British Gas have lost my custom today!

[spiritgirl59]

I phoned British Gas today to find out about getting a payment card like the one I have for our electricity with Powergen, so that I can make regular payments at the post office towards future bills.

It took me half an hour to get through due to "high volume of calls" as Dollydoo has said ...when I finally got through I was told that if I wanted a card it would cost me a tenner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I queried this the woman said they have to cover their "overheads" of people using it at the post office

I asked her about payment plans and she said she couldn't find any information for me as they were "so busy" with people complaining about the hike in prices.

I phoned Powergen and got through to a really helpful person in their Sales Department. We have moved to them for our gas supply now. They have put us on a payment plan which means no price hike until October 2009. The price of gas with them is over £200 per year cheaper than it would be if we stayed with British Gas, and I also registered my Tesco club card with them as you get 1 point per unit of power used with Powergen - every little helps as the slogan goes

I know all these power firms are much of a muchness and all prices will go up over time, but a small saving is better than none at all.

I still can't believe British Gas charge £10 for a post office payment card when none of the other utilities do it! I was in the post office earlier and telling the Post Master about it, and he was horrified as well. The so called "overheads" are no different for British Gas than anyone else - just shows what a robbing lot they are eh???

[Weird Al Yankovic]

I would actually be quite concerned with your tariff that you are now on with Powergen for a number of reasons.

Firstly, you are effectively voluntarily agreeing to pay a higher gas bill as these capped tariffs are always more expensive. Why agree to pay a higher bill now when there are other ways to save on gas with other tariffs with other companies?

Secondly, Powergen have most probably put your primary rate for gas at at least 5p per unit, check your bill, if they have then you have hardly saved on anything really as they will soon raise their prices to about what you are already paying!

Thirdly, if they have contracted you until Oct 2009 and you can't get out then it's a bit of a scam really.

All the others will follow suit but SWALEC/Scottish & Southern are normally last to raise and at the last round of rises they didn't raise for three months...which is three months of savings compared to the other big five.

Check through your contract as you have 7 days to cancel.

Regards

[Coasters]

From what I understand you are locked into a deal with no price rises. With the way prices are going it's actually seen as a good idea in some areas.

[Clare_L]

All suppliers will be putting their prices up, and EONs fixed price til 2009 is approx an 8% increase, better than the 35-40% increase that it will no doubt be in my books. Oh and as Coaster correctly mentioned, your prices are fixed so you will not get hit with the 35-40% increase. Also, with Eons fixed price you are NOT tied into it and can come off that tariff anytime you wish. the only fixed price tariff you are locked into is the Energy Saver tariff as with that you get the Energy Saving Monitor. And even with that, if you want to leave Eon, all you have to do is pay £35 for the monitor.

Clare

[spiritgirl59]

Hiya guys

Thanks for your replies.

Claire is right, Powergen's fixed price is an 8% increase as opposed to the huge hike by British Gas this week.

I'm not tied in whatsoever because I asked that. It suits me because I can budget for the fuel and pay towards a future bill each week on the payment card, and I did get also get the "joint fuel" discount for taking both gas and electricity from the same supplier, plus the 1 clubcard point per unit of power used to be added to my Tesco club card.

Also I forgot to mention, British Gas told me that if I had future problems paying bills then they could only help me with supportive tariffs if I went on direct debit ...whereas Powergen said they would help anyhow, and I could continue with my payment card.

I know some of these may seem like small things, but in our financial situation right now they mean quite a bit.

Love SG x

[buzby]

And with BG now making DD patments more expensive than any other (see other thread), no wonder they are pushing this as their 'preferred' payment method. I do believe, that if there is any 'preference', it is for the customer to decide, not the supplier!

[Clare_L]

Also, if Pigs happen to fly and the prices come down, on the fixed price tariff, your prices come down too! If anyone is considering changing supplier they should do it asap before the prices go up and go on a fixed price tariff. Im not necessarily suggesting Eon, but any supplier that has a good fixed price at the moment. Eons tariff was mentioned by Martin Lewis on GMTV yesterday morning and if you did change today and requested that tariff, that would be the one you go on once the supply went over and that should be the same with any supplier I would hope.

Clare

[Coasters]

I would be very surprised if being on a fixed priced tariff and then the prices came down your prices would also come down on the fixed priced tariff. Thats because it's the gamble you make that prices will not go down.

Of course if you have no leaving penalty you can come off the tariff but thats different from staying on it and your prices coming down.

A fixed priced tariff is just that imho. I could be wrong of course Clare L seems to know the score

[Clare_L]

Hi Coasters

Im afraid I work for Eon (dont hold it against me ) but the price would come down on the Fixed price tariff, it just means that should the price go up again after coming down, your price will never exceed the price that you originally signed up for.....iykwim! But then again, if the market becomes stable you can always ask to go on the cheapest tariff and save more money, but as you have already said, that can be a gamble should you do that. But the option is there due to no tie in and no penalty to pay.

Clare

[Coasters]

That does sound good then!

I learn something everyday

[Weird Al Yankovic]

Originally Posted by Clare_L

All suppliers will be putting their prices up, and EONs fixed price til 2009 is approx an 8% increase, better than the 35-40% increase that it will no doubt be in my books. Oh and as Coaster correctly mentioned, your prices are fixed so you will not get hit with the 35-40% increase.
Clare

I'm sorry Clare but you are being rather misleading here, thus I am not surprised you work for EON!!

