Cashback Price Comparison Services Discussion

energyhelpline_company_representative

Guys,

This discrepancy with https://www.switchandgive.com is totally my fault and not Martin's.

Initially I had agreed with to pay Martin a commission of £5/fuel for onward referrals as we do with a number of organisations linked with charities who will only carry https://www.switchandgive.com for a payment.

Martin asked this to be changed to no commission however I, as an oversight, did not change this in the back end. Apologies. All the £5/fuels will go to the charities and not to Martin.

On other notes on the board.

Scottish Power Capped - a new version of the energyhelpline.com website will be rolled out this week, it will include a usage estimator, simplified input screens and the ability to sign up to ScottishPower Capped prices

Atlantic and PowerGen - we have reached provisional agreements to sell these tariffs but are now in contractual discussions - we expect to be able to sign people up to Atlantic again next week and PowerGen the week after.

Martin, sorry again for our oversight.

Kind regards,

Mark.

System

Mark

You have answered Martin's questions but you have not yet answered why you miss out Telecom Plus and Basic Power.

It look as if you attempt to skirt round various questions raised by everyone who contributes.

Please have a read of the complete postings and try to answer each question raised.

Also you mention £5 when the issue is the missing £10s

energyhelpline_company_representative

I was in process of answering them sorry, just not a quick enough typist.

We do not show Telecom Plus as:

1. They are currently defined by energywatch as a bundled tariff. By the strict letter of the law, bundled tariffs are not to be shown on ennergywatch approved comparison services

2. I have asked Telecom pLus for their tariffs and they have not sent them to us. We have traditionally been a small comparison service and hence we are low on the list for receiving updates. I had a meeting with a Telecom + rep. on Friday and she is supposed to be sending us their tariffs asap.

No service other than energylinx.co.uk (and they weren't doing this last week) show Telecom + on their default results table. Many do not show it at all like us - saveonyourbills, theenergyshop.co.uk and others like uswitch effectively hide it where very few people would ever see it.

So to say other people show Telecom + is only true in the strictest sense that some show it on little seen results tables.

We show all Basic Power tariffs - maybe there is a confusion as they do not do dual fuel nor supply in Scotland. Please note exactly where you didn't see it and I wil investigate. We are one of only two comparison services to sign people up to Basic Power. We do this for £10/fuel. Hence you get all our commission amd we do all the work.

We are not a tied supplier - we show all major tariffs except Telecom + and ScottishPower Capped (but people can switch Scottish and move to the capped anyway) adn are compliant with the energywatch code. I intend to show telecom + in the near future.

I am sorry that the tone of your comments seem to insinuate that we are not.

Kind regards,

Mark Todd

energyhelpline_company_representative

Dear All,

I have looked into the Basic Power issue. The Basic Power Standard tariff is a Monthly Direct Debit in advance tariff - maybe you were looking at monthly dd.

Here are the notes from https://www.basicpower.co.uk

Prices include VAT that is charged at 5%
These tariffs apply to domestic customers with single phase supplies.
These tarffs are only valid for customers paying monthly in advance by cash, cheque or direct debit.
Where payment is not received by the due date there will be a £1.05 charge. A further £1.05 charge will apply in respect of each period of one month that a payment is overdue.
A Daily Charge applies for each metering point.
Charges are shown rounded to three digits.
These tariffs do NOT apply where there is a prepayment meter.
These tariffs apply with effect from bills from 6 November2003.

Apologies if we are the only site to get this right and everyone has listed it incorrectly as a standard montly dd tariff.

I hope you understand that as we sell Basic Power I have no reason to hide this tariff. But I will not ever list an 'in advance' tariff as a monthly dd tariff if it is not and thus dupe customers into an option that may not be best for them.

I hope this clarifies the point.

All the best,

Mark.

System

Mark

Please accept my apologies I never meant to offend you I just hoped that you would answer my question and the other ones on this site. I do know that one of your companies is definetely approved by Energywatch as they list it on their website.

Why don't you get the other one listed too?

My postcode is SW6 4DD and I looked at electricity only and did not see Basic Power - my apologies again if I missed something.

You mention that you are a small price comparison, but I see you have just placed a $100 million contract in New Delhi for a call centre operation.

Have you recently expanded?

I notice that you went to New Delhi with a J Manek, Director of EnergyHelpline, is this the same person that won the Sunday Times Investor Competition a few years ago?

If it is not, who is behind your company?

I know these might sound like an interogation but I am genuinely interested.

Finally, who at Energwatch said that Telecom+ is a bundled tarif?

