littleoldlady
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Post by littleoldlady on Sept 25, 2021 12:16:59 GMT
Currently the cheap energy club only has expensive to offer and all the cheapest of those are variable. I think the man himself was suggesting possibly going with the variable capped rates for a while in the hope that the worst rises will be temporary and look for a better fixed rate later. Still saving money on fuel for the car, can't get any! Just to be clear cheap energy club is totally independent - like IFAs are meant to be but are often not - the comparison tool shows the whole market, it is not using a preferred supplier list. The only way to get a cheaper option would be at the door, over the phone, through the letter box, employee perks or persuasive skills beyond most normal people. I'm a great fan of MSE but the bit in bold is not accurate. When lookaftermybills.com switched me to a cheaper tariff I checked on MSE and it was not listed. I asked them why and they said that they do not actually have all the tariffs on their system.
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Sept 25, 2021 13:43:18 GMT
Just to be clear cheap energy club is totally independent - like IFAs are meant to be but are often not - the comparison tool shows the whole market, it is not using a preferred supplier list. The only way to get a cheaper option would be at the door, over the phone, through the letter box, employee perks or persuasive skills beyond most normal people. I'm a great fan of MSE but the bit in bold is not accurate. When lookaftermybills.com switched me to a cheaper tariff I checked on MSE and it was not listed. I asked them why and they said that they do not actually have all the tariffs on their system. Ditto, I have used MSE for switching before. Someone having mentioned Pure Energy, I thought I'd check on the rates on MSE as I have my usage etc all set up on there. They were only showing the fixed tariff (no variable rate) although I had all filters turned off, in the event it looked rather expensive, but I think I may have to redefine what is a cheap tariff for a while at least.
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Post by overthehill on Sept 25, 2021 13:55:07 GMT
Just to be clear cheap energy club is totally independent - like IFAs are meant to be but are often not - the comparison tool shows the whole market, it is not using a preferred supplier list. The only way to get a cheaper option would be at the door, over the phone, through the letter box, employee perks or persuasive skills beyond most normal people. I'm a great fan of MSE but the bit in bold is not accurate. When lookaftermybills.com switched me to a cheaper tariff I checked on MSE and it was not listed. I asked them why and they said that they do not actually have all the tariffs on their system.
I'm happy to take your point. But these website comments infer to me that it is an online option just like the cheaper options I listed above.
"We aren’t a comparison site – we do auto-switching! But if you’d like to compare every single deal that’s out there we’d recommend you use the Citizens Advice Comparison Tool."
"In order to keep our service free, we only switch you to suppliers who will pay us a commission. Don’t worry, if a supplier has terrible customer service we won’t switch you to them even if they want to pay us!"
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Post by overthehill on Sept 25, 2021 14:07:27 GMT
I'm a great fan of MSE but the bit in bold is not accurate. When lookaftermybills.com switched me to a cheaper tariff I checked on MSE and it was not listed. I asked them why and they said that they do not actually have all the tariffs on their system. Ditto, I have used MSE for switching before. Someone having mentioned Pure Energy, I thought I'd check on the rates on MSE as I have my usage etc all set up on there. They were only showing the fixed tariff (no variable rate) although I had all filters turned off, in the event it looked rather expensive, but I think I may have to redefine what is a cheap tariff for a while at least.
Could be a valid observation but the visible filters are not the only tweak that decides what you see. Postcode, payment preferences etc change the return list, especially for small suppliers. For your example I'm wondering if the variable rate wasn't universally available i.e. maybe over the phone only. Who knows. How did you sign up for the variable rate ?
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Sept 25, 2021 15:27:17 GMT
Ditto, I have used MSE for switching before. Someone having mentioned Pure Energy, I thought I'd check on the rates on MSE as I have my usage etc all set up on there. They were only showing the fixed tariff (no variable rate) although I had all filters turned off, in the event it looked rather expensive, but I think I may have to redefine what is a cheap tariff for a while at least.
Could be a valid observation but the visible filters are not the only tweak that decides what you see. Postcode, payment preferences etc change the return list, especially for small suppliers. For your example I'm wondering if the variable rate wasn't universally available i.e. maybe over the phone only. Who knows. How did you sign up for the variable rate ?
I didn't, I looked on the Pure Planet website and they were offering both, but I couldn't find any information about the rates without getting a 'proper' quote. They didn't reject my postcode, but I didn't bother to go right through the quote if it wasn't going to be any use. I just went to check the rates on MSE which only had the fixed, which is probably what I would have been interested in, but rather high so I gave up with that. I was just confirming what a previous poster said that not all tariffs seem to be listed, for whatever reason. I have found very good deals on MSE in the past, but I think at the minute we're looking for least bad deals, that's not MSE's fault they are just reflecting the current market.
