ESB to offer discount to those in arrears

Catalpa1

I find this interesting, was this forced on them by the Minister, it seems not to make a lot of commercial sense, your worse customers being rewarded. Will Airtricity BGE "Turn up the heat" forgive a dreadful pun:D
and try and lose their equivalent bad payers. They are then forced back to ESB who are stuck with them.
Anyone know if your a historic BGE gas customer never changed supplier and in arrears do you get a discount

ESB customers in arrears will be able to avail of discounts of up to 6% if they join its household budget plan.
[URL="javascript:void(0)"][/URL][URL="javascript:void(0)"][/URL]ESB prices - Budget price plan is extended


The ESB, now trading a ESB Electric Ireland, has announced that customers in arrears will be able to avail of discounts of up to 6% if they join the company's household budget plan. This commits them to making an mutually agreed regular payment to clear their accounts.
The scheme is already available to social welfare recipients in arrears, who have to pay a minimum of €15 a week.
Existing customers in arrears and not in receipt of social welfare, who avail of the plan, will be expected to make payments depending on the amount of their arrears, their energy consumption and also their individual financial circumstances. Customers in arrears who have a budget control meter can also avail of discounts of up to 6%.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0415/esb-business.html

ejmaztec

Catalpa1 wrote: »

I find this interesting, was this forced on them by the Minister, it seems not to make a lot of commercial sense, your worse customers being rewarded. Will Airtricity BGE "Turn up the heat" forgive a dreadful pun:D
and try and lose their equivalent bad payers. They are then forced back to ESB who are stuck with them.
Anyone know if your a historic BGE gas customer never changed supplier and in arrears do you get a discount





http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0415/esb-business.html

Perhaps many of the customers wouldn't have been in arrears, had the ESB been allowed to drop its charges in the first place, thereby presenting them with more manageable bills?

Nody

ejmaztec wrote: »

Perhaps many of the customers wouldn't have been in arrears, had the ESB been allowed to drop its charges in the first place, thereby presenting them with more manageable bills?

Or people could simply have changed to a different supplier for a 10% discount if they had such issues...

ejmaztec

Nody wrote: »

Or people could simply have changed to a different supplier for a 10% discount if they had such issues...

If people weren't gluttons for punishment, the ESB would have lost all of its customers by now.

Catalpa1

Interesting question why would 1.something customers stay with ESB inertia??
Or were the other suppliers interested in the ABC1s and ultimately will ESB be left with those who cant pay to strick terms. there was an article in the Examiner or Times today saying something lke 280k have NO disposable income when they pay their mortgages and utility bills, So what happens when there are 2 more interest rate rises. Would a goverment allow a Semi State be it ESB or BGe carry out mass disconnections on this scale I think not This poses another question will there be enough "good customers" left for all 3 Suppliers.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Catalpa1 wrote: »

Interesting question why would 1.something customers stay with ESB inertia??
Or were the other suppliers interested in the ABC1s and ultimately will ESB be left with those who cant pay to strick terms. there was an article in the Examiner or Times today saying something lke 280k have NO disposable income when they pay their mortgages and utility bills, So what happens when there are 2 more interest rate rises. Would a goverment allow a Semi State be it ESB or BGe carry out mass disconnections on this scale I think not This poses another question will there be enough "good customers" left for all 3 Suppliers.

A. I find it hard to actually get what you are trying to say here. Maybe rephrase it.

B. As for mass disconnections - you obvoiusly don't remember the last recession in the 80s when many more people were in arrears and YES there were huge numbers of disconnections. That aside, the government don't have a lot of say in thre running of a commercial state body. What do you suggest? Let people go without paying bills and just write it off? Why would anybody bother to pay for anything?

All that said I may have taken you up wrong.

Catalpa1

Hi Srameen, sorry if I didnt make my point clear.
ESB WAS dearer that BGE and Airtricity, we are all agreed on that, this was because they were not allowed compete. Despite that and them losing I think the figure quoted was about 800k they still have over 1million. Now from what I know about marketing and Airtricity and BGEs plans and indeed the ESB ones the ideal customer is in Marketing speak an ABC1 in effect someone who will pay you by dd go on ebilling is never in arrears and whom you only have to contact to tell them the price is going up or down. Thats fine a perfectly valid business model. But that report this morning in the paper suggests that a huge number of customers of all suppliers cannot make ends meet this is before the next interest rate rises and all the other pay reductions tax increases etc. So with a declining number of Prime customers will those who need to make payment agreements and ESB have something like 150k on them effectively end up becoming the majority and does the business model of the Airtricitys of this world then become inoperable. Think BOSI who actually bought a lot of the ESB shops (great moveby the way by who ever organised it, they sold near the peak) they had a very agressive marketing campaign, the money dried up in Ireland and BOSI cut its loses and moved out.

