British Gas

I dumped British Gas and switched to Eon and hope to save £445 per annum with gas and lecky.

 

I got my electricity from British Gas but switched in July to Scottish Power - fixed til Sept 2009. Reckon it will save a few bob:thumb: Oil which is our central heating and hot water fuel has rocketed but we can't fix a rate on that. Thank goodness we have a woodburner as well. Busy gathering free wood and have just built a covered wood store down the garden. We don't have gas here.

 

So the basic opinion on British gas Capping is it is a con,A Carrot for existing customers to stay till 2011. But if thats the case surely some where over that period you should save money????? :confused:

 

I seem to have come across as a bit of a dimwit earlier (nothing new there then! ), so will keep this brief before I plunder deeper!

Signed up recently for Martin the money-expert's saving tips e-mails, and this is the info that came through today:

Did you get a cheap energy cap? Quick warning. If you followed my alert last week and grabbed one of the last cheap capped energy tariffs – hoorah! Yet let me clear up a couple of confusions.

• Capping won't cut your bills. It's likely your capped provider will cost THE SAME or a little more than you were paying. The aim was to save £100s compared to what you would’ve paid if you hadn’t capped, as you now won't be hit by the almost certain price hikes. So if you're budgeting (see the Free Budget Planner) don't decrease what you’ve provisioned for energy, as the amount you'll shell out will be roughly the same.
• Don't confuse Direct Debits with costs. An energy bill's cost depends on the rate. Yet Direct Debits are set up based on this and likely usage, and companies vary on how they estimate this. If you’ve capped, your new supplier may want a higher (or lower) Direct Debit, even if the rate's cheaper. If the Direct Debit jumps too high, call up and tell it; hopefully it’ll lower it. Even if not, you should get any overpayments back at the year's end.

If you haven't capped yet, DON'T; there's more info in the body of the email.

 

...and from the 'body' of the e-mail:

After the huge EDF & British Gas price hikes, I yelled "cap now". Yet at 5.30pm yesterday (Tues), the last cheap cap disappeared, so now I’m saying "don’t switch, don’t cap". Why don’t switch? Two of the big six energy providers have upped prices and the rest are almost certain to follow. Compare now, and by the time you’ve shifted they'll have hiked prices, possibly by more than your current provider. So hold off until all prices have moved for a fair comparison. Six ways to save now without switching: 1. Change to monthly Direct Debit, it's 10%ish cheaper. 2. Do a meter reading every time you get a bill. 3. Switch to your current supplier’s internet tariff to save 10%ish. 4. Prepay meter users: try to change to normal billing. 5. If you’re in financial hardship check out special tariffs. 6. Use less energy.