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Post by overthehill on Sept 25, 2021 17:30:48 GMT
Could be a valid observation but the visible filters are not the only tweak that decides what you see. Postcode, payment preferences etc change the return list, especially for small suppliers. For your example I'm wondering if the variable rate wasn't universally available i.e. maybe over the phone only. Who knows. How did you sign up for the variable rate ?
I didn't, I looked on the Pure Planet website and they were offering both, but I couldn't find any information about the rates without getting a 'proper' quote. They didn't reject my postcode, but I didn't bother to go right through the quote if it wasn't going to be any use. I just went to check the rates on MSE which only had the fixed, which is probably what I would have been interested in, but rather high so I gave up with that. I was just confirming what a previous poster said that not all tariffs seem to be listed, for whatever reason. I have found very good deals on MSE in the past, but I think at the minute we're looking for least bad deals, that's not MSE's fault they are just reflecting the current market. You're right. Pure Planet is showing 2 variable tariffs for my postcode and they are not showing in MSE cheap energy club, just the fixed tariff, that's rubbish. I'm shocked and it looks like I've been overrating that tool, how many others are missing? I'll find out what they've got to say about it.
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aju
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Post by aju on Sept 26, 2021 16:12:25 GMT
So were were on Avro at about £129 a month for Gas and electric in Wiltshire area. We got notification today that we will be transferred to Octopus energy. Not sure what tarriff we will be on but their letter says we will not be disappointed and they hope we will stay once the dust settles. Just looking at their two main tarriffs. it looks likely we could be paying nearer £235 a month going forward. They say in their online briefing So quite something of an increase based on their online rates. Not sure if the transfer rates will be any better though. It is what it is i guess!
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Post by bracknellboy on Sept 26, 2021 18:37:26 GMT
So were were on Avro at about £129 a month for Gas and electric in Wiltshire area. We got notification today that we will be transferred to Octopus energy. Not sure what tarriff we will be on but their letter says we will not be disappointed and they hope we will stay once the dust settles. Just looking at their two main tarriffs. it looks likely we could be paying nearer £235 a month going forward. They say in their online briefing So quite something of an increase based on their online rates. Not sure if the transfer rates will be any better though. It is what it is i guess! Yes I've also received the 'You are going to Octopus' email. At least that answers the question of whether I was actually transferred from Igloo. I see in today's paper's that Octopus is expected to 'throw its tentacles' around Bulb as well (to prevent it going bust): hopefully it won't squeeze too hard. As for new rates: we'll know when we know, and we can then take any action we think appropriate. I don't think this is a 'buyers market' at the moment.
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jcb208
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Post by jcb208 on Sept 26, 2021 19:30:15 GMT
Being moved to Octopus as well, maybe we all are. I think the cheapeast rate now is the government energy cap which makes suppliers all the same rate
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Post by overthehill on Sept 27, 2021 8:26:38 GMT
I didn't, I looked on the Pure Planet website and they were offering both, but I couldn't find any information about the rates without getting a 'proper' quote. They didn't reject my postcode, but I didn't bother to go right through the quote if it wasn't going to be any use. I just went to check the rates on MSE which only had the fixed, which is probably what I would have been interested in, but rather high so I gave up with that. I was just confirming what a previous poster said that not all tariffs seem to be listed, for whatever reason. I have found very good deals on MSE in the past, but I think at the minute we're looking for least bad deals, that's not MSE's fault they are just reflecting the current market. You're right. Pure Planet is showing 2 variable tariffs for my postcode and they are not showing in MSE cheap energy club, just the fixed tariff, that's rubbish. I'm shocked and it looks like I've been overrating that tool, how many others are missing? I'll find out what they've got to say about it.
The citizens advice energy comparison tool seems to have the best coverage and the MSE tool seems to be the worst. Of course most people are only interested in the cheapest, not the rest. There are a few cheaper ones not on MSE but who knows if the data is current and some are not standalone and don't have warm home discount.
citizens advice=90, mse cheap energy club=35, energyhelpline=55, runpath=54
Interestingly the Pure Planet variable tariffs don't appear in any of the comparison tools so that is not related to MSE poor coverage.
Think I'll be using citizens advice in future for the comparison and MSE for the other features.
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keitha
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Post by keitha on Sept 27, 2021 9:26:02 GMT
I switched the same suppliers as you, which completed Tuesday,so never did get use of Avro energy, dont know who the new supplier is either yet.I recon this will take ages to sort out with all the failed suppliers Avro have gone to Octopus, Octopus have guaranteed a price £10 below the cap, one good thing with octopus is there is no exit fee Interestingly the cap is a con it only applies to the Variable Tariff you drop onto when you existing fix applies, the Fixed tariffs can be above the cap !
