Getting a new energy tariff - or not

I have spread sheet calculator. Just put in the tariffs and it works out he bill. I can vary current usage by any %age to see what difference it makes. Usually very little and not enough to sway the decision.

The cost per transaction for DD to the company is a fraction of the cost of processing a cheque. Plus the payment arrives on time and is correct. You have no idea how many errors there are in hand written cheques.

The SSE website states "All our fixed-price tariffs are only available online if you choose to pay by monthly Direct Debit. If you prefer to use a different payment method, please contact us directly."

So it looks like neither QDD or PORB are available, so why does freepricecompare suggest they are available? Or maybe they are available, but not at the price stated. If so, the comparison site should make that clear.

When requested ...

I would prefer the DD amount to equate to the amount shown on the bill. When I go to the supermarket I pay for the items in the basket. I generally prefer that approach to shopping.

Does "pay monthly by direct debit" imply the spawn-of-the-devil budgeted payments where you don't pay the bill for what you have *actually* used, but instead pay what the utility company anticipates you will use, based on previous usage and fiddle-factors for what time of year it is?

I want to pay what I have actually used, according to real meter readings (mine or meter-reader's). Whether that is divided into monthly installments or a quarterly lump sump is irrelevant. But I don't want the hassle of finding that I'm getting more and more into credit (they never let you get into debt) but they still keep on deducting the standard amount instead of correcting things back to a neutral state once a year.

I'd like to see OfGem get involved to prohibit budgeted bills and force companies to charge (by installments or lump sum, as the customer prefers) what has actually been used. Or if that is impossible, to mandate that they must correct for any overpayment (by under-charging you for one month) no less often than once a year.

Much better cars and due to the euro, germany got an effective devaluation which helps exporters a lot.

Yes, my sister whinged that the nationalised water cpy charged £4 a quarter or summat but that charges went up when it was privatised. Being a typical LibDem (unable to do sums) it didn't occur to her that the nationalised water lot did next to nothing about maintaining the system for 75 years. That fell to the privatised companies to organise, via the regulator.

As I said, I use BACS, not a cheque - it's just the term EDF uses. It costs the company almost nothing to process that, and it arrives on time and is correct. The reason they want DD is to use someone else's money at no cost to them. In fact, even the tiny interest rate they get on that money adds up when you have millions in the bank. I wonder in what form that appears on their annual accounts?

Its also so they check you are not an existing customer and then offer you a better deal!

(you can always use a neighbours address to get a quote!)

This may happen when everyone has a (working) smart meter. What happens when the companies have to rely on customer readings and they are not provided, perhaps because of holidays, or hospitalisation, or just laziness or stupidity?

Or if that is impossible, to

Then there are the estimated 2 million people in arrears with their energy usage payments who may be just ignoring requests for meter readings and complaining about the higher DD payments being requested to make up previous shortfalls.

Many of the smaller, and cheaper, suppliers want the DD payment in advance, including Avro (my current supplier), and this may because of the number and cost of bad debts in the industry. Presumably if my DD payment doesn't get honoured before I use any energy the cheap energy contract has been broken and the tariff changes to the more expensive "standard" rate.

Some companies may be better than others with payment amounts and I've had on-line accounts where I could adjust my own DD payments on-line (within limits) to match the actual consumption for that month or to pay an average based on annual consumption. I didn't stick with that supplier because at the end of contract they were one of the more expensive in the market place.

I'd forgotten about that! Yes, just another fiddle to the disadvantage of the customer.

That's No.1 in my SOP for obtaining tariff info. :-)

That's assuming your neighbour is not in arrears with his payments to the energy companies and hence is blacklisted from obtaining a cheaper quote elsewhere :)

More than one neighbour is available!

I still get them.

I leave it all to Flipper. But have noticed that once a fixed monthly DD was common, but the last couple of changes have gone to variable.

Everything being equal, paying as soon as possible for what you use should give you the best deal. And a fixed monthly payment would mean you'll be in credit some parts of the year and in debit at others. Or lending the supplier money. Neither of which make it the best deal.

It isn't. If all those small companies were equally as efficient, they'd all charge the same.

But we all know they are slow to tell you if even they could give *you* a better deal. So their priority is to make the largest possible profit.

Very efficient too. Elderly and vulnerable neighbour had a supply fault, and they had a generator there same day. Fault repaired within 48 hours.

And the ones that are unprofitable fall by the wayside, leaving the efficient ones behind. A kind of natural selection.

What you propose is ideal. However we live in the real world. It is up to us customers to find a better deal.

The companies are not necessarily buying the energy the same way as the customer and a constant cash flow over 12 months may be better for their buying needs. With a variable DD that reflects only the bill amount the cash flow in summer may be a third to half what it will be in the winter months.

Even some of the better deals may not be available to some of the bigger auto swapping organisations. While the big energy companies can accommodate say 100,000 switches in one go the smaller companies cannot cope with this number in a single hit. Even some of the Cheap Energy Club switches have been limited to the first, say, 25,000 customers that apply.