Ducky Posted February 21, 2008 Report Share Posted February 21, 2008 Read this below, this is an absolute joke and shows what a con all this s*** about energy rises is! i dont know if any of you are with them, i am forever arguing with them and think they are a disgrace. You try asking them how much a Unit actually costs? and yet no one i have spoken to there can tell me. I did pay by direct debit for both gas and electric and it was costing me £101 per month combined for both, which is a joke, so i cancelled the direct debits and changed to quarterly which is now costing me £200 per quarter combined, so when you look at that i am saving £100 per quarter, so how is it cheaper paying by direct debit? In my opinion even £200 per quarter is a joke especially with all the other things we have to all pay for. This is yet another example of the state this country is in and what a money greedy government we have, they never moan about the money companies like this make as they are lining their pockets :pirate: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7256096.stm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigsteve Posted February 21, 2008 Report Share Posted February 21, 2008 I used to work for Eastern Electricity (now a part of EON) and the DD thing is because you are always in credit with them. Hardly anyone is ever behind in payments. ie during the summer you over-pay so that you have paid enough in to your account to cope with higher bills in the winter. Effectively this gives the company a huge amount of money that sits in their account earning interest. When people wrote in asking for their credit to be refunded in a cheque, the standard procedure was to write back saying that the winter bills would balance it out. Some people had £100-200 in their account, and they still wouldn't pay it back to them. I refused to go down this route until recently where you (supposedly) save 10% by paying by DD which does make it worth doing. However, if I find myself getting into too much credit, I'll just amend the direct debit amount myself. Can't see why more people don't do that. British Gas are a joke. Those profits are scandalous. We lived in a flat for 7 months last year and when the first bill came in I checked the readings and they were way out. So much, that I checked the meter number and found out that British Gas had our flat's meter and next door's mixed up with each other. I have spoken to Bristish Gas 12 times to try and get a correct bill. We left that flat last October and the most recent bill for them was nearly correct - they missed off a £40 credit which we were due becaue of a 'welcome' offer. That was 2 weeks ago and they still haven't re-billed us! For a place we left over 5 months ago!! ....and no, we're not with British Gas anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrissie Brown Posted February 21, 2008 Report Share Posted February 21, 2008 I've just lost the post l did for this thread so will have to do it again. I was with British Gas but changed to Southern Electric 2 years ago as it worked out much cheaper than BG. I'm now paying d/ds for£28 and £27 total of £55 a month for Gas and Electric. However British Gas tried to poach me back from Southern Electric and used dirty tricks to get me to sign up to them again. The figures didn't add up and l had evidence of the Reps deception so BG had no choice other than to reinstate my account with Southern Electric. It's a disgrace. Worst of all are the cost of our Water Rates down here in West Cornwall. Combined Sewerage and Water cost the average household well over £700.00 a year. It's the highest in the country and mainly due to us having such a long coastline to maintain. I am now on water meter which is working out much cheaper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briggsy Posted February 21, 2008 Report Share Posted February 21, 2008 They're all as bad as each other to be honest. We were with British Gas at our old house, but when we moved in August, we had to have Scottish & Southern for a couple of months - but moved from them because of all the hidden charges (standing charges, etc) - so moved to Npower. We had our first Npower bill yesterday - and the cost per unit is barely any different from Scottish & Southern, despite Npower saying they were cheaper than everyone else. The only difference is, there were no hidden charges - so we saved about £15. Npower and Scottish & Southern both show the unit prices though which is good. Everyone is out just to make money these days. There's a couple of other things that p*** me right off. First of all, BT - they charge you £35 line rental per quarter, yet if you decide you no longer want your phone, those lines still stay outside! Its just their way of getting £35 per quarter. The other thing which p***es me off is the price of chips in the summer. When there's a shortage of spuds (which seem to happen every year), they display a sheet of paper saying that the price of chips has had to rise by 10p due to a shortage of potatos - their suppliers are charging more. But those prices never come down again when the potatos are available again - because everyone has forgotten about why they went up. I really do worry about this country - we're in a state where everyone is putting prices up, the cost of living is increasing way beyond affordability (mortgages, fuel, etc) - yet salaries are getting smaller, or not rising at the same rate as everything else. If Labour stay in power for another term, I think we've got touch financial times ahead of us. Everyone hates Labour - yet people keep voting them in? Who are these plebs that keep voting them back in? