"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
t...
"Adam Funk" wrote in message
...
"Mary Fisher" wrote:
Is that a "real" electric bill or an estimate? Utility companies
routinely overestimate so they can get interest-free loans from
their
customers.
But you pay bills in arrears ...
If you pay monthly based on the supplier's supposed estimate of your
annual consumption, the company will overestimate it in order to get
your account to run up a credit balance --- which is effectively an
interest-free loan. This is especially true if you give them a Direct
Debit mandate so they can unilaterally raise the monthly payment:
This has been discussed lots of times, once recently. You have control
over
direct debits. There's no need to pay more than you need.
My electricity and gas supplier used to give the same discount for
standing order and direct debit, and I had control over the monthly
payments.
Last summer they discontinued the SO discount. As I expected, they've
taken advantage of the DD mandate to jack up my monthly payments.
Since then I've been arguing with them over the amount and have had to
resort to using the DD guarantee to recall every other one.
They don't increase the payments without telling you in advance so that
you can discuss it with them. Reviews are in April, when if you're in
credit by more than £50 you are refunded the whole amount of the excess.
If the credit is less than £50 you can ask for a refund. You can also
negotiate the new DD payments then - or at any time but they prefer April.
You need a better supplier! I`m with Ebico, and when I contact them to
discuss my payment they ask "How much do you expect to use". I told them
how much we spent last year, and we came up with a figure that seems fairly
accurate. It`s ended up being on the high side because we`ve cut down what
we use, but if we hadn`t it would have been pretty much spot on for the
course of a year. As it is I`d rather build up a bit of a credit balance
now, so if prices go up then it`s a bit of a buffer. if prices go down then
we`ll get a decent lump sum out of them. :-)
--
Items on ebay:
http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQsassZscousesifinQQhtZ-1