Gas & Electricity Money Saving Discussion Area

ctw_2

I'm feeling a bit frustrated as I took Martin's advice about the best time to change providers. I also used the recommended site and kwh to find the cheapest provider. However, I received no cash benefit from swopping, as it said that Union Energy didn't support the site. They didn't have any swopping offers on their own site either.

The dual fuel option remained the best for me. As a result of this, I left Union Energy duel fuel, (through my union and part of the Scottish Power group,) who have a price freeze till Dec'05, and went to London Energy.

I was already unhappy with the switch, as I was not given advance warning about change dates. I received my letter, dated after the actual change, informing me that my electricity had switched. I could not therefore provide accurate meter readings. The electricity reading, provided 10 days late, has also not been passed on accurately to Union Energy, and London Energy seem unconcerned about both issues.

To add insult to injury, Martin has now announced that London Energy are about to hike their prices. After alot of hassle and ringing several numbers at London Energy, I have finally had it confirmed that the increase does not apply to on-line customers for now. However, I remain extremely unhappy with their level of customer services. I am waiting for a manager to ring me back re this.

I have now wasted a good couple of hours trying to resolve the matter of the inaccurate readings and regret swopping, as there is no guarantee that they won't put up the internet prices next.

Interestingly, the Energylink site is still showing them as best value for money! Any comments Martin?

TREVORCOLMAN

Is there anywhere I can look up the energy providers and how much they charge. IE giving details of their daily service charge plus charges per unit for gas and elect per Kwh?

Thanks

Trev
;D

Fortyfoot

TREVORCOLMAN wrote:

Is there anywhere I can look up the energy providers and how much they charge. IE giving details of their daily service charge plus charges per unit for gas and elect per Kwh?

Hi there, I saw the prices on the comparison site. http://www.energyhelpline.com/home_ehl.aspx?cname=EnergyHelpline&aid=107
Do a comparison and then click on the supplier. I think the prices vary according to your region.
Fortyfoot
:cool:

Fran

meriva,

Sorry you got no replies to your question. Please post it again!

Fran

Talon_Karrde

Has anyone heard of a company called Utilita?
Just been to EnergyHelpline to compare (am currently with London Energy) and Utilita has come out top, BUT to get the quoted saving you have to ASK them to give you the rebate at the end of the year otherwise your credit goes towards buying energy saving products for you home! also, you join them on a 3 year understanding, although you get one chance per year to leave, and another chance for 14 days if they raise prices....
Am worried it seems like a lot of bother for this.....problem is, other companies that offer somehwere close to my 12-14% saving don't have the apply button, just enquire, so i can't get the cashback!

cheers

loon_2

If you log onto the Utilita website, you’ll see that the savings are not monetary and as for what a FAIR rate is… I don’t know.

Marigold123

I've been with London Electricity for many years, and when they began to do gas as well I went with them on a dual fuel deal. I even had them as my telephone provider as well - they were slightly better than Onetel at the time. I am a fairly low user of power, we use more electricity than gas - gas is only used for heating and in the Summer, (and, to be honest, most of Spring and Autum too), we use nothing. On my individual usage, they were the best deal I could get.

I have been on Economy 7 with LE for ages, until a couple of years ago I discovered that you could no longer tell when the cheaper periods would be. All they would say was that the cheaper times were 7 hours somewhere between the hours of say, 10.30pm and 8.30am.

I need to know when my cheap time is, so I can set the immersion heater to co-incide with this, and so I can put my washing machine and breadmaker on at the most economical times.

They said you could pay to have someone come out and look at your meter to tell you how it was set, but they refused to tell you how to see for yourself. I thought this was disgusting.

I have been meaning to change for ages, but I waited because there were supposed to be a lot of price changes coming up. Now LE have put their prices up I really must get my act together and do it.

Just thought I'd warn everyone about LE's policy on Economy 7. The last time I looked at their website the cheap times were listed according to area. In some areas they would tell you the hours, but in others, including mine, they wouldn't.

I shall phone them up today and ask them one last time, and tell them I will be moving suppliers unless they tell me how to find out when my electricity is cheaper.

Ickle_Steve

Marigold123 wrote:

They said you could pay to have someone come out and look at your meter to tell you how it was set, but they refused to tell you how to see for yourself. I thought this was disgusting.

I'm also on economy 7. The display on our meter constantly cycles through the unit counters for the different rates and the internal clock time. When it displays the rate/counter for the one it's using at the time I think it shows a little dot on the display. If you look at different times during the day you might be able to tell when the rate changes.
There is a sticker on our meter that has the night rate times written on it. Problem is the internal clock on our meter is a few hours out, so even if they told you the night rate times you might find the meter doesn't know what time of day it is

Marigold123

Thanks Steve, I've just been on to them, and this time they pointed out that I can see which tariff is being charged by which set of numbers is going round - mine is an older 'mile-ometer' style meter. The only thing about this is that it is in the garage, and hard to get to. Still, if I do observations and break the time into smaller and smaller chunks, I should be able to 'catch it in the act', as it were!

I was also told that the CS rep who had told me I could pay to have someone come out and look at it and see what hours were set was lying, and probably just wanted to get me off the phone! Apparently they have never been able to do that.

Now all I have to do is find out if anyone is cheaper than London Electricity in my area. A certain amount of maths involved, I think, as I need to work out the different tariffs as well - ie. flat rate plus a standing charge, or higher rate for a set amount of kWh of electricity/cubic feet of gas, followed by the rest at a lower rate, etc.

Lots of fun!

Gary_Rogers

Got a bit lost here, I have a question. In September we moved house to a farm which already has three phase. We have only used electricity in the house so far, not any of the buildings which we had disconnected as they looked unsafe. The house is the same size as our previous house and we haven't changed our useage drastically, save for using plug in storage heaters for 2 months before we had central heating put in. Our first bill was in excess of £800.00 and this was after a reading, not estimated. Which was a shock to say the least when we've never paid more than £250 per quater before. I tried to contact egergyhelpline on the web to see who is the cheapest provider but that have not got back to me, maybe because it is classed as business not private, is there anywhere else I can go??