Martin!time To Act!

Steve_f_4

love this site M. but all of us i am sure are united by the need to base our spending decisions on honest information. Sadly, you are falling foul of the comparison services. You claim 5 minutes is all that is required to find the cheapest supplier. but that appears to be untrue (i've spent over an hour just reading all the posts, let alone the time i've spent trying to find my cheapest comparison).
CAN WE DO SOMETHING?
don't we now have the collective power to force the suppliers to clarify their costs and allow simple comparisons? cant you find out who charges least per unit, area by area?
i know this is cheeky, cos i couldnt do it. But if someone can make sense of the cheap flight market, surely a large money saving brain could blow these thieves out of the water and help us choose who we pay for our itilities?
C'mon Martin. time for a campaign!

Woby_Tide

all the comparison engines normally have an icon next to the supplier tariff which has details of the unit cost for that particular tariff, just cut and paste them out into an excel sheet(but the results will be the same as the comparison engine tells you). As long as the comparison site has up to date tariffs, there shouldn't be much difference(bar the comparison sites that don't include all suppliers due to service ratings)

bunking_off

I guess my gripe would be that the ones I've used don't seem to ask the question about whether gas is on a private supply....hence you only find out half way through the application process that you have to pay a surcharge. The size of that surcharge can far outweigh the differential between suppliers, so the critical factor can become whether a particular supplier surcharges private supplies. Given pretty much every new house is caught by this trap, I'd say it's a pretty basic requirement.

I also still have my complaint that I fail to understand why it takes so long to change energy supplier (e.g. contrast that with changing phone supplier).

Iffy_Wallet

Over 6 months ago I sat down and worked through a variety of the comparison websites and the suppliers' websites. I produced spreadsheets and drove myself mad trying to find old bills to calculate annual supply.

My area is the "Norweb" area.
I used the following figures for kwh:
Gas: 14424
Elec: 2435

I originally was signed with Br. Gas dual fuel, direct debit, online statements

All the options were above or below 500 pounds.

I put the same figures into the switch sites eg Enerylinx, eg uSwitch and I can no longer maker sense of all this.
Yes, I know there has been an energy crisis.

Looking back at one of my spreadsheets and comparing to eg Ebico today, I get the following figures:

Equi - elec -
now: 7.73 inc vat
was: 7.83 inc vat

Equi - gas -
now: 1.94 inc vat
was: 1.62 inc vat

British Gas are shown as a reasonable punt at the moment (alledgedly), but are increasing prices 14? 15? percent very soon.

How are we supposed to keep on top of all this if the figures don't make any sense and the suppliers are changing prices all the time?

Something has got to change here, if we are ever to save any money.

I can't spend for ever drawing up spreadsheets every six months. And the comparison sites never seem to understand the last deal or the current deal you have.

Help !!

Nemo

I'm currently with London for both fuels. The last time I checked prices was about 6 months ago, and it just wasn't worth it to switch. Anyway a few days ago I got a leaflet with some Virgin Wine stating that if I switched to Scottish Power I'd get a £60 wine voucher. Thought it was time to investigate again.

I've just looked at, I think, 7 comparison sites, and it's a complete nightmare. Nothing seems to tally with anything else.

I then decided to manually check London against Scottish, and am even struggling a bit to work this out. I'm not entirely sure what discounts I get anymore. London state:-

DIRECT DEBIT DISCOUNT
Pay by monthly Direct Debit for gas and electricity and you could enjoy a further annual saving of £16.80 (inc. VAT) for gas and £8.40 (inc. VAT) for electricity per year.

DUAL FUEL DISCOUNT
Take both gas and electricity from London Energy and you get a Dual Fuel discount of £8.40 (inc. VAT) a year if you pay by cash, cheque or prepayment. If you pay monthly Direct Debit, you will get a larger Dual Fuel discount of £25.20 (inc. VAT) in addition to your monthly Direct Debit discount for each fuel.

I pay my monthly direct debit. Adding the direct debit discounts together comes to £25.20, which is the same as the dual fuel discount, but this states that this is in addition to the direct debit discount. Do I really get £50.40? Time to trawl my old bills, but I seem to have stopped getting gas bills for the last 18 months or so. I noticed this a few months ago, and have been specifically looking out for the next gas bill, just in case I'd mislaid my old ones somehow.

So all in all, it looks like just staying where I am, or taking a bit of a gamble.

Steve_f_4

see martin? we're lost. you have led us to the water, but we are unable to drink. please help your pitiful disciples. start a campaign. lets get the website on to getting these thieves to behave themselves.
FAIR PRICING FOR ESSENTIAL UTILITIES
(not so catchy huh? that's why we need you marty boy ;-)

Smiley_Mum

I checked with a comparison website and they stated that British Gas would be good for me for electricity and would save me on average £200 a year or thereabouts, BUT after doing a Google search on British Gas it states that they are going to hike up their prices soon so I'm just as well to be canny with my electricity usage and stay with Scottish Hydro Electric. Six of one and half a dozen...

Gambler

I don't like the way the comparison sites list every single company, regardless of whether they supply your area or not.

LOndon Energy will save me over £200 compared to BG but when I went to their site they don't supply the Manweb energy so I was directed to EDF energy instead. This doesn't offer online tariffs and so will only save me £130.

Very annoying and time wasting !