Warning

grahamlumsden1

I wanted to warn everyone about Government-managed energy companies.
I help my dementia suffering sister with her finance.  I checked her monthly bank statement and found she was paying £304 per month for a single bedroom flat  this before the latest energy rises. That amounts to more than £3600 per year. She was with Bulb  whom I discovered went into Government administration last year. It turns out that they put her on a single, highest rate without informing her. It seems to be kind of like emergency tax - a high rate until you stop them. She wasn't aware and happily paid it every month. We've switched her to a much lower fixed rate with OVO now, but I qas shocked  and wondered how many others are being taken to the cleaners by our Government?

jimjames

And it's nothing to do with the government. They're the ones that set (via OFGEM) the price cap to stop people being ripped off unless they choose to take a fixed deal.

MWT

grahamlumsden1 said:

We've switched her to a much lower fixed rate with OVO now, but I qas shocked  and wondered how many others are being taken to the cleaners by our Government?

Given that the Bulb tariff is a variable capped rate, it seems very unlikely that you have recently been able to switch to a 'much lower' fixed tariff with OVO.

I hope you are not just comparing the monthly direct debit amounts rather than the actual standing-charge and kWh rates?

If so you may have caused her real costs to go up considerably...

If you want to give us more details we can help, and for the record, the government are not directly managing Bulb, that is the role of the administrators, we are however all bearing the costs of the exercise through general taxation .

GingerTim

I just had a look at OVO and they only offered two fixed tariffs, one for 1 year and the other for 2 years. The unit rates are the same (I'm in London):

Electricity
38.77p standing charge
37.74p/kwh

Gas
27.52 standing charge
11.57p/kwh

£30 exit fee per fuel for 1 year, £60 per fuel for the 2 year

compared with the price cap rate, according to @QrizB's table

Electricity
40-51p standing charge (32p in London)
27-29p/kwh

Gas
27.2p standing charge
7.2-7.4p/kwh

The unit rates are considerably higher on the OVO tariffs.

pochase

grahamlumsden1 said:

 It turns out that they put her on a single, highest rate without informing her. 

Do you mean she was supposed to be on an E7 tariff? 

Did she submit meter readings or was the use estimated?

Bulb users were other than the users of the failed energy supplier not transferred to a SOLR suppliers, so if there was an error it was there already before. 

QrizB

Welcome to the forum. We could do with a bit more information, if available.

grahamlumsden1 said:

I help my dementia suffering sister with her finance.  I checked her monthly bank statement and found she was paying £304 per month for a single bedroom flat  this before the latest energy rises. That amounts to more than £3600 per year.

£3600 per year for an all-electric flat on Bulb's pre-April tariff isn't entirely unbelievable. It would suggest something like 16-17000 kWh/yr which could be used by a person who likes their flat on the warm-to-tropical side.

It turns out that they put her on a single, highest rate without informing her. It seems to be kind of like emergency tax - a high rate until you stop them.

As has already been pointed out, Bulb only have one tariff - their capped standard variable. To the best of my knowledge this is cheaper than any of the open fixed rates currently on offer (there are some specialist tariffs that potentially work out cheaper, eg. those intended for EVs).

If you can give the details we've asked for regarding her annual consumption and the new OVO fix we can possibly understand the situation better.