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigsteve Posted February 21, 2008 Report Share Posted February 21, 2008 Going back to the Fuel issue, there were originally 20 different cpompanies offerring gas and electricity to residential customers. It is now 6. Also, has anyone tried switching supplier? It is pretty simple to do, but takes weeks, if not months. Surely that is a barrier to a lot of people from switching. And how are old folk supposed to deal with something like this. Can you see many of them logging on to a comparison site or ringing round different companies? I dred getting old Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uberduck Posted February 21, 2008 Report Share Posted February 21, 2008 The other thing which p***es me off is the price of chips in the summer. When there's a shortage of spuds (which seem to happen every year), they display a sheet of paper saying that the price of chips has had to rise by 10p due to a shortage of potatos - their suppliers are charging more. But those prices never come down again when the potatos are available again - because everyone has forgotten about why they went up. Lol Damn I hate those expensive chips! Robbing chips shop owners :pirate: !!! I know what you guys mean about utility bills as I live on my tod and therefore bills are a bit of a ballache for me. My flat is a new build so for some reason they decided it'd run solely on electricity. This is good in a way as it means you only have to mess about with one company (Powergen). The downside is that electric heaters aren't very efficient at heating a property (some storage heaters are ok but they look unsightly). I pay quaterly by cheque for water and electicity as I want to pay my bills when I say so. The utility companies seem to take the money out of your account way before it's really needed. I always take the p**s a bit too and wait for the reminder letter before paying. Makes me laugh as they the reminder always says "We know you always pay your bills on time but...". Do I bugger pay them on time! I think the world faces some dark times when it comes to energy because as the oil supplies dwindle, the price is only going to go up. Slow developing alternative sources and poor attitudes towards the environment mean that there isn't immense pressure to act now. The Yanks wind me up the most as they just stick their fingers up to the world and carry on polluting like there's no tomorrow. Being an employee of our countries main environmental protection company, I'm passionate about the environment. We get screwed for everything in todays world and that really annoys me as theoretically the power of the masses should mean we have the ability to control what these companies do but seemingly it's the other way round. Service levels by the large companies are totally unacceptable but they get away with it. I hate BT with a passion. When I was trying to setup my t'interweb connection I was close on a few occasions to throwing the towel in with them. Poxy automated menus on their customer service line and the dead ends they lead to cost me a fortune in mobile bills. I really don't know how they get away with such incredibly poor service . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briggsy Posted February 21, 2008 Report Share Posted February 21, 2008 I think the world faces some dark times when it comes to energy because as the oil supplies dwindle, the price is only going to go up. Slow developing alternative sources and poor attitudes towards the environment mean that there isn't immense pressure to act now. Supplies aren't actually that low at the moment though - its all the scaremongering. Its in something like 45 years time when they reckon we'll really struggle - but by which time, we'll have alternative methods anyway. Did you know what the UK supplies OUR gas to Russia cheaply, and then they sell it back to us expensively. How stupid is that!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uberduck Posted February 21, 2008 Report Share Posted February 21, 2008 I wasn't saying that the oil will run out tomorrow but 45 years isn't a long time in the history of the world and surely the technology will only really be available to the developed world. You cant see developing and third world countries investing the little money they have in renewable energy sources. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neuro Posted February 22, 2008 Report Share Posted February 22, 2008 I thought I nearly got offered a job with Centrica (the master parent of British Gas) last year whilst I was in Spain... after a strong application and interview I never ever heard from them despite a follow-up email and I vowed never to apply to them again, because they put candidates under a huge amount of pressure, even with reagrds to replying to their correspondence immediately, or else run the risk of losing the place to someone else - and yet they couldn't be bothered to let me know the outcome of my application. Maybe they're still reviewing it, who knows Last year they bought up a huge number of foreign resources in anticipation to meet the UK energy's consumption in the next few years, and I guess they've made a killing in the process. Expect high profits for the next few years too, albeit not so large as this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quadrant Posted February 22, 2008 Report Share Posted February 22, 2008 Why did you apply to the greedy blighters anyway? Seriously sirs, that's an outrageous profit margin. They've scared the consumer into thinking there's not much energy out there so it's going to cost a lot, and yet their raking it in. I'm not for knocking companies who do well off their own backs - everyone aspires to do well so we should praise them - but the profit suggests they're seriously ripping someone off somewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judge Mental Posted February 22, 2008 Report Share Posted February 22, 2008 What bugs me is that when they get exposed for high prices, bad service etc (not just BG, big companies in general) on Watchdog and the likes, most of them won't even send someone in for an interview. Guilty as charged. On the subject of fuel prices, no one seems to get miffed that coca cola tends to be more expensive than petrol per litre these days Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uberduck Posted February 22, 2008 Report Share Posted February 22, 2008 On the subject of fuel prices, no one seems to get miffed that coca cola tends to be more expensive than petrol per litre these days Granted.... but in all fairness I don't need to drink 60 litres of coca cola each week do I? I'd classify coca cola as a luxury whereas gasoline is certainly a commodity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judge Mental Posted February 22, 2008 Report Share Posted February 22, 2008 Yep I suppose that was a daft statement lol, obviously beer is more expensive to, but it won't make your car take you to work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ducky Posted February 22, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2008 Yes Fuel is another pet hate! lol Another great big con.... :boohoo: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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