Gas & Electricity billing companies

[Adrian Brezhnev]

A rather boring subject, but one that makes a lot of difference to people's lives.

British Gas, London Electricity, PowerGen, Scottish Power, Npower, Southern Electric, Scottish Power, SWALEC, MEB.... they're all going round telling people that they can save money on people's gas and electricity bills.

Presumably most of them are talking bollocks.

[Labian Quest]

It's supposed to be to do with the fact that buying your electrcity and your gas from one company rather than two cuts down on the billing costs. I think you can save a few quid if you shop around, though how much you actually save will depend on how much you use in a year. I'm pretty sure there's an independent website somewhere where you can input your details and get a cost comparison.

[Beagle 2]

Npower. Cunts. Couldn't run a piss up in a brewery and can't do their sums.

[hymen spaz]

So how does it actually work when you switch suppliers?

do you get a different type of gas? do they swap the electricity over for some made in sweatshops in Malaysia?

We have just moved into a new house and i admit to being a bit flummoxed (great word) by it all.

[slim]

*cough* *cough*

[hymen spaz]

*cough* *cough*

That is the reason i love this site......... i probably would never have heard of that had it not just been posted.... cheers Slim.

Consider me switching to that super quick.

[slim]

No problem! Be a bore and tell everyone you know too. :)

[surreal]

you need to be very careful when you even talk to these fuckers...

I bought a cooker from Powerhouse a couple of years ago, and during the buying process I was asked if I was interested in moving my gas to nPower (who already had my electric supply).  I said no, but they could send me some details on how much I could save and I'd consider it.  Couple of weeks later I got my gas bill thru and I opened it to find a letter inside with the bill saying "we're very sorry that you're leaving us".... WTF!!!!

So I phoned up British Gas and said "What do you mean I'm leaving?".  nPower had got in touch with them to say I was moving my gas supply to them and gone ahead and done it.  I hadn't signed anything so I got in touch with nPower and demanded they find out WTF was going on.  They sent a copy of the "contract" thru and where you normally sign it had "INFORMATION ONLY" written in biro, but they'd processed it anyway.  Fucking wankers.... I wrote a letter to their MD at the Head Office demanding that they not charge me for any gas I'd used during the time they'd taken over supply, threatened to sue if they did, and got in touch with British Gas to take over both the gas and electric supplies immediately.

Everything has been ok since - except for when nPower phoned me to see if I would consider coming back!!!  They had no record on file of why I'd left... poor sap on the phone soon found out why and they took me off their contact lists cos I've heard nothing from them again.

[largerthanlife]

This site should be able to tell you what company will rip you off the least

http://www.uswitch.com/

[Adrian Brezhnev]

What I find funny is that National power / Npower, Midlands Electricity, PowerGen, all with English sounding names, and who do things like spend millions on sponsoring the weather, the cricket, or even The Bill on the telly, well, they are all owned by RWE- and that's the Germans.

London Electricity? Owned by EDF- and in the adverts they never say wat EDF stands for, odd really considering that it's an easy name to remember, Electricité de France (and that's the French Government).

British Gas? Well loads of people still reckon they are the gas board, but they haven't been that since 1996- they don't distribute gas at all these days, they're purely a billing and service company, owned by Centrica, who of keep quiet about the fact that they are American.

Scottish Power? Well, they sell though the likes of Sainsburys and Lloyds TSB, and they've just put up their prices 10%, the bastards.

And I still haven't found out where I can buy heavy electricity....

[skibz]

We're with nPower, who are quite honestly a bit useless - they're trying to charge us £370 for a bill accumulated by some woman that lived in the house a few years back, who'd supposedly just buggered off without paying her bills. My housemate says we've tried telling them that they can't charge us for someone else's account being overdue, but they still seem to be trying to get us to pay for it. Lucky I'm moving out in a couple of months, eh?

[Adrian Brezhnev]

Bloody Germans! There is absolutely no way that you should be lumbered with that bill- and they know it. They'll try fighting you to the death over this, but remember, being British, you have the stamina to see your battle through. Offer to discuss the matter with them on the beaches... remind them that they always lose in the end, just like in 1918, 1945, 1966, and 2001.

Failing that, the Ombudsman could sort it all out. Why not give him a call?

Someone once told me what nPower's complaints procedure is. It is extroardinarily simple.

[SetToStun]

The former Ms. STS was at home alone once and answered the door to find a PowerGen rep standing there. He asked if we'd like to switch to them for our gas supply and she explained that no, we were very happy with British Gas. He said words to the effect of fair enough, he's only paid to ask the questions, but could she sign his little form to say she'd been asked (he claimed to only get paid if he could prove he'd been to each house). I think you can see what's coming next. As soon as I opened the letter saying "thank you for switching to PowerGen" I called them up and went mental at them. I made them switch us back to BG and write to them (cc'ing us) explaining that the contract switch had been obtained fraudulently. Funnily enough they actually did it.

Anyway, be warned...

[Adrian Brezhnev]

Not so long ago, after an exposé on Watchdog, one of the big billing companies was banned from sending people round knocking on doors for two years.

I think it may have been PowerGen actually.

[Leila]

the consumer woman in the Guardian (Ask Anna?) did an article on this practice recently. Loads of leccy companies seem to be doing it.

Clearly the salespeople (usually contracted out) are threatened with the sack if they don't reach their targets.

[Adrian Brezhnev]

They tend to be commission-only losers that reply to adverts in the local papers asking for "trainee managers" and the like.

[Bernard]

The sales guys come to our area pretty frequently. The last time one knocked on the door his pitch was "Hello, Mr, uh, Jones."

