Energy rip off,

My parent finished a 1 year fixed plan and 2 weeks ago when i visited them i sorted their tariff out onto a fixed 2 year that's cheaper than what they were orig on and saving them about £90 a year (not massive users).

The problem is people moan about energy companies and prices but 60-70% of the time problems can be solved and better prices achieved if the people moaning actually HELP THEMSELVES and stop waiting for someone else to do it for them.

I have learned helplessness :(
Learned helplessness is a behaviour in which an organism forced to endure aversive, painful or otherwise unpleasant stimuli, becomes unable or unwilling to avoid subsequent encounters with those stimuli, even if they are escapable.
EON keep beating me with a pointy stick
 
Just FYI.
I work at npower in the home movers department. This whole thing hasn't even confirmed. Its the media. We are looking i to these claims to see if its true which is going to take awhile.

Also your unit rate and tcr are totally different things. Your tcr being higher that your unit rate doesn't mean thats what your unit rate is.
 
I have learned helplessness :(

EON keep beating me with a pointy stick

I will happily help and advise you where I can Arknor. I'm actually not a ******* despite popular belief. if you want to go into any more detail I may be able to point you in the right direction mate.

Also pro-tip. If the prepayment meter is an EON one and you have no debt on it. If you tell them you are changing suppliers and agree to move elsewhere with another provider they will switch it to its credit meter mode.

When you switch the prepayment meter has to be switched to credit mode as British Gas can't provide you with a prepayment key for an EON meter for example (and you cant keep using your EON prepayment key)
 
Just FYI.
I work at npower in the home movers department. This whole thing hasn't even confirmed. Its the media. We are looking i to these claims to see if its true which is going to take awhile.

Also your unit rate and tcr are totally different things. Your tcr being higher that your unit rate doesn't mean thats what your unit rate is.

I work for one of the big six too. (Side note all advice, comments and opinions are my own and reflect nothing on my employer or their views/ opinions)

Whilst I will be the first to tell anyone there is a hell of a lot energy companies could be doing better and some customers do get a really crap service (from all suppliers), there is a lot that's done right and a lot that customers could do to help themselves, a lot they can do to avoid half the problems they have and a lot of red tape that could be removed to help improve the industry.
 
Why is that the big six are the most expensive when it comes to energy surely it should be the other way round.
As for moving it can still take a while and then if you get the likes of British Gas saying nope you cannot move as you owe £28.80. I have only just moved,5 weeks ago, from pre-payment to credit meter and although I set up a direct debit payment for the amount as stipulated by British gas based on my annual usage I discovered buried deep within my account that if I had stayed at the monthly payment it was estimated that I would owe British Gas £168 but I could stop this by increasing my direct debit. So either the tariff and payment agreed by British Gas the result of poor maths or perhaps deliberate misrepresentation.
Either way I am off to Ovo.
 
Why is that the big six are the most expensive when it comes to energy surely it should be the other way round.
As for moving it can still take a while and then if you get the likes of British Gas saying nope you cannot move as you owe £28.80. I have only just moved,5 weeks ago, from pre-payment to credit meter and although I set up a direct debit payment for the amount as stipulated by British gas based on my annual usage I discovered buried deep within my account that if I had stayed at the monthly payment it was estimated that I would owe British Gas £168 but I could stop this by increasing my direct debit. So either the tariff and payment agreed by British Gas the result of poor maths or perhaps deliberate misrepresentation.
Either way I am off to Ovo.

Quite simply the smaller suppliers have considerably less overheads. So they can offer cheaper prices. Plus they buy gas and electric at day prices so they can react a lot quicker to changes in the market. Large energy companies like the Big six are having to buy massive volumes up to a year in advance

The catch is if everyone moves to the cheaper smaller suppliers then they will need to ramp up the size of their operations, they will need to bulk buy in advance meaning they aren't as quick to react to the market and hence costs will increase and therefore prices.

