Elderly person who has remained with same provider for years

Straydog

I’m currently helping a neighbour sort out her administration following the recent death of her husband. She has remained on single tariffs with British Gas for many years and paying approx £260 pounds a month. She has approx £1000 credit
iis she better remaining on the same tariffs?
My current fuel costs and contract taken out in October is £140 per month for the same usage.
When I inform the provider of a change of user, will she then be locked into a new deal.

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

In the current situation with the turmoil in the energy market she is almost certain to be better off staying with British Gas.

She really doesn't want to be locked in to a new deal, unless already on a existing fixed deal. Unfortunately the Standard Variable Tariff (SVT) is cheaper than any current fixed deals and the prices on that are capped until next April.

You need to contact BG and they should be able to work out a correct DD sum based on her historical data and get a refund of some of the credit

wittynamegoeshere

It would be worth checking that she actually is on the standard variable tariff, some suppliers are now playing some pretty dirty tricks on their customers, by persuading them to move onto very high priced fixed tariffs while not even mentioning the possibility of paying less for the variable tariff.

They've been cold-calling and sending deliberately misleading emails and letters.  One I saw was providing a "standard" tariff as a comparison against the fixed tariff they were offering, but in fact this was a fictitious fixed tariff at an extremely high price, whose sole purpose was to make the one they were offering look like it was less in comparison.  While of course not even mentioning the variable option.

Variable tariffs are not allowed to exceed the government's capped price limit, but fixed ones can - and do, often by 50% or more.