Energy prices (slightly OT)

Is that due to not having shopped around for years, or having relatively large consumption?

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I use Flipper. Does it all for you - for an annual fee. To me, good value.

Not very good value as you can get cash back for switching to a cheaper supplier and it doesn't take any more effort than using flipper anyway. I got £30 last time and got the cheapest fixed tariff available at the time. It works because the switching site gets paid by the supply company, flipper get paid twice, once by them once by you. I got a percentage of what the switcher got paid so we were both in profit and happy.

And if Flipper get hacked, you've given them authority over your bank account ... good luck getting a penny back once you tell that tale of woe to your bank.

Eh? Another thing you know nothing about. They have just switched my supplier to the best deal they could find. Effort on my part? Zero.

I do realise it's not in the spirit of DIY to get it done for you. But it's all too easy to just let these things run with your current supplier.

Which applies equally to anyone you've given that authority to.

Going back to the "Meter maids" thread, it seems you badly phrased it, it wasn't just me that read it as you giving flipper your online banking credentials so that they could setup new direct debits from your bank to the energy supplier each time they flipped you.

That's what they do. Up to the individual if they rather not allow this.

But trivially easy to set up a bank account just for this purpose. Which is what I've done.

Just make sure that the saving is real and factor in that you may have to pay a penalty for leaving an existing fixed price contract.

The last time they sent me a notification the cheaper small energy company was having problems with the regulator with respect to billing and when factoring in the penalties associated with leaving an existing contract early the potential saving was less than £10 per annum.

Although the cheapenergyclub is a lot better in providing information on your current tarrif (if you have told them when your contract ends etc.) they still can base the savings on the misleading industry standard calculation.

Say, if your contract still has 3 months to run they will calculate the

Note that even when moving between tariffs from the same supplier the SAME misleading calculation is used to show the savings. Scottish Power are very good at suggesting to their customers that their recently introduced tariff could save £100s even though it is more expensive than the tariff you currently are on.

Don't you have to supply them with up-to-date consumption figures? When a company has a daily standing charge and a unit charge then how you use energy can make a big difference.

The best deal for you may not be the best deal for me if our energy consumption figures are different. Again, if you circumstances change, consumption wise, the best deal based on consumption a year ago may not be the best deal now because of a decrease or increase of energy.

Presumably they also have the password for your energy supplier account?

Any automated system like this needs a quick check before accepting what it's suggesting. Exit penalties are a pretty obvious check.

The point is that you're alerted to possible savings automatically.

Why pay when it's easy enough to use the MSE club, diy the change and collect, as often as not, cashback for switching?

They can look that up themselves since they have log on details for both my gas and electricity accounts. All part of the service I'm paying for.

Making it even more difficult to to a DIY decision.

I don't want 'cashback' Just a way of concealing the true charges.

You may want to reconsider you use of Flipper

It appears from many on line postings that Flipper may only be saving people money if they have been on "standard rate"in the first place. They appear to be using the same misleading industry standard way of calculation the savings so 4 times a year they calculate your "savings" and switch based on these figures leaving you to pay any penalty exit fees.

Your saving may not have been real and if you haven't bothered to check you could be paying too much.

Oh dear.

Nothing about that in the article. They changed me to the best deal they could find on a fixed for one year contract. At the end of the year changed the supplier - obviously not as big a saving as changing the first time, but better than staying with the existing company.

My saving was very real. Of course I could have done it all myself. But when I here tales of cashback and commission going to various sites, I'm still happy I didn't enter that minefield.

It's new owner is Wessex Water, a utility company owned by a Malaysian power company.