Things like Ofgem are funded by the Big six and the little companies contribute nothing to Ofgem. On the flip side the big six have to abide by Ofgem rulings but as none of the smaller suppliers are signed up with Ofgem, Ofgem means nothing to them.
 
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Because you have very little other option so you are easy to exploit.

Put the pitchfork down OldCoals.

Price is relative to costs and risk. Prepayment meters are installed because you cant or wont pay. People often bury their heads in the sand and let it get to such a dire position that prepayment is the only way to keep you on supply and for paying for what you use. If people talked to their energy companies more about the problem to get help or sought advice/help from the relevant agencies a lot of the time having to instal a prepayment meter cant be negated.

Installing and running prepayment meters incurs additional background costs, So yes you will pay a slightly higher price.
 
no debt,its key card top up meter,

and why cant they make it cheaper? its supposed to be the most expensive way (payment key)

(I just prefer to know where I am as apposed to quarterly bills)
 
no debt,its key card top up meter,

and why cant they make it cheaper? its supposed to be the most expensive way (payment key)

(I just prefer to know where I am as apposed to quarterly bills)

Have a credit meter installed with monthly bills and a direct debit.???!

I would expect you know what it costs you per month, so set it up as above and you get cheaper prices, monthly bills so you can track your usage and you even get a direct debit discount! You clearly own a PC so you can enter readings online and track your usage online using the online accounts every energy supplier offers.

You're actually making it more expensive for yourself. THIS is a prime example of what I keep harping on about!

On the flip side if it was cheaper pricing on prepayment than on a credit how would everyone on a credit meter feel about that. Prepayment meters have additional costs so unfortunately it costs more.
 
It is about £240 more expensive according to that report.

I would take the figures the report give with a generalized pinch of salt.

FYI that's 65p per day. I'm sure 99% of the folks here waste several times that per day by not turning stuff off or being wasteful with their Gas and Electric and think nothing of it but will happily complain about it costing them 65p per day more.
 
Why is that the big six are the most expensive when it comes to energy surely it should be the other way round.
As for moving it can still take a while and then if you get the likes of British Gas saying nope you cannot move as you owe £28.80. I have only just moved,5 weeks ago, from pre-payment to credit meter and although I set up a direct debit payment for the amount as stipulated by British gas based on my annual usage I discovered buried deep within my account that if I had stayed at the monthly payment it was estimated that I would owe British Gas £168 but I could stop this by increasing my direct debit. So either the tariff and payment agreed by British Gas the result of poor maths or perhaps deliberate misrepresentation.
Either way I am off to Ovo.

Still not sure how OVO are allowed to charge what they do per day standing charge :eek:

Not sure about credit customers but prepay customers pay 42.5p per day per meter, pretty shocking imo.
 
Still not sure how OVO are allowed to charge what they do per day standing charge :eek:

Not sure about credit customers but prepay customers pay 42.5p per day per meter, pretty shocking imo.

im with EDF duel fuel, 18.9p SC for elec, 26.(something)p SC for gas,
thats ~46p per day :(
 
One change I would like to see introduced with immediate effect is a switch to the price being given solely as a price per unit, no standing charges, no x amount for the first x amount of units.

All suppliers offer a price in pence for one unit of gas and electricity.

Indeed, they introduce complexity to make it difficult for the average person to have a clue what's going on so a lot just give in and go with whoever talks to them/fliers them first and they never bother changing.

I shopped around when I moved into my new property and moved from SSE to First Utility and saved about £50 a year but that was sitting there and putting in hours of research which most people won't do (and I don't blame them because it was ******* tedious!)

As with anything when they say competition benefits consumers, no it doesn't it just benefits the companies.
 
When I had smart meters installed, I was under the illusion that I'd be able to find my readings on the display they supply you with and reading my meters would be a thing of the past. How wrong I was. :(

It took a few months before OVO could read the meter readings, therefore I now have a gap in readings and am still in the process of using my historical readings to try and find my annual usage. I now make a point that on the same day of each month (ie: 7th) I take meter readings.
 
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