Capped Confusion - Help!

danweb

Having been a big fan on Martin over the years I have taken his advice on many occasions and saved oodles of quids.

So, I hung on until I got the “green light” from Martin to change enregy suppliers, and sure enough I was able to save probably 10 percent on my Dual Fuel by making the change.

So my new supplier took over at the start of May, and I was looking forward to keeping a handle on my bills.

Now I’ve seen Martin on gmtv in the morning screaming at the viewers to Cap their energy bills. So being the well trained sheep that I am, (and please don’t think I am complaining, cause Martin is a financial guru and has saved me loads.) I rang my energy supplier and asked them how much it would cost to cap my bills.

Here’s where it gets confusing, I get quoted back all the unit prices etc etc for each of the products and the decision is left up to me. Now I ain’t no dunce (as you can see by that example of English grammar) but trying to apply these unit prices to my actual consumption is an absolute nightmare. I have brought up all my old bills, tried to convert gas units to kWh, worked out my annual consumption, and tried to apply some clever mathematics to tell me how much more it will cost. Well to be quite frank with you, I got a bit lost, and gave up, because my calculations led me to believe that it would be cheaper! I don’t know where I went wrong but I was going round in circles.

So I try to do a price comparison on a few of the many sites, to try and see if the tariff that my supplier wants to put me on comes up, and hopefully that will tell me how much more I will be paying. Well unfortunately the same tariff doesn’t come up, but the one fairly close does, which will cost me approximately another 29% (or £300 over the year).

Or there is another provider that will only charge me another £200 over the year (another 18%).

So can I move to the alternative supplier having only been with my new supplier for a month?

Or do I pay the 29% extra to avoid a possible 40% increase?

Any help or advice from you seasoned money savers would be gratefully received. And I apologise for the long windedness of the post but I do tend to yabber a bit!

SKIPPY

I have also been watching the same programme and am now a little confused on what to do. I'm currently with British Gas on Click Energy 1. If I change to Click Energy 5 it saves me 20% and if I change to E-On capped it will cost me 1% more. Dilema do I change to E-On and pay 1% more for a little while and hope the prices go up by more than 20% very quickly????

sparklygirl1

I know, I am capping today with an increase of 9.8%...................Hmmmmmm with a £70 DD per month for elec it's gonna have to change...........

jaxxx

I'm feeling similarly confused. I am with British Gas on Price Protection 2010 for electric - which is great price and I want to keep. Now I'm trying to find a capped gas rate to switch to (currently on Southern Electric for gas on their No standing charge rate), but using the search engines there doesn't seem to be any coming up. I rang one of the comparison sites and they said that you can get a single capped rate for electric only but need to do a dual fuel for electric and gas to get a capped rate for gas. I don't want to lose my 2010 price protection which I imagine I would if I move to a dual fuel rate. Have spoken to British Gas and they confused me further with talk of moving to Standard tarrif first, then click 5, then PP 2009. Evidently I couldn't go to PP 2009 direct!? Anyone in a similar position? At the moment I feel I'll just have to stay with Southern Electric for gas. Martin has panicked me by saying we should all get on a capped rate for both fuels.

BB78

I think many of us are in the same boat and are confused as to whether to switch or not. I've just had EDF bloke round trying to get me to switch to their capped rate. I had already had a look into it yesterday & knew I could get cashback by switching online so I asked him what he could do if I agreed to sign up with him & he said he would match it. Signed up & before the guy had even left I got a call asking to confirm my details, I asked about the cashback & they said there is no such deal & they wouldn't honour what their rep offered!! So I've cancelled the contract!!

I've been on the comparison sites and they are saying the most I will save is £22 a year and the capped rates will cost an extra £50 a year. The EDF guy said every suppliers prices will be going up 40% on Monday (true or not??) I don't know if my quoted savings are so low at the moment because the sites are working on today's prices and not the expected hiked prices? and if so; how do I work out who to switch to and which tarrif? How do I know if the capped tarrif I chose will save me money in the long run?
Also how often can you switch? I moved from EDF to E.on in August last year.

Its all very confusing and knowing what to do for the best!!

george1939

BB78 wrote: »

I think many of us are in the same boat and are confused as to whether to switch or not. I've just had EDF bloke round trying to get me to switch to their capped rate. I had already had a look into it yesterday & knew I could get cashback by switching online so I asked him what he could do if I agreed to sign up with him & he said he would match it. Signed up & before the guy had even left I got a call asking to confirm my details, I asked about the cashback & they said there is no such deal & they wouldn't honour what their rep offered!! So I've cancelled the contract!!

I've been on the comparison sites and they are saying the most I will save is £22 a year and the capped rates will cost an extra £50 a year. The EDF guy said every suppliers prices will be going up 40% on Monday (true or not??) I don't know if my quoted savings are so low at the moment because the sites are working on today's prices and not the expected hiked prices? and if so; how do I work out who to switch to and which tarrif? How do I know if the capped tarrif I chose will save me money in the long run?
Also how often can you switch? I moved from EDF to E.on in August last year.

Its all very confusing and knowing what to do for the best!!

Good value N Power capped to January 2011