Switching electric/gas providers (see first post for links)

based on the very short conversation i had with the sales guy, i wouldn't trust them to hold to that agreement (conversations with customer service people were far better, in fairness)

Yuno Energy are a joke shop.

Went to switch to them last week. Got a call from one of their reps on Tuesday: "I need your meter reading by tomorrow morning, with a newspaper or receipt in front of the meter, has to show a date from within the last week, I'll send you an email which you send the photo to". WTF.

No email came, found it in Spam yesterday. WTF. Returned a picture with the only paper evidence I have of my address and a suitable date. No dice. Wants a utililty bill or some such, otherwise they will have to disconnect me and refund a prepaid charge they took.

It's 2023 - who still buys newspapers and gets paper receipts? These jokers and ESB networks live in the stone age. Looks like I'll on look out for another provider.

Or just submit a meter reading with a recent grocery receipt in the background and a pdf of an online utility bill. It sounds straight forward enough really...

Is it? I've hopped from provider to provider over the years and was never ever asked for a photo of the meter or a utility bill, maybe they're running scared because they can't cut people off anymore which is their usual method of operation.

Get you money back and go to a proper provider, if that's how it starts imagine the hassle you'll get when the 14 day cooling off period has elapsed 😡. They're surely a joke shop but you can be sure of one thing, they won't leave themselves short of one cent, run Forrest run.

Im with yuno, have a smart meter was seamless transition. Their app is very good, can see yesterdays usage and total cost. Much cheaper then electric ireland (approx20%)who i was in contract with until end of January so paid exit fee, will have that made back on first winter bill id imagine. Yuno do take payment in advance for month ahead based on their prediction which i don't like but you canc learly see if you are above or below their prediction.

Just to point out Yuno need a card to take payment from your account and don’t do the traditional Direct Debit set up. In my case we have a specific bills account with no card attached.

@JoeCat afaik they request a smart meter on your behalf to get the benefit of it but as said previously they may need proof of up to date meter reading to be submitted with proof that it was taken on the day, this doesn’t seem to be the case if you have a smart meter already installed as they can check it themselves and check the signal to the meter whilst you are on the phone to them.

I'm just off the phone to Electric Ireland. I thought that activating your smart meter wasn't a good idea if the smart plans were not going to be good value for your usage. The reason being you had to use low/medium/peak rate plan and then could not go back to the 24 hour rate, ending up paying out more. This also meant that if you wanted to switch to a 24 hour rate with a different provider then you couldn't deactivate your smart meter and get a 24 hour rate from them.

EI say this is no longer the case. You can activate the smart meter and still get a 24 hour rate. Also they are giving a slightly higher discount if you do this. The person I talked to couldn't say if another provider would alllow this or if I would have to stay on a "low/medium/high Smart Plan" if I switched to another provider after my contract is up.

Essentially, are consumers now activating the smart meters and sticking to a 24 hour rate, which for many was better value? Has the warning to not activate the smart meter gone away since I last looked into this?

Doing this annual provider assessment is a pain. It is hard to compare like with like. When I hear back here on the smart meter activation issue I'll plug in the numbers again tomorrow, with a fresh mind!😅

I switched to SSE a few weeks ago. I have a smart meter, but I was on a 24hour plan with EI. I did the switch over the phone with SSE, they confirmed that I could stay on a 24hour plan if I switched to SSE.

I got my first bill a few days ago. They have put me on smart tariff with different rates for Day, Night and Peak. I'm having huge difficulty getting this issue resolved.

The last thing I want to do, is to be worrying about when I use electricity.

Don't forget to consider standing charges etc. Also, if you have a low consumption, then there may be more attractive cashback offers available.

They won’t resolve it, once you’re on a smart tariff that’s the end of it sadly

Energia do a day night smart tariff so no peak rate which might be better

followed and used this thread under another guise last year but back again after another frustrating experience on the phone with EI.

Was on a 22% dual fuel discount last November, had got it after a few calls and eventually through a manager in retention. This time I got offered the standard 10% discount and got told as of November the 1st there’s no loyalty or retention department any more? Find that hard to believe.

No manager available today so holding out to try get a bigger discount next week. Anyone get a better discount? I’ve a bit of credit and some voucher for EI so don’t want to move. They are working out cheapest to me this time around compared to what Energia / SSE have offered by phone. But the 10% discount is essentially a price rise by about 2c per unit as per my calculations this year. If I can get to 14/15% off I’d be happy enough.

You only have to activate a smart meter to go on a smart tariff. You're never forced to activate. Some smart tariffs are 24hour smart tariffs and look like normal plans.

If you want to stay on a normal 24 hour plan, you can remain unactivated.

I would query that with issue with a sales supervisor. They record all calls.

Make sure you contact them over email as they didn't have records of several calls I had made related to insanely overcharged estimated bills. You have to be really explicit with your complaints and questions with SSE , I found, as they have a tendency to reply quite succinctly with 'computer says no' type responses.

I eventually switched suppliers after months of issues.