Big Switch Event 9

footyguy

How times have changed
... Or how it all began

Collective switching first hit the scene in May 2012. The generic concept is that a trusted intermediary or local agency, such as a council, negotiates a deal with an energy supplier, then gets people to switch.

The idea is great in principle, but in practice so far most collective switches haven’t come up with market-leading deals. Plus, it’s not easy to compare the results to what’s on offer on the rest of the market, so a comparison site wins almost every time.

But we’re attempting to change that. With 1.2 million Cheap Energy Club members we’re in the perfect position to tackle the energy providers and try and haggle a market-leading deal. We’ll then show it alongside the results of our whole of market Cheap Energy Club so you’ll know if it’s definitely the cheapest tariff for you.

It won’t be easy – so far when we’ve tried to negotiate with big suppliers they have been unwilling to offer anything decent ...

While we very much hope this will work, if suppliers don’t come up with worthwhile offers, we won’t recommend them to you by publishing them on the site.

...

What criteria must the tariffs meet?

• The tariffs must be the cheapest on the market at the time of the collective switch.
• ...

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/team-blog/2014/10/15/moneysavingexpert-coms-collective-switch/

MSE_Dan_L

victor2 wrote: »

I'm curious. How big is the "huge" percentage? Surely people come to MSE to save money and the easiest way for many people to do that is by getting off a utility supplier's standard tariff, so the percentage who don't must be below the "national average". Do MSE/CEC users not heed that very basic advice?

Hi Victor2 - The figures from the CMA review of the energy market a couple of years ago suggested 65%+ of consumers were on SVRs. Although you might expect people using the MSE site to be much more savvy than the average, this isn't actually the case.

MSE_Dan_L

footyguy wrote: »

How times have changed
... Or how it all began

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/team-blog/2014/10/15/moneysavingexpert-coms-collective-switch/

Hi Footguy

You're not wrong. The energy market really has changed since 2014 when we ran our first collective with Eon, undercutting the market quite substantially.

However in the past 4 years, we've seen over 40 new providers enter the energy market. These providers often launch market leading deals, but won't engage with us, or don't have the infrastructure to be able to handle the huge surge of switches which a MSE collective can drive. We've dabbled with some of the better rated small companies in past collectives such as Bulb and this time around with Octopus - hopefully this goes smoothly, but we'd need to be cautious about sending users to providers we know little about. Certainly we wouldn't want to see a collective end with a provider going bust or huge issues in the way we've seen with Extra and more recently Iresa.

I couldn't picture a scenario where we'd have a MSE collective which didn't at least undercut the big name providers. Although the market has changed, I don't think our approach has really shifted too much on this - the negotiations have definitely got trickier though!

Thanks

footyguy

MSE_Dan_L wrote: »

... Certainly we wouldn't want to see a collective end with a provider going bust or huge issues in the way we've seen with Extra and more recently Iresa....

So you ruled out getting into bed with say Iresa on customer service grounds, who you rate as:

Iresa - MSE Customer Service Rating: 39% Great, 17% Okay, 44% Poor (140 votes)

But I see you have got into bed with an different small supplier, Solaplicity, (who you also warn against, despite limited feedback) and rate as:

Solarplicity - MSE Customer Service Rating: Limited feedback – 25% Great, 28% Okay, 47% Poor (36 votes)

Tariff name: MSM Fixed

Not a collective tariff, admittedly, but still one exclusively available only through MSE (& your parent company MSM)

Also, at the bottom of each page here, there is a section entitled :

How this site works

We think it's important you understand the strengths and limitations of the site. We're a journalistic website and aim to provide the best MoneySaving guides, tips, tools and techniques, but can't guarantee to be perfect, so do note you use the information at your own risk and we can't accept liability if things go wrong.

• This info does not constitute financial advice, always do your own research on top to ensure it's right for your specific circumstances and remember we focus on rates not service.
• ...

Perhaps that needs to be updated with what appears to be the new policy of MSE?

MSE_Dan_L

footyguy wrote: »

So you ruled out getting into bed with say Iresa on customer service grounds

Hi Footyguy

Just to clarify, I was referring to MSE collectives when highlighting to providers who we'd work with.

Whether a tariff is switchable or not is something which is controlled by if they're willing to work with MoneySuperMarket whose application process we use for Cheap Energy Club switches. MSM's team negotiate its exclusive deals, whereas the team here at MSE look after our collectives. As we're editorially independent from MoneySuperMarket, we'll still put comments on these providers if we hear about issues with their service, as we've done with Solarplicity.

We don't exclude any providers from the results (unless you're using the service filters) so that our users can decide who they want to switch to. For some users, they're willing to take the potential service risk to get the cheapest prices.

Ratewatcher

I want to thank the team at MSE for their swift response to me. The problem had occurred because my gas tariff was showing as incorrect. I definitely chose the correct one because I had to check my paperwork but for some reason it didn't 'save' correctly. I am very relieved it was an error and not incorrect calculations by MSE. There is only one provider now that is showing as making a saving for me of £39 per year which is Pure Planet and it is a variable rate. Does anyone know how much notice a provider has to give before they put the rates up?

footyguy

LisaWhite wrote: »

I want to thank the team at MSE for their swift response to me. The problem had occurred because my gas tariff was showing as incorrect. I definitely chose the correct one because I had to check my paperwork but for some reason it didn't 'save' correctly. I am very relieved it was an error and not incorrect calculations by MSE. There is only one provider now that is showing as making a saving for me of £39 per year which is Pure Planet and it is a variable rate. Does anyone know how much notice a provider has to give before they put the rates up?

From Pure Planet's terms

9.1 We may change the Charges, your monthly payment amount or any of the terms of the Contract at any time by giving you notice via email or text message and via the App. In the case of increases in our Members’ Rates, we will provide 14 days’ prior notice. We regularly change the Members’ Rates as the costs to us of supplying Energy fluctuates.In the case of any other changes to the Contract terms that are deemed to be disadvantageous to you, we will provide 30 days prior notice...

https://purepla.net/source/assets/html/energy-terms.html

dogoff

Apologies in advance if this topic has been covered. I don't have time to read all the postings but thought people should be aware.
I checked the deals big switch 9 could offer. I'm currently with EDF and the deal comes to an end at the end of Feb 2018. The EDF fix to the end of March 2020 caught my eye. I've also received an e-mail from EDF offering my various new contracts. I checked these out and they were all significantly less per annum than the MSE big switch. However when I interrogated this through live chat on EDF's site it transpires there annual quotes were based on consumption data much less than what I actually use per annum. I started the contract in Feb 2017 and the last meter reading they have on record was Jul 2017. They have calculated a full years energy consumption on that period data. The period is clearly a low energy usage period. I asked them to quote me using my real annual consumption data, that which my MSE quote was based on. They were extremely resistant and challenged where I'd taken my data from. Reluctantly they agreed to quote but said it would take 30 minutes. By this time I'd calculated the annual costs using the standing charge and unit rates. Their quote was £300 per annum too low. I ended the live chat by telling them they are misleading customers. It didn't say anywhere that their quotes were based on estimated data. My advice is to do your comparisons on the unit rates using your own data. Would be interesting to see if the regulator is aware of these underhand tactics !

BRYNEL

Re Outfox the Market
I know its still early days yet but does anyone have any info on them

ASavvyBuyer

BRYNEL wrote: »

Re Outfox the Market
I know its still early days yet but does anyone have any info on them

Feedback for Outfox the Market is here

It is worth noting that Outfox the Market is part of the group that includes Fischer Heating which has some very poor reviews.

They may be the cheapest, but is it worth taking the risk!