Simon

energyhelpline_company_representative

Hi,

That is some PR done by an Indian outbound calling call centre who use our brand name under a licence agreement. ::)

They use our website and receive 75% of all commissions. Jay Manek and Paul Green the other two Directors train and manage them. Currently we have 10 people calling up leads from consumer surveys. They are looking to recruit quality people to go into the call centre above the ten. Their plan is to raise it to a lot of people by the end of the year. Hence they claim it is a big contract. The $100M is an impressive number that is meant to be attainable over the next 3-5 years - they are hoping to use the article to recruit people.

So you know who we are:
3x Directors (Paul, Jay and I)
1 x Accountant
3 x Marketing / Admin staff
7 x Call centre operators based in Nottingham who anwer the 0800 adn 0845 numbers.

switchandgive.com was energywatch listed earlier in the 2003. It has raised about £40k for charity but we only made £10k in 12 months hence we switched approach and launched Energy Helpline. energywatch will only let us have one listing so we switched it to energyhelpline.

We try to answer the phone promptly and offer a relable phons service to match simply energy and internet service to make uswitch and uk power

Sorry if I was a bit stroppy before :-[

Been quite a stressful day. I have been trying to get the 10 Indians answering our phone lines on top of our 7 in Notttingham but they have delivered.

Hope this helps and thx for the interest.

Kind regards,

Mark.

energyhelpline_company_representative

The £10 issue is a £5 / fuel issue.

If you look at https://www.switchandgive.com/mse from now on then you will see £40 donations.

Sorry this was our mistake not Martin's. ::)

Cheers,

Mark.

energyhelpline_company_representative

As proof of Basic Power, here is our results table for medium level user for your post code single fuel elec.


ScottishPower - Online (no standing charge)
Monthly Direct Debit £219.96 £22.02 (9%) 84%
ScottishPower - Online
Monthly Direct Debit £219.98 £22.00 (9%) 84%
Virgin - Home Energy
Monthly Direct Debit £221.42 £20.55 (8%) 80% enquire
Scottish Hydro - Standard (Air Miles)
Monthly Direct Debit £223.42 £18.55 (8%) 82%
Southern Electric - Standard (Air Miles)
Monthly Direct Debit £223.42 £18.55 (8%) 82%
Swalec - Standard (Air Miles)
Monthly Direct Debit £223.42 £18.55 (8%) 82%
Powergen - Age Concern
Monthly Direct Debit £225.19 £16.79 (7%) 89% enquire
ScottishPower - No Standing Charge
Monthly Direct Debit £225.21 £16.77 (7%) 84%
ScottishPower - Standard
Monthly Direct Debit £225.23 £16.75 (7%) 84%
Basic Power - Standard
Monthly in Advance DD £225.26 £16.72 (7%) 74%

Prices include VAT at 5%. Last updated 11/1/2004. Results 1 to 10 of 71 < Previous 10 results Next 10 results

Alll the best,

Mark.

markedgar

Leo,
I searched the Energylinx site and for internet only account it came up with Scotpower saving £38.
For all accounts it came up with guess who?

---

 TP.
The funny thing was for TP it came up with three completely different tariffs,light,standard and high.
Confusing or what?
This is what makes me think that they just move you to whichever tariff applies for each month`s usage.

Just to clarify this point for alared and others:

TP will place a customer on the appropriate tariff based on that customers known usage (or expected usage* if usage is not known) per annum.

The tariff will not change per month (or otherwise) unless the customer asks them to change to another tariff.

Rather than having a 'one-size-fits-all' tariff, the energy service is tailored to suit individuals' needs based on their usage profile to provide the customer with the best rates.

The best thing to do, for your own circumstances is use a comparison site such as Energylinx (https://www.energylinx.co.uk) and also ask TP to provide you with a no obligation quotation (from any TP site). It actually means the most suitable tariff is being offered to the customer based on their usage profile and location (they differ for electricity, depending on region).

Hope this helps.

Mark E
TP ID

*If, for example, a customer is a new energy, new build user, they won't have a profile that is known, hence why they will be placed on the appropiate tariff for their area and property size.

alared

Mark E

Thanks for that.
I just visited the TP site and the prices it gave are dated from the 1st Oct 03.
Are these the current prices?
If the answer is yes then surely it must only be a matter of time before TP follows the rest of the sheep and ups it`s prices too!
Where I think TP lost credibility in the first place was claiming that people could actually get free power for life by signing up other customers.
Do you know anyone that has got free power for life and are sitting with their windows open heating the whole street?