Where have you plucked out a 35% to 40% increase from? Just a guess? You have no idea what EON's rise will be until it's announced.

And you seem to forget that an 8% rise now is actually NOW!

EON already have a significant higher tariff than other gas suppliers so an 8% rise on a higher rate is more costly than, say, a 20% rise on a cheaper tariff with somebody else.

And, working for EON, you know that!!!

[Clare_L]

I am going by the BGAS increased prices and what has already been stated in the papers for the last few months. I admit I have no inside knowledge of what the increase will be, but they will all follow suit.

I am not sure how you think I am misleading anyone (Im assuming you have had a bad experience with Eon in the past, but I can assure you, we are not all muppets, bimbos, monkeys etc that the call centre staff often get refered as on here), im stating the facts of the tariff and common knowledge tells you that all the big 6 will eventually put their prices up. If Eons prices DO go up the same as BGAS, (as they did back in February) by 35%, then there is no point going on the fixed price after that as you will pay a further 8% ontop of the increase. Pay now and save later???? I know what I am doing.

As for other suppliers prices, in all honesty I believe there is very little difference between them. Its usually swings and roundabouts at the end of the day. And no, I dont think Eon is significantly higher than the others, but you may know better. I just dont follow other suppliers prices, its not part of my job!!

I would also like to point out that I only offer advise in the areas that I work in. I am not here to promote Eon and say we are the best as I know like all the companies, there are staff that dont do the job that they are employed to do!

But I can assure you, I am not misleading anyone!

Clare

[Mrs.Wifey]

I am also on the Eon price fix until October 2009 Thanks to a decent chap at the complaints department. It's true that the price fix tariff is slightly more expensive, about £1 a month more, plus I was given a bigger discount for having dual fuel (I'd already had a slight discount with that, but apparently it was not correct). He assured me that I could leave that tarriff at any time and also told me that if prices did come down, so would mine.

I've been with Powergen/Eon since British Gas totally screwed us over. I wouldn't change back to British Gas if they were the last company out there! We had problems with their payment card, too, although this was back when they didn't charge for them. I was heavily pregnant when we first switched with them and we were strapped for cash. We asked for a payment card to keep ahead of the bill as they billed quarterly, and the situation being what it was we knew we'd not be able to shell out £300+ in one go for a gas bill! No card came. Called them up, they apologised and promised to send one out. Didn't come. Called again. No Card. After the first quarterly bill, which was indeed a whopper, tried a different tactic and said we needed a card so we could make payments to catch up. Promised one would be there within 7 working days. No card. Six months later, still no card despite calling every fortnight or so asking. We moved, got shackled with massive bill. STILL tried to get a card to make payments, as our bank account didn't include cheques and there was no way we were setting up a DD with these people. Neither did we have the money to pay outright for the bill......being strapped for cash with the new baby. We just wanted to make payments to clear the bill, especially as our new place came with a British Gas pre-payment meter. That was even MORE of a nightmare! Apparently, the pre-payment meter was stuck on freeflow. Our landlord had put in £20 worth of credit when he still lived there, it got to £15 and stopped, but continued to supply gas. We figured that in the case of Sod's Law if we didn't do something about it, WE'D get shackled with another massive bill, so we called BG AGAIN and they sent an engineer out to have a look. The engineer couldn't do anything and called another place--Transco, I think-- and Transco told him THEY couldn't do anything because the meter wasn't dangerous! The engineer then called his supervisor and was told they couldn't do anything, so finally the Engineer told us (privately) not to worry about it, enjoy the free gas (I'm not joking either).

As for the other bill, husband got fed up asking for a payment card and started filing all the ensuing threats in the rubbish bin. I think BC&W have the debt now, but haven't seen a collection letter in 2.5 years. Of course, we HAVE moved since then, so that might have something to do with it. But it's a debt that's way down on my list of priorities should it ever catch up with us. I've since had a BG rep show up at my door trying to get me to switch...I had to laugh. Told him I'm sure he was a very nice man and that I meant no disrespect to him personally, but that his employers were the worst company I've ever had the priviledge of doing business with. I told him their customer service was so appalling that they shouldn't even be ALLOWED to do business...and he actually agreed!!

[lexis200]

I don't think Clare_L is being misleading, this has been plastered on the news for weeks, and every email from Martin Lewis (pretty well respected IMHO) has shouted about it...

We were with EDF and Eon (leccy and gas respectively). I searched for hours for the best capped tariffs to switch to and Eon were second only to Scottish Power - and then only by about a tenner. We went with EON as the cap lasted a bit longer.

We're paying just under 10% more than we were, and considering we were on a capped tariff with EDF with a tier one rate of about 12.5p (reasonably low but due to run out end of this month), I think this is pretty good. Had we not capped our electricity (the largest bill of the two) would have gone up hugely. The gas would only have risen a little, but seeing as we pay nearly twice as much for electricity than gas, it was a very good move for us.

Staying on a normal tariff was not feasible as the rises were/are increasing to far more than we could afford, so the EON capped was perfect even if (as is very likely) the price doesn't drop on the fixed tariff. And no, I don't work for EON

ps - can I join the 'I Hate British Gas' club?