Energy: Find the cheapest supplier & earn cashback

tali

I'm currently paying 111pm dual and extra energy are quoting 105pm.On my previous dual usaeage by readings they are stating a saving of £200 -(although my current 111pm totals £1332)
Problem is there is a £60 exit fee - which means possible saving of £140 .My worry is that the figures are close and i don't want to pay exit fees and end up with hardly any saving-i know from experience after switching how Sainsbury stung me

victor2

tali wrote: »

I'm currently paying 111pm dual and extra energy are quoting 105pm.On my previous dual usaeage by readings they are stating a saving of £200 -(although my current 111pm totals £1332)
Problem is there is a £60 exit fee - which means possible saving of £140 .My worry is that the figures are close and i don't want to pay exit fees and end up with hardly any saving-i know from experience after switching how Sainsbury stung me

Don't rely on the quoted savings. Work it out yourself from your current annual usage in kWh.
Comparing currently available fixed rate tariffs is the only way you'll get an accurate forecast, but even that depends on your usage being the same as it was in the last 12 months. Last winter was mild, so the chances are you'll use more this year for heating than last.
You can of course consider currently available variable tariffs, but you don't know what their rate will be 12 months from now.

nevi

hi I switched to Scottish power 3 months ago through money saving expert and got my £30 cash back but i haven't received £80 vouchers.Can someone tell me how long it take or to who should i contact.Thanks

boobbby

I am with OVO at present and have been informed by the Cheaper Energy Club that I will save £140 if I switch to E-ON. I have checked the kWh against each other and the E-ON is very slightly higher. The daily cost is cheaper for E-ON by £55 per year. How does this make it a saving of £140 ? I would also have to pay a cancellation charge of £60 with OVO to make the switch

victor2

boobbby wrote: »

I am with OVO at present and have been informed by the Cheaper Energy Club that I will save £140 if I switch to E-ON. I have checked the kWh against each other and the E-ON is very slightly higher. The daily cost is cheaper for E-ON by £55 per year. How does this make it a saving of £140 ? I would also have to pay a cancellation charge of £60 with OVO to make the switch

As discussed elsewhere on here, the CEC comparison assumes you will go onto your supplier's standard tariff (as it stands now) when your current tariff ends. It doesn't take into account any exit fee either. There are other discrepancies that nobody has come up with a satisfactory explanation for AFAIK.
Anyone going to the trouble of comparing rates is not going to allow themselves to end up on a supplier's most expensive tariff, so CEC's reported "saving" is little more than a publicity stunt so that they can headline the fictitious savings their customers have made.
Look at the calculated cost with various suppliers, using your actual annual kWh usage on your choice of switching sites and ignore the current cost shown.

maxmiler

boobbby wrote: »

I am with OVO at present and have been informed by the Cheaper Energy Club that I will save £140 if I switch to E-ON. I have checked the kWh against each other and the E-ON is very slightly higher. The daily cost is cheaper for E-ON by £55 per year. How does this make it a saving of £140 ? I would also have to pay a cancellation charge of £60 with OVO to make the switch

Because of your post, I've had a look at this and the reason that I went ahead was a stated saving of almost £130. So allowing for the £30 cash back, less the £60 cancellation fee, I should be almost £100 better off . Yet if I look at the site now, during my switching period, the saving is NOW stating only a saving of £94.87, and shows a monthly saving of £8.20, only giving me a net annual saving of £65, not the original £100.

For this reason I have made a spreadsheet which I should have done in the first place. This shows me that the saving for the current month would be £6.97. And if I put in my annual useage, it shows a saving of £79.67 which is £50 less than the MSE quote. Had I doubted the original figures before I started the switch, I probably would have held on, waiting for the global drop in gas prices that is being mooted. But now I'm beyond the cancellation period.

Today, a revisit to the "club" shows 6 tariffs that will be now cheaper (according to the "club") than the one I am in the process of switching to, although because of what I have written above, I now expect that the actual saving will not be as much as it states today.
So I am not switching to the best tariff. OK, this would always be a possibility, but those original figures are the ones that made me switch without too much thought.

So it seems that the MSE figures can't be trusted. Yet I also blame the regulator, for insisting that comparison sites must use figures as though you would stay with your current supplier beyond the end of your current tariff and just roll on to ordinary the full price tariff at the end of any fixed period. This isn't really likely for most of us who read things on this website.

But regardless of my own calculation, because the quoted saving appears somewhat variable, I certainly won't be believing this website any more! Could it be that with Martin having sold out, that commercial greed (UK rip-off culture) has reared its ugly head? I hope not, but I shall be checking everything very carefully from now on!

Doc_N

maxmiler wrote: »

Could it be that with Martin having sold out, that commercial greed (UK rip-off culture) has reared its ugly head? I hope not, but I shall be checking everything very carefully from now on!

Likewise - I'm ceasing to trust this site (apart from individual posters in forums) less and less as time goes by.

boobbby

I have spoken to E-on and cancelled my switch from OVO to them. I have also received a reply from the CEC after I complained about their saving estimate and hope somebody can understand it and explain what they are trying to say !! (by the way my present contract with OVO is until 30 may 2015) REPLY FROM CEC FOLLOWS

Thank you for getting in touch. Following changes introduced by Ofgem, the energy regulator, our calculations have to factor in the tariff costs for the remainder of the fixed tariff, as well as the standard tariff which energy suppliers move its customers onto when the fix ends. This means if you have two months of your fixed rate tariff remaining, your calculation is based on two months at the fixed tariff rate, and then ten months at the standard tariff rate.
At the time that this ruling was introduced we raised our concerns and have continued to pass on feedback from our users to Ofgem. Hopefully this will lead to a review of how 12 month personal projections should be shown.
We're also working on providing details of your fixed cost and go to costs separately on the results page, as we think it’s a much clearer this way of displaying your comparison. If you're happy with your current tariff, you might prefer to wait for our 'Your Fixed Deal is Ending' alert, which we send to our users a few weeks before a fixed tariff expires.
In the meantime, you can still compare your annual/monthly costs from your bill against the tariff costs of the quoted tariffs on your results page.
I have now removed the application from your CEC account so you can log back in and run another price comparison today, if you choose.

Consumerist

My suggestion, when using any comparison site, is to select any standard variable tariff as my current tariff and then ignore any savings claimed by the site and just compare the annual costs.

This approach gives me the estimated cost of a full year on the tariffs comparison list and I tend to get pretty good consistency between the sites so that I have reasonable confidence in the results and can investigate any discrepancies using a spreadsheet.

boobbby

Actually the best way I now find is to compare the daily cost and the unit kwh cost . Can you believe that I have now cancelled the transfer suggested by CEC that they have now given me a new savings of £249 if I switch, this time to Extra Energy
Tariff Extra Energy Fresh Fixed Price Dec 2015 v2 Costs £1,346 per year Saving You £294 per year This is complete rubbish as the cost per kwh with Extra energy is higher than what I pay at present with OVO