OT? Energy tariff madness

[Jeff Layman]

As I long-time EDF customer, I reckoned it's time I had a look at other suppliers. I'd read somewhere that uSwitch and similar sites weren't quite as independent as they seemed (is that right or wrong?), so went to MoneySuperMarket to have a look, although I'm not sure that's much better.

I eventually found myself at to have a look at available tariffs, and couldn't believe what I was seeing. Is that what a deregulated market is supposed to be doing? There are over *2000* tariffs on that page!

How can anyone work their way through this insanity of tariffs? I know there are apps and webpages designed to help you through the maze, but should Ofgem be allowing this in the first place?

[Brian Gaff]

Yes I just suggested to EDF that the current 9 percent rise, which I'm protected from till end of June, is probably there so the next hears discount rate. known as Blue, will actually look better. Offgen said today the current recent rises are unjustifiable in its eyes, well yes I n that case bloody do something about it then! The thing is, in theory all they are selling you is a billing system are they not? all Gas and Electricity still comes down the same bits of pipe and wires, and one supposes the costs would be the same to all the companies, so that being the case one would expect similar stable pricing to be possible. My guess is inept wasteful running and the tendency to subsidise things like big power stations like the one being part funded by EDF from the punters bills. Then there is this farce called smart meters. The regulator told the blind charities at a recent conference on accessibility that now it was possible for all new remote units to be purchased by the companies with selectable speech output, yet when I asked EDF they knew nothing about it at all.

I'm just glad this bunch are nopot in charge of my pension, I'd end up paying them. Brian

[Andy Burns]

Some of those tariffs are a decade old, so I presume most of them are unavailable now, I think each supplier is limited to four tariffs (per fuel).

If you have a year-old bill available, find your annual gas and electric usage in kWh and feed that plus your address into

if you tell it your existing tariff it will compare differences with that, but if you don't know then tell it whatever supplier you like, but disregard whatever comparative "saving" it tells you back in return.

You can choose whether to look at all deals (including those from new or tiny suppliers you've never heard of) or only to pick from more well known names.

I've never had the slightest bit of spam from them, and they're honest about how much kickback they get, and they share some of it with you.

[Martin Brown]

They are probably not entirely trustworthy in terms of "savings" since they assume you are on the maximal ripoff tariff of your present supplier when your contract ends instead of the most sensible one. This is your suppliers default action and plenty of elderly people are on it!

Correct for that aberration and the site is fine - although you should always go and run the same scenario through the suppliers website before you commit to make sure their best offer hasn't changed recently.

The savings made still have the right order but the magnitude has a fixed offset (check to see where your current suppliers best is).

That is *exactly* what a deregulated market looks like. You can sort to show minimum standing charge, minimum unit rate first etc. The idea is to offer so much choice consumers can't see the wood for the trees.

That is the whole point - make the process painful enough and people give up on the idea of changing supplier because it is too difficult.

The thing that Ofgem should be doing is forcing suppliers to put their customers onto the most suitable tariff for them instead of their maximal ripoff variable tariff when a fixed term contract expires.

Customer loyalty counts for nothing these days - if you are loyal to your supplier then they will rip you off it is as simple as that.

[Robin]

As others have said, yes. Many people think they want a much more tightly regulated market. Oddly, they are rarely people who wanted to be spared choice in other areas and would have been happy to drive a Trabant.

If you want a comparison site try

[Chris Green]

As I have said before (somewhere!) the first supplier that actually offers a system whereby you are charged at the end of each year (or other interval) using the 'best' tariff (i.e. the one that costs you least) will get a lot of business won't it? In fact I'd have thought people will swarm to it.

The same applies for mobile phone charges and such.

[Michael Chare]

One of the things the government did was to stop comparison sites having contracts with energy supplies that ensured their prices were the lowest available. The idea was to introduce competition between the comparison sites, thus ensuring that you can not trust them.

I pick a contract with supplier that is shown as cheaper at a number of comparison sites. I just look at estimated annual cost, ignoring any estimates of savings.

It is important to select another supplier when the contract expires to stop being charged some exorbitant standard price.

