Having nearly being caught out myself I wonder how many £Ms are harvested through customers switching utilities without chasing up refunds of those surprisingly high credit balances which somehow manage to accrue with DD payments. Take nothing for granted!
j
Always try to make sure that the utility company is owing you money.
Can't remember who it was (Northern Electric?) but they never reduced my payments, despite agreeing to do so on the phone, so I switched suppliers to force them to give me a refund. It took about a year to screw the money out of them because they had gone into administration. Fortunately I switched BEFORE they went into administration and so evenually got everything I was owed, possibly with a little help from Offgen or whatever they were called then. Apparently if I had switched a bit later I would have been standing in line behind a pile of other creditors. It was quite a few years ago now, but a lesson I will not forget.
[....]
All these stories convince me to continue to pay quarterly in arrears for my utilities, even if it is cheaper by D/D. I am reluctant to enter into any deals in which the monthly payments are not easily and quickly modified, and arguing with a utility company employee with a script is a frustrating experience..
I had five months of doing that with Powergen (EoN now) OBO a lady friend, when they suddenly mistook her Metric meter for an Imperial one, which trebled her bill. That was several years ago, and recent Watchdog programmes have featured people who had been over-charged in the same way for years!
There are no surprises on my bills, as I take regular meter readings and run a forecast spreadsheet.
I agree.
On *every* occasion that a utility company has owed me money it has taken months of waiting on multiple phone calls to get the money back.
I CBA with all that aggro.
tim
On the one hand I have to say the Atlantic recalculated my DD with just one phone call and refunded the outstanding within a week.
On the other hand BT have the sneaky policy that, while they will automatically recalculate a DD and send a full refund if your credit reaches a certain amount (3 times the monthly payment?) They then take one more DD at the higher rate before they change the amount - just to make sure you start off overpayed.
But the DD savings are massive. Around 8% for my current best deal according to energyhelpline.com.
My account is never in credit for more than about 150 (taking into account what I owe then in unbilled usage), usually less. And paying by DD saves me close to that *every year*!
Even if you switch suppliers every couple of years *and let them keep any excess they owe you* you'd probably be quids in paying by DD.
Email them. I've found you get much better service that way, and no waiting around.
In message , tim..... writes
...and as for M*rt*n L*w*s and his urgings to take on fixed deals for power utilities, I'm glad I didn't leap in, with Br Gas prices set to drop 10%.
That guy is earning a fortune by telling folk how to save hypothetical amounts on sound-bite TV shows.
Come back in a year. Do you think fuel prices aren't going to become a new economic battleground? With all the Russian/Ukrainian posturing, Middle Eastern market tinkering etc.?
works for me
tim
But this is what the whole of the "industry" does [1].
e.g.
They say that *everyone* could save 100s by switching utility supplier. I bet everyone can't. Some will have already switched and of those that haven't, sometimes the savings are actually tiny.
They say that people could save 100s by selecting the correct mobile tariff. But that have achieved this saving by selecting the correct tariff after the end of the month. This is not allowed, almost no-one can correctly predict at the start of the month which tariff they should be on that month, and even if the could, switching every month isn't allowed.
They say that everyone could save 100s by shopping around for insurance. No they can't, if I save multiple hundreds by changing insurance, I'd be with a company paying me!
Personally, I save more money by the (very simple and eminently sensible) technique of making sure that I eat everything (food items only!) that I buy from the supermarket. The fact that apparently some people throw away as much as 15% speaks volumes for how god damned lazy people can be, these people deserve to get ripped on their utility bills IMHO
tim
[1] I don't accept that it is an industry but I couldn't think of a better word
Not for me!
Their gas price isn't bad - about 10% more than I'm paying per unit but with no standing charge. Still about 5% more expensive even accounting for the standing charge. But their electricity is a rip-off - about 40% more than I'm paying per unit - about 30% after accounting for the standing charge.
Their simple tariff structure of no standing charge and no banded units clearly favours low users. I doubt any average or high users would be better off with them.
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