OT: (Slightly) Gas and Electricity supplier

[Andrew Welham]

Before I make the energy supplier switch I would like to hear other people comments and experiences.

Am I one of the few people who has not switched away from the British Gas and their local supplier of electricity (at or time or another)? Additionally, why do people appear to be switching back to British Gas (according to their TV adds) are there problems with the other suppliers?

I understand the reasons for price increases due the whole sale price, but there does seem a price gap across all the providers, and the 14% rise by British Gas (forth this year) has now pushed me over the top.

When I looked on the British Gas site today I saw the following

? Now you can freeze your energy prices until April 2010. And, unlike most of our competitors, if you are an average dual fuel customer, there's no extra cost for the privilege.

Freeze your energy prices with British Gas and:

we guarantee your prices will not rise above our new rates until 2010 you may not pay any extra if you freeze both your gas and electricity you'll be getting a first - we're the first energy supplier to offer this

There's no need to miss out

If you only get your gas from us, you can still enjoy the reassurance of freezing the price for a small premium of 2.8%. And if we only supply your electricity, we'll actually give you a discount of 4.8% for freezing your price until April 2010. And should you change your mind, you can un-freeze again at any time for a variable cancellation charge. ?

This has now made my mind up, either I have to move my electricity to British gas or move every thing away.

Looking on uwitch.com Scottish Power looks good for both price and importantly service.

What experiences have people had with different suppliers and switching?

Thanks Andrew

[Dave Jones]

have a look at

[r.p.mcmurphy]

Swaping has been quite trouble free. except that is the first time i moved from BG...they tried to over charge me. hence i will never go back to BG. I check to see if i'm on a good rate about once a year by using

people retuning to BG are proberbly only doing so because of thier adverts or door to door salemen.

I have changed supplier about 3 times now. not had any problems, i've been with Npower,Seaboard and Scottish Power so far.

steve

[Andy Hall]

I wouldn't set too much store by the term "service"

I've done several supplier changes and none set the world on fire for that. If you mean service in the sense of somebody coming out to fix the supply if it it leaks or fails, then that's Transco anyway, so it doesn't matter who you deal with. If you mean service in the sense of sending someone to read the meter, not much difference there either.

If you mean you want to talk to somebody in a call centre, then that is one factor in choice, but not a very big one. The name of the game is to minimise cost. Suppliers who still have call centres don't employ the best cards in the pack whoever they are. Generally the online ones are cheaper because although they still have help lines, they manage with fewer staff. I've found these pretty OK.

One thing to definitely watch is if you pay by monthly direct debit. The suppliers love this because they don't have to chase for payment so much but also they can set the payment at a figure over the usage rate. Ending up at the end of the year having paid 20% over the figure that it should have been is not uncommon. Their next trick is to carry that forward into the following year and reduce the payment a touch. Of course, all the time you are lending them money and the amounts involved are substantial. I deal with this by working out my consumption from the previous year and offering them a payment that will cover 90% of that, perhaps negotiating up to 95%. That way, they have lent me money for the year, in effect, and the shortfall is carried forward instead. Threatening to take business away or a new account is a strong negotiating point and I've found that they always accept it. I suspect that very few people do this, so when they run the numbers, it's better to have an account than not.

Of course it doesn't make any difference to whether I stay with a given supplier. This is an industry which encourages people to be tarts, so I am happy to make sure that I get as much of the jam as I can.

[JoeJoe]

Note that they don't talk about net gain of customers...

BT used exactly the same advertising campaign about 3 years ago, claiming that x number of thousands are coming back to them every month. Conveniently they forgot to mention that more 3 times that were leaving them every month...

I would hazard a guess that the story is not much different here.

[Frank Erskine]

It has to be said that British Gas have the best laid-out bills (for gas at least). Almost all the others seem to have very confusing ways of calculating/displaying the information, obviously designed to make comparisons difficult for the 'average' consumer.

[DJC]

British Gas have a very bad system for paying the bill by debit card over the phone. It takes twice as long as it does to do the same with London Electricity (EDF). Lots of transferring the call and hold music and an infuriating sequence of "if you are ... press n"

[Frank Erskine]

I always pay futility bills by DD.

[Owain]

Yes, the £12 a month for G and E combined that the online thingmy suggests can morph into something like £20 a month for Gas and £25 for electricity if you're not looking. I phoned up London Electricity and the pleasant girl who answered the phone very promptly said "well we have put our prices up by 15%". I don't think so, love.

Owain

[Owain]

ScottishPower's call centre uses an expensive revenue share number and has long waiting times. Their music on hold contravenes the Geneva Convention. Their website is unusable in Opera and they don't care.

London Electricity have a free phone number and answer it.

Owain

[Dave Liquorice]

It is a gamble that the price will rise above 2.8% by enough, and early enough in the fixed price period, such that you save more than you pay as a premium in the preceeding part of the period. I wouldn't trust 'em to not "fix" the pricing such that you either break even at best or loose. In the mean time I'd rather have the money not them. And why pay more for something than you have to?

Ring Ding A Ring...

I switched to Scottish Power for the main house as they had the cheapest per unit cost. I choose the online only paid via DD. I rarely if ever contact a supplier so the level of service from their help desks isn't particulary relevant. If I have trouble I write...

The other very low useage meters are with Equipower. A true no standing charge tarrif(*) and fairly cheap per unit costs (6p ish).

(*)That is *all* units used are charged at the same rate not first few hundred at Xp and any more at Yp. The difference between X and Y multiplied by the number of units at X strangely being equal to the previous standing charge...

[ARWadsworth]

At the end of last November I asked a similar question. I decided to pay an extra 2.25% on my electricity and 3.5% on my gas. I was then "price locked" until April 2007. I believe that I made the correct decision in doing so.

Adam