AIBU to ask what energy company do you recommend in the current climate?

[BoneWithTheWind]

Hi all, hope you're having a good day.

Posting here for traffic as I'm at the end of my tethers. Trying to quickly switch to a new supplier (for both fuels). Been with Ecotricity for years, then had a short spell with Outfox but I'm leaving due to appalling customer service.

Any recommendations please? Easy phone contact is a must, as is decent customer service. Price-wise, I'm not expecting anywhere to be cheap really, just as long as it's within reason. Thanks in advance xx

PS. Just had a chat with Octopus energy and found out they're not taking any new customers at the moment... Offered a waiting list instead. Great.

[quote candlelightsatdawn]@SirensofTitan it's already in the public domain 🤷🏼‍♀️[/quote]
Can you link please, I'm not having any luck with finding anything about it online

You have contracdicted your first post I can assure you it's going to be public knowledge fairly soon

Which is it?

@SirensofTitan you know I could argue with you, but instead I'm just gonna let you see what happens coming up. Stop investing so much time on the internet arguing with people would be my advice.

There will be probably more smaller companies to go because unfortunately their approach to the market is to gamble on the price of a market.

Tbf to Sirens, I had read the same about Bulb. I even think I read it on the BBC but can't be sure. It was only a couple of weeks ago. Think it was the week lots of energy company's had gone under and it said Bulb was also in trouble etc

Sorry, I mean in defence of @candlelightsatdawn I think

I’ve never had any problems with Octopus or ScottishPower

[quote candlelightsatdawn]@dementedpixie it's in talks with ofgem to see who will take over the customer base. That's assigned by ofgem btw the other suppliers don't have a choice. Whoever the supplier is they will have to adear to prices set by bulb for a certain period.

I can assure you it's going to be public knowledge fairly soon. I would know I have been on the calls as we don't want the customers base either it's leaking money. [/quote]
Either you are talking absolute bullshit or you are divulging information that you really shouldn't.

I suspect the former.

Bulb are known to be in trouble but I don't believe anyone would be so absolutely stupid as to come onto a public forum and post something like the above if it were true.

[quote candlelightsatdawn]@SirensofTitan you know I could argue with you, but instead I'm just gonna let you see what happens coming up. Stop investing so much time on the internet arguing with people would be my advice.

There will be probably more smaller companies to go because unfortunately their approach to the market is to gamble on the price of a market.

[/quote]
I didn't say that I don't believe you, it's perfectly reasonable to ask for a link as you say you know it's public knowledge yet no one can find any evidence of that. Bulb customers are obviously going to be concerned if this is the first they've heard about it.

You might spend your time looking up what arguing means.

My supplier went bust so I was switched to octopus. Slightly concerned that they're not taking on new customers now. I wonder why not.

[quote candlelightsatdawn]@dementedpixie it's in talks with ofgem to see who will take over the customer base. That's assigned by ofgem btw the other suppliers don't have a choice. Whoever the supplier is they will have to adear to prices set by bulb for a certain period.

I can assure you it's going to be public knowledge fairly soon. I would know I have been on the calls as we don't want the customers base either it's leaking money. [/quote]
Can you prove what you've said? Because it does sound like you are leaking confidential information. Wonder what would happen to you if your bosses found out you'd been posting this stuff on a public forum.

Not that I'm aware of, still a customer of them. Aren't they one of the big 6?

Bulb are not one of the Big 6. I worked in insolvency for a looooong time, companies can know they’re going to be insolvent in the future before actually reaching the point of insolvency (insolvency being a state of being unable to pay debts as and when they fall due. So it would not be surprising for a bail-out/customer rescue plan to be out in place in advance, or for a “pre-pack” to be put in place where a company enters into an insolvency arrangement and is immediately sold on.

go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10146067/Fears-UKs-seventh-biggest-energy-firm-Bulb-amid-reports-collapse-early-week.html

@shouldistop

My supplier went bust so I was switched to octopus. Slightly concerned that they're not taking on new customers now. I wonder why not.

Because they lose money for every new customer they take on, because they'll go onto the price cap tarriff, which is being sold at a huge loss, or possibly a fixed price, which is more expensive, but still not profitable.

Also, they've just had hundreds of thousands of ex Avro customers imposed on them so they're probably still busy setting up their accounts - I'm one of them and my account isn't properly up and running yet.

