The Poolie Bunker

Had a letter from my electricity supplier raising my monthly payment from £64 to £88….yet I’m in credit by over £200…saying it’ll…. ‘help to keep a healthy balance in your account’……well it won’t…because it’ll be keeping a healthy balance in YOUR account.
Or are there gonna be more price hikes in the pipeline.

No.
The wholesale price of oil & gas has dropped again & people SHOULD be paying less,shortly.

We are talking power companies here.

got a communication from the gas supplier last year questioning our correct meter readings. in there eyes we were not using enough gas and came round to check. what next, will we get cut off we we do not use the amount they want us to use.

The power companies tell you pay by monthly DD and you get a better deal, just think how much money they are holding in their bank of your money earning interest for them but nought for you ?

if only getting your money back was easy it would not bother me as much them having it. know it can be done but they do not make it as easy as they should or could.

And this is why I refused and always will refuse the scam of the Smart Meter.
Were DD is in with it.

I just pay for what I use every 3 months.
The stupid bastads have finally given up on trying to get me on a smart meter after about 500 e mails.

It’s easy enough, run your account in debit the same as you should do with your bank accounts, use your free overdrafts to the limit, just keep it within 1p of the limit.

I switched to Ecotricity. They do a variable D.D. So you just always pay for that month - the actual bill.

Before with Scottish Power, quite big balances would build up and then they would write threatening stuff like "to get your account back on track/to stop you going into debt" they would up the DD when it got anywhere near a zero balance. They wanted it both ways.

Sorry. I meant to say that with a smart meter and Octopus Active tariff I paid 16 p/kWh for my electricity last month compared to over 27p under a standard variable rate. Smart meters can save you a lot of money.

Till we all have one…then….l

We all save money!

Power companies put fear factor into people, they employ people to do it, did our parents ever pay direct debits ?

Mine certainly did, as I had to cancel them when me mam died last August. Fortunately she made me a joint bank account holder after me dad died, but I am still fighting to get the £200+ credit she was in with her energy supplier.

Advice to people with elderly parents - have a discussion with them NOW about lasting power of attorney.

if hey were all that good everyone would have them without them being pushed or bribed.

The advertising campaign for them has been atrocious. It's got very little to do with being able to view your consumption its all about shifting your consumption into cheap periods of energy production. Avoid peak times and you can save a fair bit off your bill.

A Will is more important is it not, a Death Certificate will give you access to their bank accounts etc,PoA if they are still alive and might end up in a home unable to attend to their affairs.
Lad died very suddenly here a couple of weeks ago, Studio Apt here and flat in the U.K., he never left a Will for either here or in the U.K. now his daughter in the U.K. has to sort his affairs out. His partner here had to borrow money for his cremation which his daughter will reimburse her once she sorts his affairs which won’t happen in a hurry as it will go to probate.

On the news this morning that this middle East shit is Gunna sky rocket energy bills again.

And put the block on Interest rates cuts.

No, once the market is stitched up the real face replaces the mask….water companies are a shining example of how to screw the punters.
Personally I’d happily go back to a quarterly bill…but that would screw their nice little earner……

I think you are confusing two issues here Mr Snowy. Smart tarrifs that price electricity half hour by half hour mimic the wholesale market whereprices are set half hour by half hour. The option is there to save money if you can utilise the times when prices are low and avoid the times when prices are high. The issue of large balances is a sperate thing. Personally I've not had any problem in getting refunds. It would be better if interest was paid on surpluses but thats not the way it works. It's a bit like banks that pay no or nominal rates of interest on many accounts. If you don't keep on top it they rip you off.

With the banks, to me it's become a pain. To get the best interest you have to regularly open and close accounts and keep track. I used to quite enjoy it but it's endless - if you snooze you lose.

Lose money that is!

Exactly why should we pay in advance for a water, gas and electricity, we never did before, I can imagine the utility companies hold billions in high interest bank accounts making even more from customers.

i have more to do in the rest of my life than check energy tariffs and use it only at cheaper periods. use it when i want and need to, get annoyed with the cost, but i,m never going to wank myself off roar if i save a few bob that will end up being spent anyway.

Your point about a will is pertinent, but there wasn't one in the case of me mam and dad. Everything was verbal between me and my sister, our late father and my mother.

Before her death, she did end up in a care home with dementia, and this is when the problems began. It took nearly six months for this to be made permanent, and obviously we couldn't give up her rented property until the decision was made.

Naturally, this meant her monthly DDs were still being paid - for services to an empty house - and this was where I realised that we should've talked about PoA.

Almost everyone involved was very understanding, and I got most things sorted without too much hassle once they were shown copies of the Deprivation of Liberty documents and photo ID of me. BT were awkward for a while, but because of the joint bank account I had the power to cancel the DD, and after giving them three warnings I did so, and it was eventually resolved.

But her piss-taking energy company would not budge even when I cancelled the Direct Debit. I gave up after she started having a series of strokes in the care home that eventually claimed her life.

Now she's gone, and I am finally recovered enough for the fight, I will be pursuing the matter further.

Eon Next by any chance..?

I ask because I too am over 200 squid in credit, and got exactly the same phrase about "keeping a healthy balance" when I queried this.