I can buy a years supply of heating oil and have it delivered the next day. It can take 3-4 weeks to change electricity supplier, although all they need is a meter reading.

[Martin Brown]

They will get a lot of business but they will not be anything like as profitable as the price gougers. Many people are on default tariffs because they don't pay attention to the billing info sent to them and fail to act on the "helpful" advice contained in it.

Doing nothing gets you put on the most expensive tariff the company offers. Not quite as bad as the PAYG meter in the home option but still way more expensive than their best deal.

A surprising number of middle aged people are still paying for a mobile phone contract which includes a premium for a new phone long after the deal has expired and with an old phone. They could save a decent sum by switching to SIM only or have a much newer phone at equal cost.

Inertia selling is a powerful force which is why there are so many bargain introductory offers that vanish after 12/24 months to be replaced by some form of ripoff.

Mobile phone contracts rely on people not using anything like the monthly resources they have contracted. I could use way more data but seldom spend more than 30 minutes on my mobile phone and I never get close to my infinite number of txts. One or two a day being typical.

[tim...]

some hedge by entering into pre-purchasing agreements with the suppliers.

This means they win if prices go up, but will lose if prices go down

This loss has to be recouped somehow

[Jeff Layman]

But I don't know if a deregulated market is supposed to be doing that. It might be the result of deregulation, but is it the intended result?

Just make a comparison with food shopping. You want to try a different coffee so you look on the supermarket shelves. Maybe there are ten or so different brands and each has two or three jar sizes, and perhaps a couple of "special offers". Quite difficult to make your mind up, maybe, based on cost. But what if there were 1000 options? Sure, you can look at the shelf labels which usually show "X pence for y grams" or whatever, and save some time finding the cheapest, but it would still take ages. And if that was the case for *everything* you wanted to buy, you'd spend your whole life shopping, as probably next week the offers would be different.

It's so much easier with petrol. You drive past a garage which says

120p/l. The next garages could be above or below that, so you know which to buy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but petrol is just another type of deregulated fuel, so why is it so different for gas and electricity? I do believe that Martin Brown is quite right " The idea is to offer so much choice consumers can't see the wood for the trees."

Thanks, I'd missed that link on MSE's rather confusing Gas and Elec pages. I'll have a look.

[Chris J Dixon]

Whilst I quite agree about the insanity of the current situation, I don't really see a happy ending any time soon.

If the utilities were somehow constrained to limit their tariffs, or automatically give everybody the best deal, simple maths suggests that those of us who have been busily changing deals would actually be worse off, since they would still strive to maintain the same overall profit levels.

Chris

[Martin Brown]

No it is a side effect. The intended result was to encourage people to change energy supplier but it just hasn't worked. The most vulnerable in society typically without internet are on the worst possible tariff.

The suppliers are offering a huge choice and you just have to work out which one is best for you. Anything is better than std variable rate.

There are 246 sorts of coffee on Tescos online groceries today (and they have cut down their range as a part of rationalisation):

FWIW Gold Blend 200g and Milicano 170g are both on decent offers.

It is always amusing to look for the ones where thanks to offers you pay more for less as a result of confusion marketing.

You have to think about buying fuel fairly regularly or your car will stop working. Even so there are price gougers about - you have to be pretty dumb or desperate to buy fuel at a motorway service station.

AA keeps an eye on it and reports monthly. Several geolocation apps will find you the nearest petrol station with a good price.

They are limited to four tariffs per supplier these days. I think you must have found an archive of every tariff that ever was or something.

Use one of the price comparison sites but double check the numbers again on the actual suppliers site before you commit to anything.

The first ever switch from your historical geographic supplier to any other makes the largest saving and then dual fuel will refine it.

Any of the fixed deals is better than the do nothing default.

[PeterC]

I was pleasantly surprised when my fix with Flow Energy was nearing the end and I had an e-mail offering a new fix at v. little more. Going via EnergySaving Club showed a couple that were a few quid cheaper but they had bad reputations for CS, so I stayed put.

[Brian Gaff]

I actually emailed EDF about their latest hike and the lady said they were not told anything about the new price rise yet, the first they heard was on the news. Rather says it all does it not. Mushroom management at its best.

