Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)

jpaul said:
values the government analysis used - I linked earlier - personally haven't metered the upright freezer and fridge-freezer yet,
the fridge-freezer is inbuilt an probably has too much dust on the evaporator coils & no air flow - stupid idea

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will probably be an update in January if the 3 month 'out for comment' gets pushed through, DE emergency planning for cut-off gas flow are obviously ominous.
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Thanks
 
Slam62 said:
You see if we had been clever we could have given a ridiculously high reading when prices were cheap and paid for it all upfront, just have to wait for your actual meter to catch up with your virtual one,

Actually that probably wouldn't work, weird
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That's fraud. Clever would be home grown energy that doesn't rely on any other country. Prices would be stable.
 
Giving them carte blanch to raid your bank account via direct debit and giving people who just pay for actual usage a less favorable rate is very shady though.
That's one area where the government could step in.

I get that it can be useful in very limited circumstances such as mobile phone contracts where the bill may vary a bit month on month, but you don't even see mobile phone companies speculatively raising you direct debits, you just pay for actual usage.

In the age of smart meters there's simply no excuse for it.
 
mattyfez said:
Giving them carte blanch to raid your bank account via direct debit and giving people who just pay for actual usage a less favorable rate is very shady though.
That's one area where the government could step in.

I get that it can be useful in very limited circumstances such as mobile phone contracts where the bill may vary a bit month on month, but you don't even see mobile phone companies speculatively raising you direct debits, you just pay for actual usage.

In the age of smart meters there's simply no excuse for it.
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I imagine it’s to mitigate the risk of customers not budgeting for higher winter costs over summer and not being able to meet the higher bills when they arrive. People aren’t that money savvy and a lot of people will not prepare for higher costs in cold periods.
 
It’s been explained multiple times in this thread, paying by direct debit is FAR cheaper to administer than any other payment method and most people WANT to pay the same amount every month as it’s far easier to budget for.

What isn’t cool is energy companies artificially inflating your DD amount over your projected usage by 12 to help their cash flow. No one disagrees with that point but it doesn’t change the first point about DD being cheaper to administer and the vast majority wanting to pay that way. The issue is most people don’t know their projected usage or even how to work out their bill manually. When doing that you also need to factor in another 20-30% rise in 6 months and most people are looking a year ahead.

I’ve actually got the opposite problem, I got an electric car and haven’t updated my DD since. I’m surprised the company hasn’t updated their projection has I’ve rinsed all my credit and my DD isn’t covering my use anymore.
 
One More Solo said:
I imagine it’s to mitigate the risk of customers not budgeting for higher winter costs over summer and not being able to meet the higher bills when they arrive. People aren’t that money savvy and a lot of people will not prepare for higher costs in cold periods.
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Which almost sounds reasonable until you scratch the surface...
If the customer can't afford pay then, they won't be able to afford it now, either, so the problem remains the same.

What it does do is give utility companies huge amounts of money to play with in the short term, if you extrapolate over payments across thousands of customers.
Do they pay interest on these involuntary loans thier customers are giving them? No, thought not.
 
mattyfez said:
Which almost sounds reasonable until you scratch the surface...
If the customer can't afford pay then, they won't be able to afford it now, either, so the problem remains the same.
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Last time I checked, the vast majority of peoples wages don’t vary by the time of year and how much heating they put on.
 
Haggisman said:
You do realise that having your direct debit too high doesn't mean you're actually paying any more for the energy you use... right? :confused:
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Other than all the direct debit rates are showing currently higher than even the expected increase by October rates right? So they are mitigating risk by giving them a higher rate in case of the increase is greater or faster than anticipated already which means people are overpaying if they setup a fixed direct debit cost. If you are purely on about just setting your direct debit higher but on variable then yeah there will be a load of extra cash.

Octopus just let me adjust mine to whatever I want on the fly and it for me to manage anyways basically.
 
mattyfez said:
Which almost sounds reasonable until you scratch the surface...
If the customer can't afford pay then, they won't be able to afford it now, either, so the problem remains the same.

What it does do is give utility companies huge amounts of money to play with in the short term, if you extrapolate over payments across thousands of customers.
Do they pay interest on these involuntary loans thier customers are giving them? No, thought not.
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No it doesn't because what you end up with is where people think they are good and have cash surplus where say your summer usage is £120 and so you just pay that but come winter and your usage doubles for gas and slight increase for electric and you are then trying to find £200 to pay those months compared to the E120. If the direct debit is set correctly then you meet in the middle so the direct debit would only be £146.67 a month so you are not scrambling to find another £80 a month on top of any other rises or unexpected bills. People know for 12 months they 'should' have enough monies going in for it to balance out at the end of the 12 months. So no it is not the same problem.

If someone wants to choose to pay just what they use but have worked out their total yearly amount they could put the additional till winter into a savings account to earn them some pennies and then transfer when needed, however the amount generally being talked about wasn't worth the hassle of managing such because of the difference between summer and winter months wasn't there due to the cost of energy at time. That might have changed more now but it comes down to some people feeling more secure and not having to worry about it when anything changes or for them to worry about 'going into debt' with the energy company etc.

For instance I can see my usage to my monthly from April to September is £192.20 approx on my calculations but I am going to be paying £220 because come October my monthly cost is £247.94 so rather than adjust I can just set it now and forget about it with just knowing there might be a little shortfall here or there come later months depending on actual usage changes over the year compared to last year.
 
And what do you think utility companies are doing with all these overpayments? Stuffing them into a bill ol' mattress? No they will be investing it.
So Where's the customers cut of the profit?
 
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