💡🐙 Bulb and ex-Bulb Octo customer chat

To counter most peoples good feedback, I’ve actually had a fairly poor start with Bulb.

  • Ignored my meter readings and charged me double what I used.

  • I raised a complaint and they sent it to Scottish Power - got rejected. I’m not surprised I was never with Scottish Power and I’d already organised leaving EON, I had smart meters and thus had settled the difference.

  • Finally reimbursed me the difference.

  • Charged me double again this month despite submitting two readings this month.

For me, they seem just as crap as any other energy supplier. Plus if you ever have a problem they have the most poorly staffed live chat service in the world, think Monzo at the height of its Cop trouble, but waiting even longer after every response.

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Bulb has consistently not been the cheapest option in my last two annual switches. Hasn’t even come close.

I’m really struggling with readings with them at the moment too :frowning:
They just ignore my submitted ones!

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Same, they’re a pain in the arse.

Been with Bulb at least 2 years if not longer, cheapest for me on every check and some time last year also signed up for the homewarm discount, Transfered my mother over to them started the process in July but the current suplier at the time for some reason when the 1st gen smart mtr was fitted changed the billing method to a two rate mtr was was incorrect so that one failed to transfer so have having to tell OVO 3 times the correct the mtr type at the National DB, they finally got it correct and Bulb completed the transfer for Dual fuel on Xmas day, as the Bulb promotion at the time was £100 and when we actually got over to correct the mtr the promo had finished but Bulb still creietd £100 to each account, my mother is still waiting for the finial bill from OVO and still took a DD payments for Dual fuel in both Jan & Feb, I called OVO to sort this around 11 Feb my mother messaged me yesterday saying still no final bill or refund :wink:

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Enjoyed the narrative, but that sure was a long sentence :astonished::grin:

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Aim to please or just too lazy to grammar :joy:

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@simonb how did you manage to get a nest? I’ve got one, but it’s the 1st generation which I got free with npower including installation.

@nanos this practice is true and correct - I myself never understood why suppliers use estimated reads, especially when the customer has provided one. The only reason they must do it, is because a lot of customers don’t actually provide a reading for COS (change of supply) and each company needs to close and then open an account.

You won’t loose out on money as if your old supplier closed on a higher reading, then your reads will need to catch up with your new supplier.

Bulb put their prices up from 19th April

The price of wholesale energy has increased, and is now 31% higher than in September due to the extra cold weather we’ve experienced. This means we have to change our prices to reflect the true cost of energy.

Not sure I quite understand this bit though! Pretty sure every winter there’s usually a high demand which mean prices go up. Now if they’d emailed at the end of Autumn to say, blah blah historically it’ll cost more so prices are going up to cover this then fair enough.

It doesn’t quite wash with me with spring and summer arriving, surely the wholesale cost goes down :thinking: or am I missing something critical out of my thinking?

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I wonder how the prices compare to Octopus now…

Apart from Standing Charge Bulb are very slightly lower. SC is £0.06 higher with Bulb. R-

I can’t say you’re wrong, but given the choice I’d rather pay more per kW in summer when I use less, than in winter when I use more.

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Ah, staying with :bulb: then

Just started a switch to :octopus:

Was always moving to them at some point in the future so might as well do it now as the prices are pretty much similar now with the incoming increase.

If I leave bulb for octopus it’ll only be when I’m able to switch to agile. It requires agreeing to a smart meter installation and they’re unable to provide me with one.

I don’t see how agile would work for me. I don’t leave appliances running unsupervised since the self-combusting washer and dishwasher saga. I don’t have a drive to charge an electric car but my oven is electric. In what circumstances does agile make sense?

For me, I tend to work from home through the night, where the rates are very cheap. So I’m more often than not using most over night. With the exception of perhaps the refrigerator and my home network/server, no appliances or devices are usually using electricity during the peak hours.

The Agile tariff, in theory, should save me a lot of money. By my math, up to 40% per month.

For me it will be charging my sons wheelchair and bi-pap machine once we get the latter, even at 50% for my sons wheelchair it’s seems to take at least 6hrs to be fully charged and is brand new.

Agile was created for IFFIT and WiFi enabled appliances IMO :joy:, granted its not going to be used with a fridge freezer or cooker, but dishwasher, tumble dryer and washing machine I assume you could create a recipe to start working when the pricing is x

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