Simplicity Energy - Ceasing to Trade

SuperExcelMan

I am on live chat to BGE now, my new rates are well off what they used to be. BGE says” the details are only just coming through to us, but we are told it should not differ much from your previous tariff”

Maybe room to negotiate then?

olip74

East Lothian customer here, just got my tariff email:

Unit of Elecricity: 16.95500
Standing Charge: 23.52300
Unit of Gas: 3.01700
Standing Charge: 26.07400

That represents a 38% increase based on my own estimates. I'm off! I've already put in a switch through Cheap Energy Club. Looks like I'm going to have to suck up a £220 increase over the next 12 months. I can't complain though, I've mooched around the bottom of the market for years now and been very lucky, even managed to avoid Iresa going bankrupt by about 3 months. Sic transit gloria mundi!

Shedman

olip74 said:

East Lothian customer here, just got my tariff email:

Unit of Elecricity: 16.95500
Standing Charge: 23.52300
Unit of Gas: 3.01700
Standing Charge: 26.07400

That represents a 38% increase based on my own estimates. I'm off! I've already put in a switch through Cheap Energy Club. Looks like I'm going to have to suck up a £220 increase over the next 12 months. I can't complain though, I've mooched around the bottom of the market for years now and been very lucky, even managed to avoid Iresa going bankrupt by about 3 months. Sic transit gloria mundi!

 Given that Simplicity are showing still on national databases as the supplier you might encounter some issues switching away before BGE is noted as being supplier on databases.  Hopefully, at worst, your switch will be rejected and you will have to ask new supplier to reapply in a few days if they are willing.  However, people who tried this when SP took over YE, before SP was noted on databases, also found that, although their switch went through, SP subsequently tried to reclaim them ( so needed to notify their new supplier to reject any attempts to reclaim)

olip74

Shedman said:

olip74 said:

East Lothian customer here, just got my tariff email:

Unit of Elecricity: 16.95500
Standing Charge: 23.52300
Unit of Gas: 3.01700
Standing Charge: 26.07400

That represents a 38% increase based on my own estimates. I'm off! I've already put in a switch through Cheap Energy Club. Looks like I'm going to have to suck up a £220 increase over the next 12 months. I can't complain though, I've mooched around the bottom of the market for years now and been very lucky, even managed to avoid Iresa going bankrupt by about 3 months. Sic transit gloria mundi!

 Given that Simplicity are showing still on national databases as the supplier you might encounter some issues switching away before BGE is noted as being supplier on databases.  Hopefully, at worst, your switch will be rejected and you will have to ask new supplier to reapply in a few days if they are willing.  However, people who tried this when SP took over YE, before SP was noted on databases, also found that, although their switch went through, SP subsequently tried to reclaim them ( so needed to notify their new supplier to reject any attempts to reclaim)

Thanks, I'll take my chances. I'm not hanging around on that tariff for a second longer than I have to. I've put in a complaint to BGE as they offer a tariff online that would be more than £50 cheaper and I don't want to pay any more than this for the time I have to be with them. I think it's immoral that they would do this but it's a grubby market so I'll just have to fight for what I can get.

Mintyrbc

Wow, im being offered worse prices than that!
Gas: 
3.089p kwh
26.074 p/day
Electric:
17.664p kwh
24.501p p/day

My simply account was only £28 in credit, which will no doubt be less than the energy charges by BG from 31st Jan - today. Can I go against ofgem advice and just switch today?
I don't want to hang around waiting for BG to get their affairs in order tearing my eyes out on energy prices. 
Update....I just spoke to British Gas, our simply prices are frozen until April 1st, that is when these new BG Evolve tariffs  kick in. BG said I was fine to switch today if I wanted too, they are expecting all accounts to be set up by next week.

Shedman

olip74 said:

Shedman said:

olip74 said:

East Lothian customer here, just got my tariff email:

Unit of Elecricity: 16.95500
Standing Charge: 23.52300
Unit of Gas: 3.01700
Standing Charge: 26.07400

That represents a 38% increase based on my own estimates. I'm off! I've already put in a switch through Cheap Energy Club. Looks like I'm going to have to suck up a £220 increase over the next 12 months. I can't complain though, I've mooched around the bottom of the market for years now and been very lucky, even managed to avoid Iresa going bankrupt by about 3 months. Sic transit gloria mundi!

