Energy: Find the cheapest supplier & earn cashback

shazzablue

mse is not accurate ,due to the outfoxthemarket fiasco, keying in my inflated winter dd mse says oftm are still the cheapest....no they are not. I perused other websites and uswitch came up with an edf deal which practically matches my deal with oftm...no dd bill shock!...the £30 cash back has tracked on my account..i realise we all will have different quotes ...shop around.

Consumerist

Caparn wrote: »

. . . They also give a referral £25 Amazon voucher if you use this link: [deleted]
But do an energy comparison first on one of the switching sites, they might not be the cheapest for your usage, if Pure Planet comes up cheapest use the link above and you will get a free £25 Amazon voucher.

Referrals should be posted <here>.

Unless you are currently on a SVT then don't believe the "savings" claims made by comparison sites. It would be wiser to work out your annual costs from the daily charges and unit rates using a calculator to work out the real savings for yourself.

victor2

shazzablue wrote: »

mse is not accurate ,due to the outfoxthemarket fiasco, keying in my inflated winter dd mse says oftm are still the cheapest....no they are not. I perused other websites and uswitch came up with an edf deal which practically matches my deal with oftm...no dd bill shock!...the £30 cash back has tracked on my account..i realise we all will have different quotes ...shop around.

The only way to get a realistic forecast of cost from comparison sites is to use your actual annual usage in kWh. Putting in a DD amount, especially if it is a seasonally adjusted one, gives totally meaningless results.

Consumerist

victor2 wrote: »

The only way to get a realistic forecast of cost from comparison sites is to use your actual annual usage in kWh. Putting in a DD amount, especially if it is a seasonally adjusted one, gives totally meaningless results.

The only way to get a realistic forecast of cost is to work it out for yourself from the daily charges and unit rates of the tariff you are investigating.

CEC comparison does, however, let you select the basis of the comparison so that results are more realistic.

victor2

Consumerist wrote: »

The only way to get a realistic forecast of cost is to work it out for yourself from the daily charges and unit rates of the tariff you are investigating.

CEC comparison does, however, let you select the basis of the comparison so that results are more realistic.

I beg to differ.
Comparison sites, such as CEC and uSwitch do give precise forecasts in my experience - agreeing exactly with manual calculations of the tariffs in question. Plus, they look at a whole range of available tariffs, and not just the ones an individual may choose to examine.
Note I did state forecast of costs and not supposed "savings", which many of us appreciate are meaningless for everyone except those on a supplier's SVT.

Consumerist

victor2 wrote: »

I beg to differ.
Comparison sites, such as CEC and uSwitch do give precise forecasts in my experience - agreeing exactly with manual calculations of the tariffs in question. Plus, they look at a whole range of available tariffs, and not just the ones an individual may choose to examine.
Note I did state forecast of costs and not supposed "savings", which many of us appreciate are meaningless for everyone except those on a supplier's SVT.

I can't speak for uSwitch because I haven't used it in a while now, preferring to use CEC recently.

I take your point that CEC is realistic as to costs - and even the savings providing you select the correct comparison basis and exclude cash-back from the results. As far as I am aware, most Ofgem-approved sites use Ofgem's whacky rules to calculate "savings". Has that changed recently?

Try2Survive

Hi everyone,
quick question about switching suppliers,
I switched to outfox (aaargh!!!) and a few days before the switch they asked for gas and electric readings,which i supplied.However,when i got my final bill from my previous supplier (EDF) i noticed that some of the readings were based on (over)estimates.Shouldn't they have used the readings i supplied to outfox?Thanks for your help.

shazzablue

Hi tryintosurvive did you keep a note of your meter reads?...if you did I would contact oftm..if your not in a fixed deal you can leave oftm without penalty...if they are not the best supplier for you of course.

System

Try2Survive wrote: »

Hi everyone,
quick question about switching suppliers,
I switched to outfox (aaargh!!!) and a few days before the switch they asked for gas and electric readings,which i supplied.However,when i got my final bill from my previous supplier (EDF) i noticed that some of the readings were based on (over)estimates.Shouldn't they have used the readings i supplied to outfox?Thanks for your help.

All meter readings provided to a new supplier on a transfer of supply go through an independent industry validation process. It is often the case that the readings used to open and close accounts are estimated by the Data Collectors.

https://octopus.energy/blog/secret-life-opening-meter-reading/

For a reading dispute to be possible, there needs to be a big enough gap between the reading used and the reading you gave. This is called a ‘tolerance’. If the gap is too small, it’s known as being ‘within tolerance’.

The tolerance for an electricity reading is 250 kWh or more.

For example if you submitted a reading of 01000 and the estimate used was 01300, there's a difference of 300 kWh and a reading dispute is possible.

For gas meters measured in cubic meters (m3), the tolerance is 109 units.

For example if you submitted a reading of 00010 m3 and the estimate used was 00100 m3, the difference is 90 units and therefore within tolerance.

For gas meters measured in cubic feet (ft3), the tolerance is 39 units.

For example if you submitted a reading of 00360 ft3 and the estimate used was 00400 ft3, the difference is 40 units and a reading dispute is possible.

A reading dispute is usually started by the new supplier, (Source: Ovo Energy)

victor2

Try2Survive wrote: »

Hi everyone,
quick question about switching suppliers,
I switched to outfox (aaargh!!!) and a few days before the switch they asked for gas and electric readings,which i supplied.However,when i got my final bill from my previous supplier (EDF) i noticed that some of the readings were based on (over)estimates.Shouldn't they have used the readings i supplied to outfox?Thanks for your help.

When you switch suppliers, the gaining supplier gets your starting meter readings and passes them to an industry body who checks them and "validates" them against various data sources they have. They then adjust them if they feel necessary and pass the readings on to both the losing and gaining suppliers to be used for the final and starting bills. So you should not get charged twice foir the same utility, but could end up paying the supplier with the more expensive tariff for energy you didn't actually use while under contract to them. Or you could gain a little. If your meter readings have always been actual ones and not estimates, you shouldn't gain or lose much whichever way it goes.
Interestingly, I had British Gas installed smart meters and then left them for another supplier, so the meters became dumb. I gave the new supplier my meter readings for the transfer, and they used the industry provided ones, which were close although slightly below the actual ones. However, BG used the final smart meter readings for my final bill (which is kind of understandable) and the new supplier used the regulator provided ones. Only when I sent BGs final bill to the new supplier did they adjust my billing, even though they had technically done everything by the book.