Standing Charge

morgannig

We all know energy bills are going up with the change in the spend cap. However, can someone please tell me why the standing charges have increased so much. Every effort can be made to reduce consumption and save costs but my standing charges per day with British Gas have doubled.

Bradden

I feel your frustration @[Deleted User] ...as the OP is new I'll try to help.

MSE update: Why has the standing charge for electricity nearly doubled? — MoneySavingExpert Forum

There are many threads on this... this one went round and round.

Campaign to ban Standing Charges - Page 19 — MoneySavingExpert Forum

This was a good one too.

Standing Charge ripoff — MoneySavingExpert Forum

ariarnia

would it be a good idea to have a pinned thread as an faq we could quickly point new posters to? 

like this one on the housing board started by G_M 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5180214/tenancies-in-eng-wales-guides-for-landlords-and-tenants#latest

[Deleted User]

ariarnia said:

would it be a good idea to have a pinned thread as an faq we could quickly point new posters to? 

like this one on the housing board started by G_M 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5180214/tenancies-in-eng-wales-guides-for-landlords-and-tenants#latest

There used to be one, before (and for a couple of months after) the change.  Given it happened six months ago, they've taken it down now because the change in standing charge is no longer actually relevant. 

ariarnia

i was thinking about common questions re dd estimates quarterly billing and everything as well. not just the current weirdness. but i guess if theres not been a need for one now then thats that. 

EssexHebridean

I think part of the problem is that people after arrive here in a state of high dudgeon and so make their post before reading any pinned posts - probably before even seeing them to be honest! 

dunstonh

morgannig said:

We all know energy bills are going up with the change in the spend cap. However, can someone please tell me why the standing charges have increased so much. Every effort can be made to reduce consumption and save costs but my standing charges per day with British Gas have doubled.

It is general discussion board etiquette to check for recent threads on this subject to avoid consistent repeating of discussion.  There are very many threads on this.

dunstonh

In fairness some of the annoyance is probably because a Google search is quick (in fact would have been quicker than creating an account just to ask this question) and simple instead of asking others to do the work for them.  Writing an explanation or finding the previous threads to link to is effort, more effort than someone not bothering to do a search for themselves.

And in many cases, that google search will have the MSE thread on the subject pretty high up the list of responses.  Indeed, I just checked and the third one in the list was MSE explaining it.

So rather than read the thread that is already discussing it, you often find they ask again and expect the same people who have answered dozens of times already to answer it again.   its an age old problem with discussion boards.