She suggested that I'd probably get the best deal by looking for aquote from them before the price rise kicks in as the quotes are computer generated and last for a year when you sign up so although it will be higher for a couple of months than it would have been if I leave it, it might well be a winner after it goes up as it will be fixed for the whole year. However if it goes down, you might end up paying too much. One gets the distinct impression the whole thing is grabbed out of thin air as nobody really knows what is going on. I have other things to think of with power companies. A: I only have Electricity, so quotes from other vendors are often higher B: I need to make sure I can get readable bills by email. The problem often is that the bills many send out via email or on line are just photos of what you would get in the post, which then needs to be optically character recognised to read it for a blind user. On top of that many of the other companies are just fitting smart meters but the inaccessible kind without the speech on the remote unit and I'd rather hang on for the new one to be ready, which according to Offgen it is, but nobody else even acknowledges there is one but EDF and I'm still trying to get a straight answer from them. At present they tell me it cannot cope with economy 7, which I find hard to imagine as it is after all just a different timed costing of units at certain hours of the day. Hardly rocket science. Brian

[Jeff Layman]

Yes, I often see larger packs costing proportionally more than smaller pack as a result of those offers. I wonder if it's due to stupidity or a deliberate ploy. No I don't - we both know the answer!

I'm not sure that's quite as straightforward as it appears. I looked at the Ofgem pages relating to tariffs and the actual wording refers to four *core* tariffs. These are defined - in crystal clear English - as follows: "The charges for supply of electricity/gas combined with all other terms and conditions that apply, or are in any way linked, to a particular type of contract for the supply of gas/electricity to a domestic customer excluding certain matters such as dual fuel discounts, variations in charges relating to payment method, appropriate surcharges and optional additional services or products."

Once those "excluding certain matters" start appearing, the four core tariffs soon multiply!

Well, it was the bottom left link "Energy price changes" at the webpage

I'd ask moneysupermarket.com for a comment but I don't want to have the bother of unsubscribing from spam.

Will do. Thanks for the advice.

[Chris J Dixon]

I challenged Sainsbury's last year:

"I am puzzled about the way you organise your multibuy pricing, when there are larger or multipacks also available. To look at particular examples from my regular shopping list:

For quite a while you have had an offer on Sainsbury's Meusli Fruit and Nut 750g "Buy any 2 for £4.00", which still works out

2p more expensive than the 1.5kg pack, making your on line flash "Save Money" impossible to justify.

On the other hand, you have recently changed your offer on Sainsbury's Pure Apple Juice "Buy any 2 for £1.50" which makes it

40p cheaper to buy singles instead of your 4 pack.

It is clearly not always best to accept the offer, nor always to go for the bigger pack.

Is this just some strange marketing ploy taking advantage of the fact that not everybody has the time or inclination to do the maths? "

After a few unsatisfactory emails, their final response was:

"Some of our customers prefer to purchase smaller pack items whereas other customers prefer multibuys. By having various offers available this allows our customers to make an informed choice when shopping."

I contend that those lacking time, inclination or ability to do the maths will certainly not be able to make an informed choice.

Chris

[F]

^^^^^^^^^^ This ^^^^^^^^^^

[bert]

In article , Jeff Layman writes

Input your usage figures and the comparison web site will sort them for you but beware that a there comparison is with your current suppliers variable tariff not the one you are currently on b all these sites take commission so will list those who pay them first. Look for the small print to click on to show all suppliers c not all suppliers appear on these web sites.

If you think this is a mess think what it would be like if you didn't have internet access.

[Michael Chare]

Yews that is what I fear.

[Jeff Layman]

I guess could always use a "disposable" email address I can create.

But there are a couple of other things I don't like about the Cheap Energy Club process. Why do they need my *full* address? As far as I can see, uSwitch only need a postcode (which is all the energy suppliers need to give you a quote). If I live at No 55, surely it's not going to make any difference at 54 and 56. The popup box actually states "We need your address to be able to find your cheapest deal as it differs from area to area". Since when did "area to area" become a specific address?

And then I can't opt out of getting email alerts for price savings. I could set it at the maximum of £250, and probably never get any alert, but that shouldn't be necessary. There should be a "no thanks" option.