaven July" but the rates are not the ones I signed up for. (i think they are actually 7 heaven September rates) I let this lie, but update my excel accordingly. I note my annual usage is now £752 per year/62.68 per month even though E7 have not asked to increase my DD so there would be a shortfall. (i don't mind this, it's up to them to collect it later is my thinking)

- Received an email on the 15th November, (the bill shock bull) saying that my annual usage is £875.37 and my new direct debit would be £102.15 winter and 43.78 winter. I have no idea where £875 comes from and I emailed them asking them to explain. (no direct reply received)

- Received an email on the 22nd November saying they made a mistake and now suddenly my annual usage is £700.44. (this is exactly the same amount as when I signed up...on the old rates so not a coincidence but I know as per my bill that they are charging new rates but with the old tariff name!) This now gives £81.71pm winter / 35.02 summer. Obviously my actual usage is at least £752 so their would be a shortfall! This must be planned to make the figures look better! But why? Something fishy going on! ;p
- Received an email on the 29th November explaining the price increase. I enter them into my excel and get: £786 per year/65.58pm. But! According to their calculation, it''s currently costing me £620 and after the price rise £670. So it's cheaper than ever before! What an earth is going on? Lies damn lies!

- Received an email on the 8th December from Fischer energy stating a direct debit change to £78.20! This amount matches none of their previous communications (it was expected to be £81.71 which would of still yielded a shortfall!)


So to be honest, I think they are both sneaky and incompetent..or maybe they are just very sneaky and i haven't cotton on yet to their ultimate master plan!!. ;p


Yes your Blackadder quotes stick! Keep on eye on them.


Frank

olympusmegavolt

I joined this supplier on Oct 8 2018
I did not provide all the intimate timeline details in my other posts as I thought they may give too much information for any one person to digest and comprehend in one go; so I tried to keep it simple.
Yes, the first bill of Nov 7th showed a tariff change at Nov 1st - presumably going from 7 heaven July to 7 heaven Sept - and like you, I let it lie.
In the section of the bill, “about your tariff”, it clearly states 7 heaven July, but uses the 7 heaven Sept figures. I again let this lie as it was still financially to my advantage.
The remainder of your saga with these people still follows the same pattern of events as mine, even though figure do not synchronize as well as mine did; although perhaps in my case they may have done so out of pure coincidence.
It looks like you have a 12% (£700-£786) increase that may well be still a competitive price in the market.
In my post I noted that it is the gas price hike that was the killer blow for me, but that will not, of course, affect you.
From your figures I would guess you are using between 5,500kWhrs @ 45% night and 7500kWhrs @90% night, assuming your tariff for electricity is the same as mine.
However the issue with using only one fuel is that this single tariff is often higher than if you are using dual fuel, so my estimates may be well off target.
Bear in mind your main criterion should be the bottom line that says what will my anticipated cost be for the year and can I improve upon it?

BCunningfish

I've been told I can save over £125 by switching my E7 supplier. The tariffs I'm being offered (such as Utilita) appear to have a high rate for the first 365 daytime kWh used, and then a very low rate thereafter. I've done some calculations based on my usage and it would actually cost me a few hundred more per year to switch to these tariffs.

I guess this is half a question (am I right in thinking this is how it works?), and half a warning: be very careful of odd tariff changes like this before you switch.

olympusmegavolt

Just checked out Utilita and what they have done is to change the way the standing charge is recovered to make it impossible for you to check on comparison sites.
Basically they use the first two kWhrs of gas and electricity per day in order to recover the Standing Charge.
Therefore you subtract unit 2 from unit 1 and then multiply this by 2 to get the standing charge per day. Then use unit 2 for your tariff rate.
You pay this every day that you exceed 2 kWhrs, which everyone does under normal circumstances.

HOWEVER, not sure what happens when you are away and use no fuel

To give you some guidance, I got a tariff from them for my usage of
19000 kWhrs gas and 2700 kWhrs Elec / Annum
and stuck the figures in my spreadsheet.

Peoples’ energy £1,069(current suppler}
Utilita £1,439

That was for a single rate electricity tariff, but it was so far adrift I couldn't be bothered to investgate further.

wavelets

BCunningfish wrote: »

I've been told I can save over £125 by switching my E7 supplier. The tariffs I'm being offered (such as Utilita) appear to have a high rate for the first 365 daytime kWh used, and then a very low rate thereafter. I've done some calculations based on my usage and it would actually cost me a few hundred more per year to switch to these tariffs.

I guess this is half a question (am I right in thinking this is how it works?), and half a warning: be very careful of odd tariff changes like this before you switch.

Who told you that you could save £125?
On what basis did they do that calculation? (e.g. the approved Ofgem methodology) Did you use the same methodology?