I remember the 80s only too well, remember current limiters, you could boil your kettle but have almost nothing else on. I have always done a bit of charity work in my spare time and have seen the impact of customers losing their power and heating be it BGE or ESB it is not pretty.
My point is that and maybe I am wrong that no government in the current environment could stand by if say ESB were to start disconnecting 10k customers a month, times have moved on from the 80s and be it Joe Duffy or whom ever I think there would be an outcry. As you know the McCarthy report is up for discussion and it has suggestions as to what to do with the Semi states ESB being a prime example, some would suggest that by taking the road of acceding to Ministerial pressure (look at how Rabbitte claimed credit for this on the RTE news page) ESB is playing a very long and clever game....Dont touch us or when we are privatised half the country could be disconnected. Each disconnected household is at least one vote.

That aside, the government don't have a lot of say in thre running of a commercial state body

How is my old friend Lochlain Quinn doing hasn't he got a brother in government!!!!!!!! Not sure if your old enough to remember Paddy Powerhouse Moriarty, he froze the price of electricity for something like 10 years in the middle of the last recession. I can tell you that that decision was made at the suggestion/instruction of the government of the day.Remeber when ESB wanted to do something in Poland a few years back were they going to buy the networks or something. They were effectively stopped by the dept/minister
It will be a very interesting few years in the energy business in a country where money is tightening.

Del2005

It's not very clear from the reporting but I hope the discount doesn't go on their arrears. Would make an absolute mocker of the poor saps who've being paying on time.

I also like the irony that we now have "competition" in the electricity market between 2 public and 1 private company. But sure this is the same government, the head may have changed but the people who actually run the place are still the same, who decided that we needed competition so they forced the ESB to increase their prices so competitors could come in

I was quite happy only having the choice of one company for the cheapest electricity in Europe v's 2* now with some of the most expensive electricity in Europe.


*I don't think 2 companies with the same owner can be classed as separate.

Jesus Wept

It just goes to show how dire people are with money that they were with ESB all this time and never switched.

red_fox

I disagree with this move; if people in arrears now pay the reduced rate on their arrears then everyone should recieve a refund of the difference for the period beginning with the first inpaid bill of anyone in arrears.

Not that that will happen, but it's not right to chrage someone more because they can afford it and I think te ESBs first action was correct.

parsi

This is something that confuses me.

When it suits the ESB is beaten with a big stick and told to buck-up and act like a proper profit-driven company.

When it does it's beaten with a big stick and told to show some compassion and effectively be the provider of last-resort thus indirectly subsidising the likes of airtricity.

It really needs to be clarified what exactly is the ESB's role and how should it perform .

Catalpa1

The way this will work apparently is say you off €200, you ring them up and you both agree to pay off the €200 at €40 per week, that gives you 5 weeks to pay you are then set up on the cut price deal. You must keep to the agreement and if you dont they kick you off the discount. So the debt was incurred at the high tariff so your paying it off at that rate

tallaghtoutlaws

ejmaztec wrote: »

If people weren't gluttons for punishment, the ESB would have lost all of its customers by now.

The thing is the ESB are now the cheapest. So what seemed like a discount by switching over will now level itself out if the current prices stay the same. My parents are still with the ESB and had cheaper bills than two neighbors who are Airtricity and Bord Gais over the last few months and with ESB now changing and being the cheapest hard to see why they would ever change over now.

http://www.moneyguideireland.com/electricity-prices

dbentham

red_fox wrote: »

I disagree with this move; if people in arrears now pay the reduced rate on their arrears then everyone should recieve a refund of the difference for the period beginning with the first inpaid bill of anyone in arrears.

Not that that will happen, but it's not right to chrage someone more because they can afford it and I think te ESBs first action was correct.

I'm not too well-up on exactly what ESB-EI are proposing. Were they completely disallowing those in arrears from availing of discounts for any future electricity used until their arrears were cleared?

I do agree with red_fox's point. In the interest of fairness and equality for all, they should only allow (all) customers to avail of the new discounted rates, all starting from the same date. Existing arrears should not be discounted on consumers accounts.

That said, I think it would be grossly unfair to those in arrears, to disallow them from joining the new discounted rates whatsoever (from now onwards).

To summarize, I think that the company needs to be impartial to all it's customers, and not preferential.

Catalpa1

My understanding was that up to the change of policy if you owed say €200 and you rang for the cheaper rates, they insisted you clear the balance, by Laser card or I think you could send a cheque and once cleared they would set you up on one of the price discounts. Since the announcement you can ring up make a payment agreement and they will set you up so your bills going forward will be at a reduced rate. IF you could have paid the bill in full you would presumably have gotten the basic discount which I think is 8% you get more if you pay dd go on paperless bills.
If you go on an arrangement the reduction is about 4%.
The charity I am involved with have issued a briefing note and I skimmed through it so the above should be reasonalby correct.

wmpdd3

Yep that is it, I called and agreed a plan to pay off the last 1/2 of last months bill so I can get the discounts (I will go dd, but I will pay off the bill by internet banking before the dd is taken out).

If I had moved at Christmas to Airtricity I would have saved €6 per month.

or €4.80 per month on Bord gas..... Good thing I didn't sign up for a 12 month contract.