Switching Energy provider offer in feed

At the end of the day it’s all about the money right? I got £50 credit just for using someone else’s Bulb referral. I also got 3x £50 by referring new customers. That’s £200 credit and I’ve only been 2 months with Bulb.

They may withdraw their referral credit offer at any time, but while I’m quids in I’m happy staying with Bulb.

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Do bulb take over the smart meter if you have one? I’m thinking of switching but I quite like the meter - I try to use less than the budgeted amount each day.

Never thought I’d game myself out of using electricity!

Thing is just comparing DD amounts isn’t a great way to compare tariffs. Energy companies will deliberately set their DD amount lower than what you currently pay to get you to switch. Then, during the year they’ll raise them to cover your actual usage. You need to directly compare unit prices and standing charges.

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Why do all the switching sites make is so difficult to get the raw data?

I don’t need them to work out how much I will use, I just want the standing charge and cost per kW/h

Agreed. But I guess switching sites aren’t neutral. They get commission which will vary by provider. So there’s an incentive to promote certain companies over others. Subtly.

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Use the moneysavingexpert cheap energy club and you can drill down to this information, although it is already doing the calculation you’d have to do manually by multiplying this up with your actual usage.

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There should be an all together opt out for this kind of thing.

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Monzo need to tread carefully with just bunging adverts in my bank transaction fees, which I view as sacred. I can deal with it in Facebook and Twitter because if it gets annoying and outweighs those social networks I’ll just dump their free service. But my banking is mission critical. It may have been a targeted test (ie. choosing CA testers with specific balances/spending patterns) but it wasn’t targeted to the point of those of us who pay our energy DD through Monzo, because I don’t. So it felt like spam, as how can Monzo say it will save me money when they don’t know my usage and energy spend?

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A horrid mix of big data to predict who you are, and average spending in a region?

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Bulb are not currently offering smart meters, which is why I didn’t go to them. Suspect they would take over the smart meter but use it as a dumb one. Sure someone can confirm.

Open the feed item, tap “No Thanks”, then “No, never ask me again”. :slightly_smiling_face:

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That would work if there weren’t other factors to consider like the duel-fuel yearly cash back amount, referral credits, paperless billing discounts etc. As others have pointed out Bulb are not the cheapest on tariffs but they can work out cheaper if you take advantage of the referral credits.

I agree.

To add some context to this discussion Tom was asked about how Monzo would stop Monzo becoming an (annoying) advertising venue at July’s open office.

He acknowledged the fact that it’s difficult to figure out where to draw the line - which is obviously partly what tests like this one are for. But ultimately he said that

if a bunch of people say that “I really hate this, get out of my feed” we just won’t do it anymore

hopefully that helps put some user’s minds at ease :slight_smile:

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Monzo don’t need to do that, they have the actual data. Hence the advert felt clumsy.

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Yes but the cashback, dual fuel, only use it on alternate Saturdays stuff is all about confusing the market in which the only real differentiator is the unit cost of a commodity.

Bulb are refreshing in that they are trying to cut through that and I’d like to support it.

Even without factoring in the rebates etc, I’d argue it’s more useful to see your yearly cost based on actual usage than the raw standing charge and price per unit, as on their own they are not that helpful.

You’re still going to have to do some maths to work out whether a given tariff is cheaper or not (low SC + high PPU against high SC + low PPU), so it makes sense for the comparison site to do that for you (I’m not talking here about the putative direct debit that might be offered, just the actual cost per year).

Also, since we’re talking about bulb, the initial quote they give which gives a indicator cost and saving is highly misleading as it doesn’t use any information about your actual usage (for me it suggests I would save >£200 a year, when I know for a fact it will cost me more).

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Ultimately these sort of things will have a home in the app, but we aren’t at that point yet and are just taking baby steps right now :grinning:

We take all feedback on board so it’s interesting to read all the thoughts in here! Thanks all!

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Yes. My point was do an independent cost analysis (use a comparison site) and don’t rely on a seemingly ‘cheaper’ direct debit amount direct from the competitor.

Agreed, I would put it more strongly than that and say never use the quoted direct debit amount.

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Agreed. I need more characters.