If people follow the MSE recomendation of consulting a comparison site to find the best deal for them, the comparison site does the annual cost calculation for you (and some even give you a choice of savings calculations too). It's not difficult, and there was once a time many suppliers offered tariffs such as the one you refer to - and comparison sites were able to calculate the annual cost back then too

olympusmegavolt

I thought MSE used its own comparison site (albeit cribbed from Money supermarket)

What is its Ofgem methodology?
My principal is: give me the tariff and I will calculate the cost (in seconds)

In BCunningfish's case, unless you were capable of doing the preliminary calculation to find what the standing charge was, then you will flounder, unless there were comparison sites that catered for that format.

What comparison sites used the type of tariff input format referred to by BCunningfish?

Frank121

olympusmegavolt wrote: »

I joined this supplier on Oct 8 2018
I did not provide all the intimate timeline details in my other posts as I thought they may give too much information for any one person to digest and comprehend in one go; so I tried to keep it simple.
Yes, the first bill of Nov 7th showed a tariff change at Nov 1st - presumably going from 7 heaven July to 7 heaven Sept - and like you, I let it lie.
In the section of the bill, “about your tariff”, it clearly states 7 heaven July, but uses the 7 heaven Sept figures. I again let this lie as it was still financially to my advantage.
The remainder of your saga with these people still follows the same pattern of events as mine, even though figure do not synchronize as well as mine did; although perhaps in my case they may have done so out of pure coincidence.
It looks like you have a 12% (£700-£786) increase that may well be still a competitive price in the market.
In my post I noted that it is the gas price hike that was the killer blow for me, but that will not, of course, affect you.
From your figures I would guess you are using between 5,500kWhrs @ 45% night and 7500kWhrs @90% night, assuming your tariff for electricity is the same as mine.
However the issue with using only one fuel is that this single tariff is often higher than if you are using dual fuel, so my estimates may be well off target.
Bear in mind your main criterion should be the bottom line that says what will my anticipated cost be for the year and can I improve upon it?

Oh so you joined around the same time as me, that's interesting then about the estimates we have been given. Might be just a coincidence as you say but so weird that the amount is almost spot on!

I am glad I am not the only one to spot the sly tariff change! My guess is that their aim is that most folks won't notice.

Yep you are very close about my usage, I use around 6500kWhrs - 2300kWhrs day and 4200kWhrs at night. (yes it's really that way around, storage heaters and water heated at night along with dishwasher and w/m if I can manage it!)

Yes you are right the gas increase is excessive; are other providers now more competitive than E7 in your case? Will you be switching?

For me, E7 are still the cheapest despite all this saga. I am a serial switcher; but normally like to find at least a 1 year fix so I can forget about it for a while.

Thanks for the tips! Indeed I will keep an eye on the bottom line and how things pan out with E7.

Cheers.
Frank

olympusmegavolt

I have already switched to the Peoples’ Energy, but suggest you read my post #66
Basically it says that if you are on an E7 meter with a relatively low usage then it can be beneficial to use a single tariff rate. (My case but not yours)
It would seem that with many suppliers now, you have to use >45% night to gain an advantage. (A few years ago, this break even figure used to be 25%-30%)
Unfortunately, MSE comparator tables does not give any clues as to when this ‘break-even point’ is reached and so if you are a modest user of off-peak electricity, the site is not much use to you as it will not necessarily find the best deal.
It can also be misleading in the sense that it cannot forecast an impending increase. I inputted my PE tariff and the comparator shows that I will save £90 by switching to E7E!

I do not know what your tariff is, but using my E7E tariff for dual rate electricity using the old and new E7E prices I find your results would be:
Old tariff: £734.04
New tariff: £781.63
About 6.5% increase, which is about OK and probably acceptable to you.
It is also probable that you tariff is higher than the figures I used because you are not a dual fuel user and this often attracts a premium.

The Peoples’ Energy tariff for dual rate electricity is unlikely to be of benefit to you but in my case the big gain is in the Gas tariff that far outweighs the loss on electricity.

Best advice is to get quotes, stick them in your spreadsheet and then use a bit of common sense.

ML’s advice regarding switching is great if you are being ripped off, but fine tuning to get the best deal can be a bit arduous for those that do not have spare cash to cover things like waiting for 2-3 moths to get credit back from the exiting supplier, possibly paying upfront to the new supplier and do not have their own spreadsheet.

When companies were forced to abandon their policy of the “first so many hours at one rate then drop to a lower one later” (to make things simpler for the public so that they could work things out without the benefit of a spreadsheet,), it is clear to me that they have successfully found ways around it!!!

Calogero

Could any one help with this query please.ive spoke to E7E to find out my economy 7 off-peak times and they told me between 23.00pm-07.00am,does this mean there's an 8 hour period or does it mean it's 7 hours in this period?