I replied "I'm not Mr Jones". I'm not Mr Jones.

"Oh yes," he said, thinking he was cunning, "of course, my records must be incorrect. Your name again is?"

Like he'd have a record of my name in the first place; the council don't even know I live here. Clearly he just wanted to put me on his database.

I gave him a nasty look as if to say "I know your game. Fuck off." And he slunk off.

That was the end of him I expect!

[Adrian Brezhnev]

It depends. I'd imagine he'd have moderate success if he worked in Wales.

[Bernard]

That's where I am. I suppose you have a slight point. Pah, he didn't fool me though!

[Adrian Brezhnev]

With his approach, I doubt he will have fooled that many.

[terminallyrelaxed]

When I worked for Amerada  we developed online billing for gas and electricity, and we wrote a 'gas+electricity calculator' where you'd put in your  address and current provider and amount of last bill, and it would tell you how much if any you could save with another supplier. The software was sold to other online utilities companies, and I'm pretty sure most of the sites offer this service somewhere - its the joy of privatisation.

[Pinball]

I'm curious about these home wind generators that apparently only cost a couple of thousand pounds, but supply several kW. You can even sell electricity back to the grid! Anyone know about these? It sounds like a superb investment/moneysaver, and I do like the idea of being partially protected against power cuts.

Centralised utilities. The opposite of the Internet.

[terminallyrelaxed]

Yeah, and then you wouldnt have to bother driving those anti-helicopter pilings into the lawn, either, thus contributing to the aerial defence.
When it all goes to hell you could trade electricity with the other survivalists, you know, re-charge their iPods in exchange for some potatoes or something...

[slim]

Pinball, as far as I'm aware, a wind turbine alone won't be enough to power your home. Stories I've read of people using them are in conjunction with extensive solar power (usually complete roof tiling and another panel on the ground/outbuildings). This, in most cases, gives you enough power for an average house filled by a family of four.

The house I've designed will have solar tiles and solar panels on outbuildings, combined with (planning permission permitting) one or two turbines in the garden. This should be enough power for my house, regardless of weather.

There's plenty of information dotted around the net about this, but I'm at work so can't help with links. A good book to read is the Green Building Bible.

[mothman]

London Electricity did call one day, but I sent them away with a flea in their ear. What happened mext, I suspect, was that they looked in our external mail box and found some mail with my wife's maiden name in it, and then forged her details on the sign-up form. But since the guy who'd called was an Asian male, he obviously couldn't bring himself to do it in her name but did it as a Mr. S. Maidenname - i.e. someone who didn';t exist. We were able to make a case against them to the Ombudsman, which hopefully contributed to a massive payment LE had to make shortly afterwards. . . But not before the LE MD sent us £100 to try to apologise!

The amusing thing was, we never actually got any gas or electricity bills. We paid a direct debit to British Gas, but then shortly before we moved we got a massive refund, followed by a bill from NPower. Who we'd never signed up with. We disputed, and walked away having had two years' worth of free energy!

And when I was packing, what did I find? A NPower signup form my wife had completed shortly before I met her!

[greencalx]

"My landlord organises all the bills" is the magic phrase that gets rid of fuckers.  And cold callers.

[largerthanlife]

When I worked for Amerada....

Did you have anything to do with their 'Online' division? They were terrible. They told me I had a legal obligation to pay the last tennents bill, as moving into the flat meant I assumed all their unpaid bills.

I told them this was utter shit, and I wasn't going to fool for it.

[Some Herbert]

The house I've designed will have solar tiles and solar panels on outbuildings, combined with (planning permission permitting) one or two turbines in the garden. This should be enough power for my house, regardless of weather.

Good for you Slim. I feel rather jealous now. Are you modifying your existing home or building a completely new one. Mind if I ask how much you think it'll cost?

We've been with Ecotricity for about 4 months now, and I've got no complaints. I get the slight impression that it's quite a small company, but that's fine as long as they can handle the increase in customers.

[terminallyrelaxed]

Did you have anything to do with their 'Online' division?

I was involved with setting up and testing and supporting the actual website, although I did talk to a couple of customers in relation to that I had nothing to do with the actual business, sorry.

[slim]

Good for you Slim. I feel rather jealous now. Are you modifying your existing home or building a completely new one. Mind if I ask how much you think it'll cost?

Oops. I should have said co-designed, I certainly didn't do it all. ladyslim would be most put out, had she read that. Dunno why I did that.

We're building somewhere from scratch. Finding useful land that isn't astronomically priced or sandwiched between morons is hard though. Apparently, if house prices are high, you can charge huge amounts for empty land too!

We've a budget of £50k for land. The build is already at £100k on top of that, without all the costs worked out (although that's overestimating in places I think). The costs of being eco-friendly are high, unfortunately, although you get pay back long term. There should be some grants we can get access to for building using certain methods and/or materials so that might reduce the cost a little but not significantly. As these things always go over budget, I'd estimate about £170-£190k, but I hope to fuck it isn't. I'd better start looking for a night job too if it is! Either that or we'll have to forget the whole thing and see if interest rates rise significantly after the election.

We've been with Ecotricity for about 4 months now, and I've got no complaints. I get the slight impression that it's quite a small company, but that's fine as long as they can handle the increase in customers.

They seem fine from the little contact I've had with them. It was very odd finding that I couldn't ring them on a Saturday. It's one of the oft-overlooked benefits of the corporate age, being able to ring most big companies 24/7.

Glad to hear everything is going smoothly for you. I keep telling people how easy it is to switch but most still aren't bothering. :/