It’s confession time. For more than ten years I have been advising people to save money by changing their gas and electricity supplier. It’s quick, I wrote, easy, I said, and, if you’ve never done it before I added, savings are guaranteed. Which is a rare thing in personal finance. But, and my soul is feeling better already, despite writing and broadcasting this advice for more than a decade I confess – oh how I confess – I have never done it myself! I just carried on paying British Gas and my local electricity supplier, thinking about changing but never quite getting round to it. Hey, financial journalists are subject to inertia just like the rest of you!
But now I have. And wow! It IS quick. It IS easy. And I will save – wait for it - £257 a year! If I’d only done it ten years ago!
So what got me off my backside this week? I discovered that the rules about switching have been quietly changed by the energy regulator Ofgem. And it’s bad news for customers. In the past once you switched you could switch again after just 28 days with your new supplier. That meant they could not tempt you in with a great rate and then slam up their prices three months later and fine you £100 if you tried to leave. In other words they had to treat you fairly.
But this rule has now gone. Consumer groups like National Energy Action and Energywatch opposed the change saying suppliers would "tie consumers into a…contract that will require considerably more than a 28-day notice period". But Ofgem went ahead and scrapped it even though only three energy companies actively supported the change – shame on you Centrica, E.ON, and Scottish and Southern Energy. The other suppliers didn’t and one, ScottishPower, strongly opposed the change because it "will have potentially negative implications for competition".
By a happy coincidence ScottishPower’s dual fuel tariff came out as the cheapest for me to switch to. So after checking that dual fuel was better than switching to different suppliers for my electricity and gas (it sometimes is) I clicked the button. Soon I will be paying ScottishPower for my energy. I feel morally smug – I definitely would not have switched to Centrica, E.ON, or the SSE companies Southern Electric, Scottish HydroElectric or Swalec – and financially great. £247 a year! I’d have to earn £435 to have that much to spare. Magic!
There are twelve energy switching sites. Here are three – www.simplyswitch.com, www.uswitch.com, www.theenergyshop.com. Log on today. It helps to have your last four bills handy.