Thursday 11 January 2018

Changing suppliers

As each one year fixed rate fuel tariff gets close to ending, we start to look around for a cheaper tariff, where possible. Our current supplier has offered us something that will save us a whole £7 a year. If we don't go onto that, we will end up on an expensive standard tariff!

I found something new this time, regarding what you can apparently save. Thought I would pass it one so you don't get caught out.

Although you can often access tariffs without semi filling in of details, such as £/kw per hour usage, what rate you are currently on, who you are with ect., what exactly does that saving mean.

I thought as they were accessing my current fixed rate tariff details, knew our annual consumption, the savings reflected were on that fixed rate tariff. Nope! Turns out it is the saving you will make once your fixed rate tariff has finished and you have been switched to the more expensive standard rate tariff.

Another question to ask yourself, especially if the differences are huge, is why. Well, newer fuel supply companies offer an excellent tariff to get you as a customer. They are often so new, they are not on a price comparison web site. If they are, they are too new for much customer feedback.

For example, on a standard tariff, the most we could potentially save was £134 - seems huge. Once we had worked out what that saving meant on our current fixed rate tariff, it was down to about £75! Still a good saving. However, it was too new a company to get customer satisfaction feedback so I trawled the internet, looking at social media and the feedback was very poor from most people who had switched to them!

I guess you pay your money and take your chance.

We decided to switch to a larger, more well known company, for a saving fo £57 per annum. Not so much, but we have been with them before and have had no problems with them to date. Also, that money will be in our pockets and not theirs.

6 comments:

  1. Because I am a low user I can never save much by switching and I like the company I am with and never have problems with them so I usually end up staying with them but on a new tarif.

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    Replies
    1. We usually check any new cheaper tariffs with our current company first but this time, they weren’t the best.

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  2. I am with OVO and they have been brilliant. I feel in complete control plus they pay 3% interest on your balance as well as paperless billing discounts.

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    Replies
    1. We looked at them but their daily standing charge is 10p extra a day!

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  3. I'm an extremely low gas user and haven't found anyone out there to beat Ebico - mostly thanks to their zero standing charge. For electricity we've been with Flow Energy for a few years - and haven't been able to find anyone I'm willing to switch to (the customer feedback thing mentioned) who can beat them on price by enough to make the work involved in switching worthwhile. I'm not spending time filling in the forms to save £2 a year!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No gas here, only electricity and expensive oil. No form filling other than giving them our kw per hour annual use, who we are with and what tariff we are currently on. We looked at all possible choices before deciding and for us, a few minutes giving this information is worth the saving.

      Delete

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