Energy: Find the cheapest supplier & earn cashback

IanatSeaton · 14 November 2011 at 3:11AM

Originally Posted by Ralphy101

I currently pay £102 for gas and elec ( dual) a month with british gas.

me and my partner and 19 month old son.

Does this sound excessive ? as im thinking about changing supplier to get cheaper deals.

Just for some further comparison my total usage for the last 12 months with Ovo Energy was as follows:-
[FONT=&quot]5738.0kWh of Electricity which cost £463.98* = £0.08086 /KwH[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]27098.0kWh of Gas which cost £505.60* = £0.0186582 per KWh[/FONT]

I find that these agents who ring you up, or knock at your door, only ask "How much do you pay a month?", and sometimes they ask "How many bedrooms do you have, and how many people live in your house/flat?" - Now forgive me if I am wrong but when we all pull into the garage to fill up our cars, the boy/girl at the cash desk doesn't want to know how many doors your car has, or how many people will be in it on an average day. But they do know how many litres you have put in your car and how much it costs per litre!!!
So shouldn't the utility firms be talking the same language.
The only thing that is important is the price per KWh for Gas and the price kWh of Electricity. Some firms like Ovo have a standing charge per day which is included in the average prices I have paid above.
So next time you are talking to a supplier about a switch refuse to tell them how much you pay each month, just ask for their price per kWh ( or kilo watt hour). Then you can compare their prices to your last bill and see for yourself if they are cheaper.
If you tell them you are paying £130 per month they will always come back and say that they can save you £20 per month. I fell for that before and at the end of the next year I was £300 in arrears.
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IanatSeaton · 14 November 2011 at 3:20AM

I moved from E-On in April 2010 when they wanted to up my monthly payment to £185, that covered my Gas & Electricity.
I started paying Ovo £113 per month - for both.
On 11 July 2011 I was £397 IN CREDIT with Ovo and they sent me a cheque for £300 and reduced my direct debit to just £75 per month.
We have 3 adults in the house who all shower every morning, and we run the central heating 24/7 during the winter.

doveman · 14 November 2011 at 10:22AM

IanatSeaton wrote: »

I moved from E-On in April 2010 when they wanted to up my monthly payment to £185, that covered my Gas & Electricity.
I started paying Ovo £113 per month - for both.
On 11 July 2011 I was £397 IN CREDIT with Ovo and they sent me a cheque for £300 and reduced my direct debit to just £75 per month.
We have 3 adults in the house who all shower every morning, and we run the central heating 24/7 during the winter.

Sounds strange, how much are they charging you per kWh for each utility and daily standing charge (if any)?

doveman · 14 November 2011 at 10:32AM

Oh, and much as I appreciate Scottish Power putting my DD back to what was agreed, they still haven't paid out the £62 Quidco cashback that tracked on 26 May.

Quidco have told me that SP have been quite delayed with their cashback recently and they are working with them to reduce their delays, so hopefully it will come through but it's still annoying that they haven't paid out yet (it said on their Quidco page they'd pay within 3 months when I took up the offer).

Scottish_Power · 15 November 2011 at 9:36AM

Hi doveman,

I understand your frustration with the delay, if you want to e-mail me your details to [EMAIL="onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com"]onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com[/EMAIL] I can escalate the issue for you.

Kind regards

Graeme

kittyJ_2 · 15 November 2011 at 9:52AM

i switched from npower to scottish power as they was the cheapest and signed into a year contract then the prices went up a month later so was paying more but was signed up for a year so nothing i could do now i have found out i had within 30 days to cancel when the prices went up with no charge but no contact ends end of dec or beginning of jan so i can switch again but i find it so confusing any help with what companys you found a good price

doveman · 15 November 2011 at 6:33PM

scottishpower_company_representative wrote: »

Hi doveman,

I understand your frustration with the delay, if you want to e-mail me your details to [EMAIL="onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com"]onlinecomplaints@scottishpower.com[/EMAIL] I can escalate the issue for you.

Kind regards

Graeme

Thanks. I have just sent you an e-mail.

Susan1942 · 15 November 2011 at 6:45PM

Right now I need to move my electricity by the 31st Dec 2011. I am currently with SSE Go Direct 5 but that was only for 12 months.
I am not certain where I should move? Should I go for the Company that offers me the best deal or look at the Company Records before making a decision. I did not realise just how great a deal the Go Direct 5 was Is there any other product out there which has a similar tariffe even if only for 12 months?

Sue

PhylPho · 18 November 2011 at 10:54PM

There've been several posts since this thread started about problems with cashback payments / incentive offer redemptions etc. We had just such a problem with USwitch some years ago: we never did receive whatever it was we were promised for switching via them.

Since then, it's always, but always, been our practice to screen-shot every stage of any online transaction involving a cashback or other incentive promise. We're now in the process of switching to nPower where the tariff is cheaper than our existing supplier and nPower is promising a 'welcome bonus' of £100 in shopping vouchers for dual fuel customers. Moneysupermarket also promised £30 cashback.

We made screen captures of all those online promises and have also saved a text file of that section of our Internet history showing the time / date sequence of going to Moneysupermarket and then via its website to nPower's.

All of this precautionary stuff only adds a few minutes to a transaction such as this but can turn out to be time well spent if things ever go wrong further down the line. And as there are plenty of free screen capture apps out there (we use Screenhunter) then there's no cost involved in looking after one's own interests.

pauljoecoe · 19 November 2011 at 11:48AM

I've just moved from the online standard tariff of Scottish Power to thier fixed online until Jan 2013. (I was on a different tariff up until Oct but that had run out.)

I just thought I'd share my experience of trying to find the best deal.

I tried virtually every price comparison site but invariably got different responses form each. Even though I was putting in the exact same details and used the my annual Kwh as I thought this would be the most accurate method.

Often it was impossible to find the correct current tariff on the price comparision site so you are not always starting for the same point.

Unit prices are so dissicult to come by. I could not find my current unit price anywhere on the web.

Scottish Power give you a number of options to swap online but none state the actual cost or savings (if any)

I rang SP and they gave me a good quote including unit prices but after coming off the phone that tariff wasn't availiable anywhere online (even on SP website!) to do a comparision.

The number of tariffs out there are bewildering.

In the end I have stuck with SP as they first offered me a tariff that was a 6% discount on my present tariff and then offered me a fix til Jan 13 which was cheaper again so this seemed to make sense.

Goodness knows if there is a cheaper offer out there:(

Energy: Find the cheapest supplier & earn cashback

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