Too Good to be true ??

stevepat

Hi, I'm with Scottish Power. My payments by DD in April 2007 were £118 per month. Yesterday I was advised they would be put up to £193 per month. (There had been other rises during the year, it wasn't a leap from £118 to £193).
I decided at this point to do a check on the price comparison sites.
Uswitch/energy helpline/moneysupermarket all come up with npower as the best option with figures close together - all just above £1800.
The 3 comparison sites did come up with a different "savings" figure - uswitch saved £648 while the other 2 saved £292 (not sure why this is when same information fed into each site).
The £1800 is such a big difference to the £2316 (12 x £193) that I thought I would query it with some of you guys.
Thanks in anticipation

Steve

StevenP_2

You need to check out wether you have built up a large debit balance with your current supplier

D

stevepat

There is no credit build up with Scottish Power. The question remains
Can npower undercut scottish power by that much ??

Ta

DGJsaver

stevepat wrote: »

There is no credit build up with Scottish Power. The question remains
Can npower undercut scottish power by that much ??

Ta

I dont think so myself

cardew ??

Cardew

You don't say if you are talking about gas and electricity or just electricity.

Now neither gas or electricity has gone up by 63% which a rise from £118 to £193 represents; - 15% is more like the figure.

So probably £118 was too low and you built up a debit balance and the £193 is set too high to pay off that debit plus cover what they anticipate you will use in the next year. So the £193 is not a reflection of your cost of energy.

Either way, putting in your cost per month(which I assume you have done??) into a comparison site is absolutely meaningless.

You need to put in the number of kWh you use per year(for both fuels if you have gas) to get any meaningful comparison of costs.

Bear in mind that the whole reason these websites exist is to get you to change supplier, and hence they get their commission.

That said, as you obviously use above the average amount of energy, NPower seem to be offering substantial savings.

stevepat

It is a duel fuel plan. I have been putting in the kwh information (for both gas and electric) into the comparison sites. I have used my figures for the last 12 months which are available to me on the Scottish Power site.
I have since put the information into scottish powers own site and have come up with an annual spend of approx £2100 which says to me that the £2316 (193 x 12) is set too high or I should be on a better plan or they are taking into account some future tarriff rises which they are planning.
It takes my annual spend nearer to npowers £1800 but still want to be convinced that I am doing the right thing by switching. Its not as straight forward as I thought it would be. Especially when reading about gas 'sculpting' etc

Thanks for replies to date

steve

Cardew

stevepat wrote: »

It is a duel fuel plan. I have been putting in the kwh information (for both gas and electric) into the comparison sites. I have used my figures for the last 12 months which are available to me on the Scottish Power site.
I have since put the information into scottish powers own site and have come up with an annual spend of approx £2100 which says to me that the £2316 (193 x 12) is set too high or I should be on a better plan or they are taking into account some future tarriff rises which they are planning.
It takes my annual spend nearer to npowers £1800 but still want to be convinced that I am doing the right thing by switching. Its not as straight forward as I thought it would be. Especially when reading about gas 'sculpting' etc

Thanks for replies to date

steve

I can quite believe on that very high consumption(about twice the UK average) that NPower could be £hundreds cheaper than SP.

Much as the 'sculpting' issue has been an absolute disgrace; it is the 're-setting' of the payment year that has caused the big problem and caused existing customers to be overcharged; and NPower say that this will not happen again!!!!

If you can believe them about not re-setting in the future, then sculpting will not affect you with such high consumption - you will always use all your primary units every month and therefore only pay for 4,572 primary units.

stevepat

Not sure what you mean about primary units.
You are right about the high consumption. I intend to address that and hopefully bring it down. (I live in a 4 bed semi which has a room in the loft and 2 rooms in the cellar).
I get the impression that SP are one of the better providers which is why I have been hesitating about switching.
I will probably ring them to see if there is a better option for me before taking the plunge and switching to npower.
The posts on this section of the forum do seem to contain more 'doom and gloom' than the other sections. I suppose this says a lot about the energy providers/system that we have today. It wasn't like this when I was a lad.
Thanks again for your help

steve

Cardew

stevepat wrote: »

Not sure what you mean about primary units.


steve

Some tariffs have a daily standing charge of xxp.

However the majority of tariffs don't have a daily standing charge but recoup that money by charging extra for the first xxxx kWhs.

These higher priced units are called Primary units(sometimes called Tier 1 units) and all the rest are Secondary units(Tier 2)

For most tariffs the extra money raised from Primary units in a year is the same as they would raise from the Standing charge.