New Electricity Rates - Cheapest Provider?

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  honkyb on 02/08/2012 - 22:51

  Don't know but I called around and origin gave me 17% discount in electricity and 12% on gas I need to pay on time and have direct debit and combine both gas and electricity plus they gave me 50 bucks on my first bill as a credit all this on a 12 month contract good enough for me

  • 

    POWERevolution on 02/08/2012 - 23:14

    +2

    sound good but did they quoted you the rates?

    • 

      honkyb on 06/08/2012 - 22:38

      Im going to call them to morrow ahd find out the rates

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        Holysmoke on 13/09/2012 - 23:26

        so what are the rates?

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  nickj on 03/08/2012 - 15:11

  +3

  There are standard govt specified rates, which most of the providers have as their standard rate (it's what you'll be on if you haven't haggled or changed from their standard price). I think these rates are different in different states - e.g. you're in SA, and I think you need to compare with other people in SA. Then usually the providers quote a discount from that standard rate (e.g. 10% off).

  If it helps, I went through this haggling recently, here's what happened: I was with Origin (standard govt rate, silly me, had meant to change but never got around to it) and got made an offer by AGL door-to-door salesman (12% off electricity and 10% off gas on a 2 year contract), which I took up. Then I got made a counteroffer by Origin when they got my paperwork to transfer to AGL ($75 electricity credit which I got pushed up to $175, $75 gas credit, 13% off electricity and 10% off gas, on a 1 year contract, and they'd pay any termination fees from AGL), then got made a counter-counter-offer by AGL when I called up to cancel my transfer to them (15% off electricity and 10% off gas, and that was their final best take-or-leave-it offer). In the end I stayed with Origin because it was better for me with the credit, and I got their sales rep to specify in writing in email that they would match AGL's "movers guarantee", which says that the contract ends with no penalties if you move to another address (as for some weird reason this condition was not in their standard terms and conditions). I could have got 1% extra off with origin for using direct debit, but I really like to know that I'm the one paying my bills when the amount varies and is significant (I'm okay with DD for phone and Internet, because they're fixed small monthly amounts, but power is much more and it's not fixed and it's once a quarter).

  So effectively on my roughly $1400 annual power bill, it was (1400-175)*0.87/1400 = around a 24% discount, around $340 off the year's bills. I should diarize to go through the same dance in one year's time, but the calls and checking terms and conditions and so forth were rather tedious. I suppose that's what they're counting on! Oh well, a true OzBargainer would play them off against each other again, so I've added it to my calendar the chore of doing this in a year's time.

  So as far as I can tell, anything equivalent to an effective rate of 14% or more off is pretty good, and is getting close to about as far as they'll go. I saw a rate of 16.5% off on OzB a few weeks back, that seemed pretty good. To get better than that you probably need a credit for switching, plus a discount. And when you get to the stage of haggling over 1%, it's time to stop and just deal. Think of it in terms of an hourly rate, and you can spend forever haggling over $10 - but at some point it's just not worth it. I'd suggest call everyone apart from Origin (who seem pretty keen to grow), and then call Origin last and ask what they can do, tell them what you got elsewhere if it's better, get them to beat it, and request a credit on your account too. That's probably the best you can do at the moment.

  Sorry about the super-long post! TL;DR : learn to shop around.

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  SamApp on 03/08/2012 - 15:53

  For 3 year offers - that's a long time commitment. It doesn't stop TRU from raising rates above what you're currently on now as well. And when you try to leave - there's an exit fee too. 1-year contracts are generally better for the consumer. TRU is about to float on the stock market and thus are desperate to boost its numbers.

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  CuteBirdy on 05/08/2012 - 17:58

  +1

  People get sucked in by the % discount all the time, you need to examine the actual rates. There's no point having a slightly higher % discount, if the actual rates are a lot more.