Utility Bills

[jep]

Not the case with my DD. The guarantee was valid for pre-advised DD's and the bank refunded me £3,000 that had been debited over a period of 4 years in various pre-advised amounts.

The estimate reads were wrong and when Robin Hood Energy would not accept my correct reads, I called the bank and told them it was £3,000 and they refunded. It was up to Robin Hood Energy to then dispute the 'recall'.

No harm in asking your bank, is my view, instead of long-winded conversations with inept utility companies. Robin Hood Energy were a shambles (local authority owned). Scottish Power are usually very good and our company was owed £5,500 after a meter reading error at work, which SP refunded immediately without fuss or disputing how the error occurred. 

Justin

[PaulCP]

@jepZog are currently the cheapest for gas but your 2.2p rate must have been contracted some time ago. Current Zog rate for gas is 3.1p 

[jep]

@PaulCP Nov 2020. Crazy cheap deal. The comparison websites are tricky, you have to look at all the rates etc...not the 'headline' saving. I found Zog after scrolling through 15 other so called 'cheaper' rates. Low SC also. 

Justin 

[C8RKH]

The comparison web sites are known to "push" the deals that maximise their commission. They are accountable for, overall, significantly pushing up the general cost of bills through the amount of commission they have demanded in the past. With energy retailers operating margins being at -5 to +6% gross these commissions eventually get passed on to the consumers.

[jep]

Correction: my Zog gas rate is 2.59pKWH. Still good but expires in Nov 2021.

Justin

[PaulCP]

Thanks for your inout everyone, decided to go with Octopus in the end using the share code given by @Frickin_idiot, thanks Kev👍

[Frickin_idiot]

My pleasure!

[Bibs]

On 01/03/2021 at 11:27, Bibs said:

@march - Just switched to Octopus, you should see £50 coming your way off your bill and the same off my first one, thank you! 

If anyone else wishes to switch, please feel free to use Marc's code or I now have one too

http://share.octopus.energy/tan-bloom-811

This is my code and will get us both £50 if anyone is going to swap to Octopus. 

[windymiller]

will have a look bud, confused dot com are now not doing energy comparisons and advising ppl not to switch until deals come back on offer 😒

[andydclements]

A quick look at Octopus seems to say that there are no exit fees so you could leave early when better deals become available, even if you initially took a 1 or 2 year deal, but you'd have to check that's what they mean by Exit Fees = 0

[windymiller]

did check out the flexible deal (which is bound to go up in oct) and its around what we will go onto when the eon deal ends so i think its sit tight with the lights off till some new deals come out next year but hey its all to combat global warming !!!! 🙄

[windymiller]

how on earth will the elderly and poor cope with a 50% increase ?? bonkers 🙄

[PaulCP]

4 hours ago, andydclements said:

A quick look at Octopus seems to say that there are no exit fees so you could leave early when better deals become available, even if you initially took a 1 or 2 year deal, but you'd have to check that's what they mean by Exit Fees = 0

That, plus they had one of the lowest tariff rates, is exactly the reason why I switched to Octopus 2 months back 👍

[johnpwalsh]

Just checked our SSEB who we have been with this last couple of years. There tariff is much the same s Octopus, but apparently they upped our direct debit by £14 per month saying there estimate of our consumption was to low and they had increased it to prevent any shortfall. Bullocks. We are over £400 in credit AFTER the last bill was paid.

[exeterjeep]

Four more small energy firms could go bust next week   on BBC

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58610561

can't be good for consumers....

[windymiller]

this whole inflation boom is a disaster waiting to happen, all businesses especially manufacturing are energy dependant and of course will pass on the increase so its a double whammy 😒

[andydclements]

The wholesale prices have gone up by an amount they probably didn't predict, so they would then be loosing out on all energy used by consumers on the older fixed price deals.  The bigger forms probably have a bit more cash in reserve to cope with that.

[windymiller]

seems at the mo any excuse to put up prices mean they put up prices, either its brexit, driver shortages or covid etc "true" inflation is way way above 3.2% 😒

[C8RKH]

12 hours ago, johnpwalsh said:

Just checked our SSEB who we have been with this last couple of years. There tariff is much the same s Octopus, but apparently they upped our direct debit by £14 per month saying there estimate of our consumption was to low and they had increased it to prevent any shortfall. Bullocks. We are over £400 in credit AFTER the last bill was paid.

Yes, £400 in CREDIT after paying for energy during the 6 months of the year when you use the least, which means you go into the winter with £400 credit to use up alo9ng side your normal payment as you go into the 6 months of the year when you use the most.  It's called "budgeting" for whole year consumption with the "hope" you do not get a bill shock during the most intensive period.

Think about it, with energy prices increasing, then you are going to have to pay more so they are actually trying to help you to budget to avoid the "bill shock".

 

I get it, I do. Energy companies = twats - but actually, I sometimes wonder about the sanity of customers who do not value nor appreciate the value they get for their utilities.

For instance, for £400 (average UK water bill), you get all the water you want and all your waste (if mains connected) taken care of. people bitch and moan about it whilst they are happy to pay £1.75 (sometimes much for) for a polluting plastic bottle of 500ml of water. Total insanity.

Average UK dual fuel bill is £95 per month which I personally do not think is that bad. Compare it with other average monthly bills:

Broadband at £30

Mobile phone at £48

Sky is £38

Coffee (based on two shop bought per working day) is £25 per month

Average cost per kwh in the UK is 17.4p versus average cost across the EU of 21.3c - so that is roughly 20.3c in UK v 21.3c in Europe (average cost)

 

You're not getting ripped off. Stop believing the shit you read in the shite daily papers.  Energy is expensive. Increasingly it is a global market. And you are using more of it, personally, than you ever have done before. So no shit, the cost is higher than before.

 

And for the eco warriors, the cost of subsidies for the renewables (personal and corporate) adds around 20% to your bill!  Yes, 20%............ 

[Mark Blanchard]

The Government used to use RPI index to measure inflation but it looked to high.  It’s 4.8% at the moment.  They prefer the CPI measure which looks lower (house prices not included in the basket of goods).  When that gets to high I’m sure they’ll bring in a new measure BSPI (bullshit price index) that looks lower, so it will look like we don’t have inflation, so they can keep interest rates low and get everyone borrowing / spending. 

[Barrykearley]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58610561
 

proof if ever you need it - the energy market is broken.

[Barrykearley]

1 hour ago, C8RKH said:

Sky is £38

Seriously chap - you wanna look at that again - some folks are spending much much more - completely pointless in today’s iptv world frankly.

[exeterjeep]

6 minutes ago, Barrykearley said:

Seriously chap - you wanna look at that again - some folks are spending much much more - completely pointless in today’s iptv world frankly.

Cancelled my sky years ago when I was just paying £20 pm. Can't say I miss Sky, have got Freesat and TLF to watch. Don't pay monthly for a mobile phone, have PAYG for emergency use eg if I breakdown...

We do not have gas, buy we do have a log burner and piles and piles and piles of logs. Had 11 trees cut down a few months ago so am still cutting them up. Must have at least 5 years of logs.

[Barrykearley]

I binned contract phones a couple of years ago. Smarty sims are cheap as chips and all 5 of us have them for less than my old contract cost.

[exeterjeep]

1 minute ago, Barrykearley said:

Smarty sims are cheap as chips

Just trying one of these £10 for 30gb internet, to use instead of my BT broadband.