Ref Ebico. I too am considering switching over to them from E.D.F. However you should be aware that as yet they have not raised prices for this year. They are most likely to do so sometime this month nevertheless they should still offer a fairly competitive rate.

E.D.F. Today i received from E.D.F. the written notification of the latest tariffs for gas & electricity. These had been widely reported & were of no great surprise. However, having spent the front page reminding me of the £50 per year discount i receive for dual fuel & the fact that they were offering me 4 of these fuel saving light bulbs, (big deal) hidden away on the back of the letter was the information, that as your house is not part of the national gas network it would now have to charge me for transportation costs previously met by E.D.F. This adds some £ 42 a year to my gas bill for NO extra gas!! On top of the 23% price rise in gas it means that my gas bill has effectively gone up by some 35 to 40 % in a day!

In the past 6 months or so , i have twice attempted to purchase shares via the Equiniti (formerly LloydsTSB ) share dealing service. On each occasion i have used my H.S.B.C maestro debit card. The transaction is fine up to the point where i am prompted to press the o.k. button in pop up window which will direct me to the maestro card MasterCard secure code. upon pressing this button the page does not load but reverts back to the previous page with an error message " card error" 1827 The first occasion this happened back in Feb 2008 i was repeatedly bounced back & forth by both Equiniti & H.S.B.C. This has eventually led to an official complaint to the financial ombudsman against Equiniti , whom i blame for the problems i encountered. They have been unable to provide me with any reason to believe that it is anything other than a technical problem at their site. This case has yet to be decided upon by the F. O. Today for the first occasion since Feb. i have again attempted to buy shares via the Equiniti share dealing service. the problems that i encountered above were exactly the same as 6 months ago,nothing had altered whatsoever. Yet again Equiniti refuse to that it is a problem with their site, & continue to blame the card provider,H.S.B.C. They (H.S.B.C. )again continue to assure me that there are no problems with my card & that it is most likely a technical issue with the Equiniti web site. I would like to know if anyone else has experienced similar problems either in dealing with Equiniti or with their H.S.B.C maestro debit cards. (all other transactions with my card, albeit for smaller amounts, always go through fine) If there are any technical boffins out there to explain if these sort of problem ARE indeed down to the web site (Equiniti) or whether MasterCard or card provider (H.S.B.C.) may in some way be responsible. Many thanks