Switching supplier

countrymusicfan

This is from the Carer's Network Bulletin
New research by the Centre for Competition Policy at the University of East Anglia has revealed that hundreds of thousands of consumers who switched electricity suppliers last year, ended up worse off as a result. The research measured the accuracy of electricity consumer's switching decisions using two surverys.
Fewer than a fifth had switched to the supplier offering the highest savings for their consumption patterns. In fact, they claimed that if consumers had switched to a randomly selected supllier, they would have had almost as much chance of choosing the cheapest.

Looks like the idea of getting a cheaper supplier isn't getting thru. You have to understand your consumption before you can find a cheap supplier.

dori2o

I think the biggest problem is that some people will use the comparison sites and just take their word for it, when in fact they are not always correct.

The other problem is when inputting the data that the comparison site uses to determine the cheapest provider. I.e. when it asks for the annual useage. If people put in their annual spend in £'s, they may just multiply their monthy direct debit payment by 12. this does not take into account the fact that the amount they are paying does not cover their useage, or the fact that the amount they input includes an amount they are paying back to the supplier for arrears.

I always find it prudent to get the price per KWh from the suppliers website and calculate what it will actually cost based on my annual consumption in KWh's via a spreadsheet I have developed.

It is amazing how far out the comparison sites can be.