Choosing electricity provider just took all of my energy
5:20pm Sunday 23rd October 2011 in Colin Baker
THE reason that websites such as ‘Compare the Muntjac.com’, ‘Go Quite Spare’ , ‘U-twitch’ etc are so successful is because the Insurance and utility providers have constructed tariffs that defy comprehension by anyone outside their industries, apart perhaps from the wonderful Martin Lewis who fights a lone battle against the baffle ‘em and rip ‘em off culture.
If he has done nothing else to wring a cheer from all sectors of the population, then David Cameron’s promise to work to create an energy market that is ‘trusted simple and transparent’ might do it.
Let’s hope it’s more than just words. Last time I tried to decipher the tariffs for electricity, I retired hurt and finally changed almost randomly to one that seemed better to my befuddled brain, whilst fondly remembering the days before choice, when power was one simple comprehensible price.
The great deity Choice hasn’t worked always in the way that it was intended – i.e. to bring prices down.
At its simplest form, just look at prices in supermarkets where they label similar adjacent products at cost per 100 grams and cost per kilo in an attempt to befuddle the shopper.
Energy providers offer tariffs that are capable of true comparison only if you spend an hour with a mathematician analysing the implications in relation to your past bills and consumption.
The days of x shillings a pound or y pence a therm are long gone, alas. And small print bedevils all deals. They never put the good stuff in small print, do they?
Today I spent an hour renewing my car insurance, which wouldn’t have been too bad had I not spent an hour doing precisely that on Friday last.
Having had a letter confirming the renewal at price A yesterday, I received another offering me a renewal at price A minus £200 today.
When I phoned to query this, I was told I had no insurance at all. Having checked the computer, they apologised, said yes I had renewed it, but the computer had somehow failed to register that fact (entirely their fault – sorry) and I would have to start all over again.
In the event, after grumbling mightily, I saved another £100.
Why that price wasn’t available in the first place is a mystery. But, I had to pay in full again and wait for a refund of the first higher premium.
‘Go Quite Spare’ is right.
