Gas and Electricty prices

Boomstick777

Boomstick777

Boomstick777

Soldato
Joined
2 Jan 2012
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Location
UK.
So yeah, just got a new bill. Was paying £80 per month for both, now they want £125 per month, and it's the summer! I.e the heating isn't even switched on lol. Why the sudden rise?!

Anybody else paying extortionate prices?

What is the best provider in your opinion?
 
uswitch - have your unit price and billing plan info at hand....

you can save a fortune sometimes.

I do it once a year to check
 
I live in rented accommodation and just have electric. We have had one bill since we moved in on 1st July 2012 (around December time) - no doubt the next will be quite a beefy one!

Any laws on not receiving bills from landlords then getting one for £1500 or something?
 
Have your prices increased a lot? Have a look at this bill and last bill, should show your usage and the price being charged.

edit: Guest2 I take it your landlord gets the bills and then passes the charge onto you? Sounds like a strange way of doing it, I'm renting it and all the bills are in my name and the bills go straight through to me nothing to do with landlord.
 
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Phantom Shadow said:
Have your prices increased a lot? Have a look at this bill and last bill, should show your usage and the price being charged.
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Yeah it's weird I have always been in credit while paying £80 a month, same house for around 5 years. From this year, 'January to April' they charged me around £400 !! I have no idea why the big rise.. I'm going to call them and ask them why the jump in price. Out all day tomorrow, so will have to be Monday now. Any suggestions of decent providers appreciated. Will get some quotes before I make the call, so I can at least say I can get better deal elsewhere etc, may help with negotiating the price.. These energy providers do seem to take the mick tbh, price just goes up and up, I thought the government were going to have new policy to curb the price increases ! David Cameron, you promised so much and delivered so little lol..
 
I am not sure about other suppliers, but with Ovo you can adjust your direct debit online, just by clicking a button.

I pay £92 a month for gas and elec (4 bed detached, 2 adults and 1 toddler) and the excess generated on credit during summer pays for the winter.

Tip: Don't forget cashback for doing a uswitch comparison and if buying online :)

EDIT: Just adjusted mine down to £85 :cool:
 
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I'm not sure there is a 'best supplier' - the quality of the electricity won't vary so it all comes down to service.

Ask them on what basis they amended the amount - an estimate of use or a recent meter reading. Read you meter before you call, or look online at your account - pretty much all firms have online tools to monitor consumption.

The answer to the question of 'can they just alter my Direct Debit' is that yes they can, provided they give reasonable notice (this can be electronic). But you can question why, and the amount.

Either way, go to uSwitch with your usage information.
 
There a metre's for each individual flat in the basement. We get charged per KW - 16.7p. Invoiced from the landlord. I thought it was a bit dodgy to begin with but we have a set budget for electric and its below what we expected

It averages £100 a month for a large flat (3 bed, 2 bath 1290 Sq Ft) in summer and £130 ish in winter with a couple of electric radiators on.

Electric is included in many of the rooms as people can 'rent' for a week, 2 weeks etc. and get housekeeping and stuff. Short let apartments that we have just rented for a year, well 2 now (standard charge is £150 a night for ours)

One of the massive bonuses is that we no longer have to deal with gas/electric/water companies! (and we also get our rubbish collected from outside our door every day)
 
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Have a read on moneysavingexpert too as to what deals are around, as well as something like uswitch. The cheapest deal for me was also a fixed deal so I know I won't have any price hikes until Jan 2014 I think it was
 
I had this problem with E-on, my DD started at £60 in 2010, then went to £112 within a yr, then £128 and finally £160 / month, i switched to prepayment in the end on gas and elec (which is supposedly more expensive), even in Jan / feb i was paying less then £120 a month, i'm probably spending about £80/£90 / month atm.
 
wez130 said:
I had this problem with E-on, my DD started at £60 in 2010, then went to £112 within a yr, then £128 and finally £160 / month, i switched to prepayment in the end on gas and elec (which is supposedly more expensive), even in Jan / feb i was paying less then £120 a month, i'm probably spending about £80/£90 / month atm.
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Surely that's completely the wrong solution to take - switching to a more expensive supply. If you weren't running up a huge credit balance when you hit the £160 / month then you must have been on a crazy tariff and should have just switched to one that better matched your consumption.
 
It worked out cheaper for us to use a prepayment meter too a few years back.

What was actually cheaper was British Gas cutting us off and us refusing to pay anything until they fixed our front door (they drilled the lock and cut a steel gate open, then cut us off because they were sending bills through the wrong door for months and we didn't see them) It turned out we owed about £230. To fix the door and gate it cost them ~£400! Idiots.

We went without gas for 5 month (luckily partly the summer) and used electric heaters. We started getting letters that there was 'unusual usage' in our building (none) ha ha
 
Gas/Electric companies are literally robbing us blind.

British Gas who are my supplier and have been for the past 3 years are a prime example.

I moved in to the flat, contacted them, arranged it all and for the first year they were taking just £13 a month for electric.

I knew that was too low so put extra away for when they finally ask for more. About the first year the DD suddenly jumped from £13/month to £127/month. I immediately contacted them and after a lengthy call had it dropped to £90/month.

Then the new laws came into effect where suppliers were meant to notify customers or few packages that would offer better rates. This never happened and as it turned out I had been over paying BG for the best part of 15 months.

After many calls to and from them I now pay just £43/month.
 
wez130 said:
I had this problem with E-on, my DD started at £60 in 2010, then went to £112 within a yr, then £128 and finally £160 / month, i switched to prepayment in the end on gas and elec (which is supposedly more expensive), even in Jan / feb i was paying less then £120 a month, i'm probably spending about £80/£90 / month atm.
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The alarm bell should have rang at £112!! If you were on a fixed rate, there was probably a period after the initial 12 months ran out when they switched you to a higher rate.

For this reason I always run a uSwitch comparison each year, just to keep an eye on things. It's a pain, but generally you know where you are without it running away. Also, you usually find that all the providers bump prices, so they can offer some good fixed tariffs if you switch before the prices go up. This is where keeping an eye on MoneySavingExpert is a good idea.

We used to traditionally be on a quarterly direct debit, where we paid for what we used.. so making a switch to monthly was grim, but now it's working out well as we tend to overpay each month and build up a credit. I can't imagine paying £160 a month :eek:

MadMossy said:
Gas/Electric companies are literally robbing us blind.

British Gas who are my supplier and have been for the past 3 years are a prime example.

I moved in to the flat, contacted them, arranged it all and for the first year they were taking just £13 a month for electric.

I knew that was too low so put extra away for when they finally ask for more. About the first year the DD suddenly jumped from £13/month to £127/month. I immediately contacted them and after a lengthy call had it dropped to £90/month.

Then the new laws came into effect where suppliers were meant to notify customers or few packages that would offer better rates. This never happened and as it turned out I had been over paying BG for the best part of 15 months.

After many calls to and from them I now pay just £43/month.
Click to expand...

Switch supplier. I bet you could save £££s.
 
Made a thread other day about utility costs,

I'm with EDF and they are robbing us blind... I'm gonna submit accurate meter readings each month to see what I should only be paying... none of this dd ******** with credit.

But yeah we're all getting raped.... pure and simple.
 
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