 Given that Simplicity are showing still on national databases as the supplier you might encounter some issues switching away before BGE is noted as being supplier on databases.  Hopefully, at worst, your switch will be rejected and you will have to ask new supplier to reapply in a few days if they are willing.  However, people who tried this when SP took over YE, before SP was noted on databases, also found that, although their switch went through, SP subsequently tried to reclaim them ( so needed to notify their new supplier to reject any attempts to reclaim)

Thanks, I'll take my chances. I'm not hanging around on that tariff for a second longer than I have to. I've put in a complaint to BGE as they offer a tariff online that would be more than £50 cheaper and I don't want to pay any more than this for the time I have to be with them. I think it's immoral that they would do this but it's a grubby market so I'll just have to fight for what I can get.

I agree that it's pretty ropey that they didn't put us on the tariff (Direct Online v4) that you get offered if you are a new customer and which would be about £95 a year cheaper for me.   They certainly aren't putting forward a strong argument for anybody to stay with them.  Ofgem would have had sight of the proposed tariffs that both EDF were going to offer GNE customers and the one BGE were going to offer us....so I find rather frustrating that they place us with BGE, surely EDF would have also tendered for another 50,000 customers.

Keep the thread updated with your progress

olip74

Mintyrbc said:

Update....I just spoke to British Gas, our simply prices are frozen until April 1st, that is when these new BG Evolve tariffs  kick in. BG said I was fine to switch today if I wanted too, they are expecting all accounts to be set up by next week.

I'd get that in writing if I were you. I've double checked the BGE FAQs and all I can find is this:

Will I stay on the same tariff?

No, we’ll move you onto a new tariff and you’ll receive full details on that tariff soon. It’s a competitively priced tariff with no exit fees which means you can switch later if it’s not quite right for you. You’ll be able to switch as soon as we've fully set up your account.

If they were being that generous I'd perhaps hang around for a bit 

Shedman

Mintyrbc said:

Update....I just spoke to British Gas, our simply prices are frozen until April 1st, that is when these new BG Evolve tariffs  kick in. BG said I was fine to switch today if I wanted too, they are expecting all accounts to be set up by next week.

If that is the case then why didn't they say it in the emails they sent out....I'm very doubtful.  But fingers crossed.  I might try chat tomorrow and see what they say (and then at least there be a written trail).   

Having just looked at the email again it says it's a 14 month tariff and price guaranteed to 1st April 2022 so that kind of implies it kicks in from 1 Feb 2021 rather than 1 April 2021

Mintyrbc

Shedman said:

Mintyrbc said:

Update....I just spoke to British Gas, our simply prices are frozen until April 1st, that is when these new BG Evolve tariffs  kick in. BG said I was fine to switch today if I wanted too, they are expecting all accounts to be set up by next week.

If that is the case then why didn't they say it in the emails they sent out....I'm very doubtful.  But fingers crossed.  I might try chat tomorrow and see what they say (and then at least there be a written trail).   

Having just looked at the email again it says it's a 14 month tariff and price guaranteed to 1st April 2022 so that kind of implies it kicks in from 1 Feb 2021 rather than 1 April 2021

No idea why they didn't state that in the mails they sent out, incompetent company if its true. The guy i spoke too said loads of people were complaining about the same issue and wanting to leave. Let me know how you get on with the chat. Im going to switch tomorrow, I will keep this thread updated on how it goes.
As a side note to increasing my costs, I don't want to give British Gas any business. They are a foul company with what they are currently doing to their gas engineers with regards to the fire and rehire on worse off contracts whilst at the same time the CEO takes huge payouts. 

Shedman

Right.  Been on chat this morning.  Got the usual line about how we'd been put on a competitive tariff (even though I pointed out that if I had signed up as a new customer I would have been on a lower tariff),  couldn't confirm that we would stay on Simplicity rates until April 1st (which I really didn't think would be the case anyway), couldn't give me an account number yet but they are working to set up accounts as priority and that first DD will be taken between now and mid March (although it won't be now obviously as they haven't asked for DD details unless they are getting those from Simplicity).

So in other words told me b*gger all that I didn't already know.  Think I might risk a switch now as well