On the matter of the 'fixed price per month' tarriffs, Scottish Power are reeling people in with these at the moment and I suspect a lot of people aren't reading and understanding the small print which says your fixed price is based on estimated usage, which is likely to be low to get you to sign up, and they'll then adjust once they've seen how much energy you use. I checked it out after I'd heard someone on the radio ask Martin Lewis if he thought this tariff was a good idea and ML said that what they were offering was impossible (fixed prices for 2-3 years) and the man should look into what he'd signed up to.

When I looked at it, it gave me a price without asking any details about my energy usage, only my name and address, which granted it could have a clever database that knows what size my house is and the average use for this type of house, but it doesn't know what type of heating I have, how much I use it etc so could be way off for anyone who's outside their assumptions. Plus as I said, it's very likely they'll conservatively estimate, to give you an attractive price to draw you in.

For the OP, for the next six months, you want to be on any company's standard variable rate, which is effectively fixed until April next year and will be hundreds of pounds a year cheaper than any fixed deal available. But I don't know if you're allowed to transfer onto that. So you might be stuck where you are unless you want to pay over the odds over the coming winter.

it's on the news that Bulb is about to go under.

There is clearly a real issue here as so many energy companies are failing, and the Government really needs to step in.

The big six are

Scottish power
British gas
EDF
Eon
Ovo who took over SSE
And npower

Being the biggest they are less likely to go bankrupt.

The smaller companies will / had offered cheaper tariffs and having fewer customers could/ can answer calls quicker.

Some large companies have subcontracted call handling to third parties. Scottish power and npower use kura. Ovo use teleperformance.
British gas use a company with offices in India and South Africa.
Third party companies are more target driven and kura tell staff to deal with an average call in eight minutes otherwise raise a callback "promise".

Has anyone had any more up to date info from/about Bulb? Still can't find anything about them going bust and there nothing on their app.

I dont see much info. This issue is the number of customers they have (1.7million I think) so a single supplier isn't likely to want to take them all on.

A good place to find out about companies going bust and about fixed and variable tariffs, the energy price cap etc etc is the MSE forum forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/energy

It is true that all the good deals have finished now. I am one of the people who changed supplier every year in order to keep my bills low. My supplier went bust at the same time as many of the other smaller and good companies in the last couple of months, and I just managed in time to get a decent 2 year fixed deal well below the energy price cap.

My energy bill has nevertheless increased from £140 a month to £240 a month (large, draughty Victorian house in London tbf!). It would have been a good deal higher if I had been forced to be on the energy cap standard variable rate offered by the Big Six company that took over my old supplier's customers.

People have no idea how this is going to affect them. I can see this from the comments on this thread. This is going to be the next big shit storm after Covid - it affects everyone and it is a huge extra cost for people when the country still hasn't found where its own arse is after Brexit. This is going to really hurt.

Essentially - if you are with a company about to go bust then sit tight because you will at least be transferred onto the price cap tariff (standard variable rate) under your new, Ofgem-appointed supplier of last resort, rather than the much, much higher tariffs that are the only other option.

The price cap tariff is now well under the actual cost of energy, and is capped only until next April. At that point, we will just have to pray that the situation will be magically better.

* Bulbs gone under and so have the smaller companies. *

News to me! I’m with bulb and all seems fine

Stay away from Eon too; they've not billed me since May, and though I wouldn't mind having free fuel (!!) it can't go on forever

Talk to someone? Do me a favour; they actually want people to contact them through Facebook or ... wait for it ... Twitter Suitable no doubt for small home-based businesses, but a supposedly professional, major power supplier?

I don't think so ...

@lentilsforever have you seen the news ?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10229901/Government-steps-millions-taxpayer-cash-prop-Bulb-Energy.html

Bulb are "too big to fail" apparently.

No change for customers in the short term.

@FanGirlX

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10229901/Government-steps-millions-taxpayer-cash-prop-Bulb-Energy.html

Bulb are "too big to fail" apparently.

No change for customers in the short term.

There should be never any customers who face the impact of a market gone haywire. Whether handed by ofgem or SAR the process is the same although I would argue probably more secure through SAR (that's just my personal opinion don't jump me for it)

Hopefully though most people would have locked in their contracts by now anyway.

*Relatively the same from a customer perspective. (Correction to the above)

Not from who actually foots the bill obviously.

People have no idea how this is going to affect them. I can see this from the comments on this thread. This is going to be the next big shit storm after Covid - it affects everyone and it is a huge extra cost for people when the country still hasn't found where its own arse is after Brexit. This is going to really hurt.

Exactly, I agree that people don't know how this will affect them. I think we'll start to hear more about it over winter. Some people are looking at massive energy bill increases, when they come off fixed rates.

We're expecting another price cap raise in April too, apparently. Although, as it's spring, people may not notice this until later in the year.