Outfox the Market reviews: add your feedback

MSE_Andrew
MSE_Andrew Posts: 173
First Post First Anniversary Photogenic I've been Money Tipped!
MSE Staff
edited 5 January 2021 at 2:59PM in Energy
MSE Update 17 December 2018:

Also see our news story:

Outfox the Market customers vent fury over energy bill hikes


This is a feedback thread on energy supplier
Outfox the Market

Please share your experience with other MoneySavers. Click reply to take part
  • Did your switch go smoothly?
  • Have you had problems since?
  • Is it easy to contact?
The feedback comes as part of the
Click reply below to discuss. If you haven’t already, join the forum to reply.
«134567180

Comments

  • Britlion
    Britlion Posts: 1 Newbie
    edited 12 December 2017 at 8:42PM
    Energy club is recommending them as the top saving (with the caveat that they are new, so no feedback). I tried the website in two browsers (one of them edge with no plugins, just to be sure). Got through the whole quote process, with a very buggy slow website and ended up with a quote page that says "Your Energy Hero Tariff is Monthly £ Annually £ - This quoted figure includes the monthly membership fee. This quote is based on electricity only".

    Several things wrong with that. Firstly I'd asked for dual fuel.

    Secondly, in case you missed it, there wasn't actually a quote. Just a pound symbol. Unless they are saying it's free, in which case, it's a stonking deal, and they'll go out of business.

    I think they are having technology difficulties - which is pretty unforgiveable for a company that depends on the website and doesn't look like they are keen for someone to call them.

    Clicking on "Web chat" gets nowhere. It's not even a clickable link, on a page that says they encourage people to use webchat. Well done.

    On the whole, if they are this disorganised in selling to new customers, one can only imagine with trepidation how bad they might be for customers trying to contact them with a problem. Poor show. I'll probably avoid.
  • I know everyone’s experience is different but so far I’ve no issues with this company.

    I agree the website could be improved, however I got my quote with no issues, my only issue I have is that my gas & electric fall under different postcodes (nothing to do with outfox the market) so with quote in hand I called the number on the website.
    Call was answered straight away no holding which was excellent, Abdul was really helpful and friendly, he managed to find both my meters without difficulty he gave me another quote which was the same as the website, I agreed to switch he took all the details and everything concluded efficiently.

    I contacted them the day after via web chat, just to make sure everything is going to plan due to my meters having different postcodes, chat was more or less instant with Richard, no long waits, he looked into everything and put my mind at rest.

    I know this is a new company and I do expect teething problems, looking on trust pilot they reply to reviews and take onboard all feedback and make changes where they can, they also apologise for the few mistakes made and contact the person directly to follow up. I’ve never had that kind of support from any supplier.

    It’s early days yet and will follow up if anything does go badly wrong. But so far so good
  • Raxiel
    Raxiel Posts: 1,398
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    The tariff they offer is good, but they won't combine day & night readings from an E7 meter (or charge both registers at the same rate). In fact, they won't accept E7 meters at all.

    Apparently an E7 meter tariff is coming later.

    I discovered this after realising their tariff on USwitch had 0 standing charge on the gas, which seemed like a mistake, so I went to their site to get the figures 'from the foxes mouth' so to speak, and they told me to go away.
    3.6 kW PV in the Midlands - 9x Sharp 400W black panels - 6x facing SE and 3x facing SW, Solaredge Optimisers and Inverter. 400W Derril Water (one day). Octopus Flux
  • A very good tariff for me as a low energy user, electricity only. My current supplier (M&S Energy) doesn't do Smartmeters so I was pleased to learn that OutFox are planning a smart meter roll out early next year. Learnt this via a successful webchat with Kamal (albeit at the third attempt - previous attempts resulting in 'we're sorry we missed you' until I hit on the strategy of repeating the original question.....)
    Have signed up and will see what happens!
  • System
    System Posts: 178,077
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    Community Admin
    RuththeRev wrote: »
    A very good tariff for me as a low energy user, electricity only. My current supplier (M&S Energy) doesn't do Smartmeters so I was pleased to learn that OutFox are planning a smart meter roll out early next year. Learnt this via a successful webchat with Kamal (albeit at the third attempt - previous attempts resulting in 'we're sorry we missed you' until I hit on the strategy of repeating the original question.....)
    Have signed up and will see what happens!

