Genuinely Disinterested Service for Advice on Electricity Providers. Does It Exist?

Diji1 on 22/06/2015 - 14:39

I'm sure I don't need to tell everyone on here about what a cluster**** the whole energy privatisation thing has been.

Rather than the promised magical fairyland of lowered prices through competition we now have the highest prices in any developed nation last I heard. This has been achieved by the elected gummints allowing energy retailers to create a system where it's a truly laborious process to do a true comparison between energy providers and plans are structured in order to skew the consumers sense of value if this laborious process isn't carried out. In two states, including where I live, the retailers are allowed to set their own prices and price increases every six months.

In order to "fix" this problem which only exists thanks to energy provider lobbying there are various services that one can use to supposedly calculate the cheapest plan for you for free. They're are free because they're paid a commission for referring you and they insist that this this means they still give the best advice for you lel …

So anyhow I'm trying to find answers to a problem I have: what are a providers obligations if I request a tariff change on a standing contract? At the moment I have an amount owning which I didn't expect. The idiotic and confusing terms of the standing contract state that I may request a change of tariff at any time but they will only grant it to customers that meet the criteria.

Naturally, what the criteria are and where one might find these mysterious things isn't explained. And I cannot find it after a lot of searching. I wish to know if they are obligated to change tariffs upon request or not.

Is there some service I can ring that isn't paid a commission and isn't the vampire in charge of the blood bank that anyone knows of that I can call to find this out? It seems ridiculous that I can't find the answer to this question but there you go. Maybe I'm a crap searcher. Maybe they hid it so people have trouble finding it, who knows.

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Comments

  • RockyRaccoon on 22/06/2015 - 15:07
    +4

    It seems more like you are making a statement rather than asking a question.

    Trying to sort out the dribble in your "preamble" to understand what this is, probably the same issue the others that you talk to, have as well.

    KISS

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle

    • Diji1 on 23/06/2015 - 11:09
      +1

      Fair point, I did have a rant.

  • Baysew on 22/06/2015 - 15:51

    There is a Victorian Government comparison site

    (Not sure if this a Genuinely Disinterested Service for Advice on Electricity Providers)

  • dom on 22/06/2015 - 20:21

    Quite a rant there.

    Your retail tariff is based on an underlying network tariff. Network tariff changes are at the mercy of the distribution business, each of which has different criteria for each tariff.

    Where are you located (postcode)? I can provide more useful advice based on this if you genuinely want to move tariffs.

    If you are in VIC then there is a comparison site listed in the previous comment from Baysew.

    ACT/NSW/SA/TAS - http://www.energymadeeasy.gov.au
    QLD - http://comparator.qca.org.au

  • GnarlyKnuckles on 23/06/2015 - 00:04

    "… what are a providers obligations if I request a tariff change on a standing contract?"

    I assume, they are not obliged to do anything that you request; because it's a "standing" contract. I.e. it's sommat you've already agreed to. All that the text you found says is that you "may request a change of tariff at any time"; that implies that they are under no obligation to actually grant you any change from the standing contract that you may request; only that you are able to make a request. Which is common sense anyway. I think you've misinterpreted that piece of the text that you have quoted, as implying that they are under some sort of obligation to grant you a change to a standing contract, if you request it. I don't think they are; why would they be?

    • Diji1 on 23/06/2015 - 11:19

      Well I don't know why they would be obliged which I guess is the point of my rant (which I didn't make clear).

      The real issue is they make the statement that you may request this and they will grant you the concession change if you meet criteria.

      They do not explain what the criteria are in this contract document. They explain that the criteria is in another document. They do not tell you the name of the document nor do they link to it in any way from that contract document.

      How am I to know if the criteria is just one point: "You must be a customer of this company and we must change it due to legislation." - they must grant me the concession change in this case.

      Or maybe it's: "You must be paying 30% more than an average household of your size."

      Or maybe it's: "We at our sole disgression decide whether you get a concession or not"

      Where do I find this information from a disinterested party without spending hours on internet searches?

  • GnarlyKnuckles on 23/06/2015 - 13:16
    +1

    'Or maybe it's: "We at our sole disgression decide whether you get a concession or not"'

    I think you can safely assume that is the one that applies. I bet the 'criteria' is actually that you must be contemplating switching to another company/ willing to pay an exit-fee to do so/ be able to direct them to a lower advertised rate than the one you are on with them; then they'll 'price-match' or 'price-beat', to retain you as a customer. I bet the 'other document' they nebulously allude to is essentially an 'in-house' document/set of criteria they apply in cases where the customer threatens to switch providers.

  • Diji1 on 23/06/2015 - 19:42

    Gosh today was fun …

    Rang AGL to ask them what the criteria are. Got repeatedly shuffled from "resolution team" to er … "resolution team" with the question. Finally get to someone who "knows" and what they know is that SA Power Networks handles this. I point out that this isn't what the AER site says. They insist. Ring SA Power Networks. They tell me that AGL just told me a bunch of hoohah. Rang them back. Ended up calling 5 times in all lel with repeated cases of "we don't set the prices" followed by me saying yes you do according to the AER website to which the reply is "oh yes you're right about that" completely casually like lyinbg is part of the script.

    The finality of all this was some guy promising to call me back with a web address for the mystery document …

    Naturally this is interspersed with repeatedly asking me if I want solar panels and hot water services which I'm not calling about LEL …

    Just a goddam nightmare to deal with.

    I called Momentum Energy afterwards and like … dayum, they helped me in 5 minutes so it ain't like I'm asking for the world here :|

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