Ok --- Fixed - Variable?!?!?!?! Gas & Electric -- soooo confused

[brainache]

Im with Atlantic and i had a guy from NPower come round, he said he will fix my rates till Aug 09 + £80 cash back at the end of the yr as i pay d/d for both.
Called Atlantic up and they said their moving me to their Variable tarrif that promises to charge 2% lower than the price. They said they are the last to put their prices up and the 1st to drop them

Part of me wants to stay with Atlantic (had lots of hassle switching from BG to Atlantic in nov)

Will the prices really go down?? oh im confused.
Im trying to switch my mum also and she wants to be on a fixed rate but we're confusing each other

Any advise??

martin lewis says fix rates

dont remember any of my bills ever going down for anything.
i wouldnt switch just incase they go down, more likely to go up.

Im with Atlantic already and their the ones saying about 1st to lower.

Just searched energyhelpline and Npower did not come up in the search for fixed. Also when i searched with my mums prices, the cheapest fixed one was -£84 (-14%)saving?? Oh also thats the company shes already with... God im so confused. Should i try calling her company and and get them to change her over to this fixed one. -14% saving now but with the prices going up it will work its way out surely?
Also she get tesco points with these lol

Can i ask a dumb question - whats Economy 7? just noticed that my mums on no standing charge economy 7 tarrif......

Just searched on Energyhelpline and the capped/fixed tarrifs are coming up as Expected savings -£185 (-27%) ???
So should i switch to capped/fixed tariff?
Are the prices going to go up more than 27%?

Just called Atlantic back and the variable tariff is not available to Atlantic cutomers, Atlantic is 1 part of 3 companies and its available to one of them ......
Think im just going to stay put for the moment

As someone who worked for npower, stay away from them as a company. They are a bit cut throat in their sales hence cold calling.

Go onto www.moneysupermarket.com and do a price comparison on there, they will list all the variable rates at the top, scroll down and the fixed rates are at the bottom.

We are in Yorkshire and with Scottish Power and we fixed the second EDF put their rates up as we had email from Martin Lewis moneysavingexpert website to say FIX FIX FIX.

Have just advised my Mum to do the same and she has.

Economy 7 is usually used by people who have electric storage heaters, or use things like washing machines/tumble driers/dishwashers at night.

Instead of having only one charge they have 2 rates one for the day usually a bit higher than a standard rate but the night rate is really low. The meter automatically switches over to the low rate for 7 hours (hence economy 7) because the storage heaters use a lot of electric to charge up -hence the cheaper rate.

I used to bill, trace and debt collect for npower for many years. I wouldn't go with anyone who cold calls me.

Also just to say that the negative saving (ie no saving) is based on the current tariffs, companies are putting their prices up with immediate effect so technically if they go up by more than 27% you are laughing.

We have actually managed to save on ours before the prices go up.

Cheers
When i searched for my mum Eon come 1st with 2 tariffs for fixed/capped and mums with them already, tried to call them and some-one is ment to be calling her back, trying to see if we can switch her over. For some reason shes on Economy 7.....she has no storage heaters though?

Watch with NPower - they cost us a fortune promised the earth and our bills were far more expensive - got pretty much harassed when we decided to change back - Phone calls and letters asking us to stay with them and there was something on watchdog about them too that i really didn't like read about it here

That does not sound good does it redhead81.

I think im going to call npower tomorrow and cancel this door-to-door contract. Think im going to take my chances and stay with Atlantic

Cheers everyone :-)

brainache, re your Mum's economy 7 rate - if you look at your Mum's bill you will see what she uses at night, now don't get scared but if you add the units used at night to the units used in the day you will get her total unit usage. Then multiply that number by the standard rate you can tell if she is on the best tariff.

(if I am teaching you to suck eggs then ignore me - if the unit price is 8.71 pence per unit you just put 0.0871 into the calculator to get the decimal place into the right place for making it into pounds and pence)

Her electricity company should be able to work it out but I have myself come across someone trying to work out what my monthly direct debit should have been and it was laughable how she was trying to do it.

I am glad you are cancelling npower, the people who cold call have never worked for npower they are just a sales team, they are given info and then go door knocking. npower nearly lost their licence to trade because of the cold calling!

Really loosing their licence.

Well i have canceled that contract but am now changing to E-on lol

Called to change mum over to their fixed 2009 tariff and got speaking to the guy about me.
For me the unit price on the elec will go up 7p and 3p ish but thats fixed where as with Atlantic we're still waiting for their increase and that moneysavingexpert website says there will be another increase in jan 09 between 40%-70%. So i think (and hope) i have done the best. If prices go up less then 40% then i'll be crying but if they go up more than 40% i'll be laughing (i hope)