    ALL suppliers will be rolling out smart meters within the next 12 months. New suppliers are waiting until they can offer a SMETS2 compliant meter.
  • Doh
    Doh Posts: 168 Forumite
    My switch went smoothly, but be warned that Outfox the Market want to charge you upfront for energy you haven't used yet. I've just paid my old supplier £100 and Outfox the Market £106 on the same day. I queried why this was and their explanation is that the policy is to take a direct debit payment on the first day of the contract (even though you haven't used any energy yet). They confirmed that this has put my account into credit, but when i requested this money back (like you can with pretty much every other supplier) they refused. Having an unexpected £100 payment the week after xmas is not what i needed!

    It also doesn't state anything in the T&Cs about paying upfront, just that they take a DD payment on the first day, i was expecting a DD payment of near Zero has i'd not used any of their gas or electricity.
  • System
    System Posts: 178,077
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    Community Admin
    Doh wrote: »
    My switch went smoothly, but be warned that Outfox the Market want to charge you upfront for energy you haven't used yet. I've just paid my old supplier £100 and Outfox the Market £106 on the same day. I queried why this was and their explanation is that the policy is to take a direct debit payment on the first day of the contract (even though you haven't used any energy yet). They confirmed that this has put my account into credit, but when i requested this money back (like you can with pretty much every other supplier) they refused. Having an unexpected £100 payment the week after xmas is not what i needed!

    It also doesn't state anything in the T&Cs about paying upfront, just that they take a DD payment on the first day, i was expecting a DD payment of near Zero has i'd not used any of their gas or electricity.

    I am really not sure why this practice causes so much concern? Energy suppliers have to pay their wholesale suppliers in advance of supply. Looking at my bank account, I currently pay for my house insurance; TV Licence; mobile phone; Sky TV; car insurance in advance of supply, so why not energy? The benefit to the consumer is that the supplier does not have to borrow so much and should be able to offer lower prices as a result.
  • Having received the MSE Cheap Energy Club savings trigger alert yesterday, the comparison showed these were the cheapest for my annual energy consumption.

    I went through their on-line switch process very easily.

    There was an issue with the address of my Gas meter being incorrect, but the on-line chat feature was excellent. I've even had two follow up phone calls from them to confirm all the details, my start date and the amount of the first payment on that start date.

    I was aware from the Energy Club comparison results that payments are in advance.
  • boliston
    boliston Posts: 3,012
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    I signed up with oftm 3 weeks ago and they gave me an estimated switch date of today - if i log into my old supplier it says the gas switch completed yesterday with electricity due to switch today.

    I have managed to enter my electric opening read on oftm website but could not see anywhere to enter my opening gas read so have emailed them - hopefully they will get back to me tomorrow as i suspect they might not open at weekends

    I can see that oftm charge monthly in advance so it is a bit of a hit when you are on a payment in arrears supplier, but my old supplier said my expected cost will go from about 55 to 65 per month and oftm said it would go from about 55 to 45 per month, so the idea of paying 240 per year less seemed worth it for a one off month with 2 bills to pay
  • System
    System Posts: 178,077
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    Community Admin
    boliston wrote: »
    I signed up with oftm 3 weeks ago and they gave me an estimated switch date of today - if i log into my old supplier it says the gas switch completed yesterday with electricity due to switch today.

    I have managed to enter my electric opening read on oftm website but could not see anywhere to enter my opening gas read so have emailed them - hopefully they will get back to me tomorrow as i suspect they might not open at weekends

    I can see that oftm charge monthly in advance so it is a bit of a hit when you are on a payment in arrears supplier, but my old supplier said my expected cost will go from about 55 to 65 per month and oftm said it would go from about 55 to 45 per month, so the idea of paying 240 per year less seemed worth it for a one off month with 2 bills to pay

    The gaining supplier will normally ask for meter readings 5 days before the planned date for the transfer of supply. All meter readings go to a third-party for verification. Once verified, they are used to open and close accounts. If a meter reading hasn’t been provided, then the Data Collectors will produce an estimated figure based on past usage.

    PS. I worry when people do not do their own cost calculations based on kWHs/year. Letting the supplier come up with an estimated cost carries a lot of uncertainty.
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