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keitha
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Post by keitha on Sept 27, 2021 9:32:39 GMT
Being moved to Octopus as well, maybe we all are. I think the cheapeast rate now is the government energy cap which makes suppliers all the same rate well yes and no Octopus are saying £10 below the cap for those moved from Avro. mind you £10 over 2900 Units of Electricity is 0.34P a unit, over 12000 Units of gas it's 0.0833p a kWh. If You have the ability to time shift usage eg storage ( Battery ) etc I suggest to look at Octopus Go where you can have 4 hours overnight at 5P a unit.
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Post by bracknellboy on Sept 27, 2021 10:00:28 GMT
I switched the same suppliers as you, which completed Tuesday,so never did get use of Avro energy, dont know who the new supplier is either yet.I recon this will take ages to sort out with all the failed suppliers Avro have gone to Octopus, Octopus have guaranteed a price £10 below the cap, one good thing with octopus is there is no exit fee Interestingly the cap is a con it only applies to the Variable Tariff you drop onto when you existing fix applies, the Fixed tariffs can be above the cap ! Yes but the whole point of the cap is to provide a level of consumer protection to those who don't - or can't - regularly shop around e.g. the elderly who tend to just stick with who they have. Those who shop around don't really need protecting because they are able to uhhhh shop around. So its hardly a con: its doing what it is meant to do* which is provide backstop protection for the vulnerable, not those who are utility rate tarts. In the current climate of current wholesale prices and uncertainty about future, it is not entirely surprising that new fixed rates are now generally significantly above teh capped variable rate. And bear in mind, over the course of say a 12 month fixed rate, it is likely that OFGEM will change i.e. if current situation persists, raise, the cap. *Of course its not quite doing what it intended to do as at the moment companies may be losing money hand over fist with customers on variable (capped) rates. Also with the cap having been set in last round before prices went completely bonkers, in effect competition in the market place has simply been removed as noone wants to put out a rate which is (meaningfully) below the cap.
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aju
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Post by aju on Sept 27, 2021 10:27:22 GMT
Great stuff guys thanks for the pointers I checked out the CA website for Energy energycompare.citizensadvice.org.uk/and it would seem there are a few possibilities for us so am feeling a bit better than a couple of days ago. Octopus do seem to have a good deal on the CA site too if i read it right - have yet to put it into my spreadsheet but emailed the quote for reference. Curiously though they suggest we will be switched to the Flexible Octopus tariff so checked it using above and we look like we are not going to be as bad as we first thought. Having been used to a fixed price contracts ever since i can remember what are the issues with variable eg. 1. Is this subject to the price cap (I'm guessing it's a function of the tariff rates rather than a total number) 2. If the above is not capped then when do the prices change (cap periods I think are 6 months but when dates wise) 3. Bit odd that this tariff is not on MSE but i guess it might be exclusive to CA. According to my quote i got for this tariff on the CA site we are possibly looking at £31 a month increase if we were paying Avro the £128 a month we should have. In reality we were only paying £117 a month since it started in April so its about £42/mth more. I should have realised we were under paying but hey £42 is much better than the MSE version of OE products. Mrs Aju is happy she will still be able to spend our money, she's already looking at jumpers and cardies!
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Sept 27, 2021 10:29:46 GMT
Avro have gone to Octopus, Octopus have guaranteed a price £10 below the cap, one good thing with octopus is there is no exit fee Interestingly the cap is a con it only applies to the Variable Tariff you drop onto when you existing fix applies, the Fixed tariffs can be above the cap ! Yes but the whole point of the cap is to provide a level of consumer protection to those who don't - or can't - regularly shop around e.g. the elderly who tend to just stick with who they have. Those who shop around don't really need protecting because they are able to uhhhh shop around. So its hardly a con: its doing what it is meant to do* which is provide backstop protection for the vulnerable, not those who are utility rate tarts. In the current climate of current wholesale prices and uncertainty about future, it is not entirely surprising that new fixed rates are now generally significantly above teh capped variable rate. And bear in mind, over the course of say a 12 month fixed rate, it is likely that OFGEM will change i.e. if current situation persists, raise, the cap.
*Of course its not quite doing what it intended to do as at the moment companies may be losing money hand over fist with customers on variable (capped) rates. Also with the cap having been set in last round before prices went completely bonkers, in effect competition in the market place has simply been removed as noone wants to put out a rate which is (meaningfully) below the cap. According to MSE the price cap is going up 12% on 1st October.
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