hewielewie
Well-known member
Why should he?Hes gone deaf.
Octopus Tracker scam-pyramid scheme?
- Thread starter JustTheGent
- Start date
Boro_Interlinked
Well-known member
So you not paying any Standing charges then ? How did you get out of that ? Leccy SS now 57p a day so that's over 210 missing from your formula already
joeydiaz
Well-known member
British Gas wouldn’t let me reduce online only put it up, even though I was £600 in credit. Had to go onto online chat, 500 in the queue ahead of me when I first got on, managed to reduce by £90 a month.
Andy_W
Well-known member
I'll get more enjoyment out of the grand I've saved in 6 monthsCan we factor in the loss of life enjoyment taken by the daily monitoring of gas and electricity unit rates. There’s got to be more to life than this
I find it quite enjoyable beating the system most people are on, or helping them get off that system too.Checking a notification for 10 seconds is effectively nothing, not when people have their lives filled with notifications which offer them zero benefit.
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Andy_W
Well-known member
Even if the OP is on a wind up, it's plain to see on this thread how sad that is, as people are taking it literally. It will be costing people money and making peoples lives worse. It's all very sad. I didn't expect anyone would stoop that low, but apparently it's possible.
A bit of education would help people see through it mind.
People really need to learn about the unit rates (not price cap) and what that actually means. It's easy to learn and will pay back the time to learn it very quickly. You can even go one step further and learn to know what their usage is and when, and how that differs at the time of the year and even time of day, and you can take advantage of that and save even more. The more you learn, the more you will save.
The government has cocked this up massively by not talking in unit rates, and just talking in an arbitrary "price cap bill" or "average bill", which means nothing to anyone. This is probably intentional, to not help the public learn, so the energy companies can keep exploiting them with ludicrous rates and fake protections which are actually causing them harm.
It's the same with talking DD amounts, it means little for things which are not fixed in price at the time, or where there would be no variable balance at the end! Sure trust the DD figure for your sofa, it's not going to change after 5 years and there's not going to be a variable balance at the end. This does not work with energy where the unit rate or use fluctuates, or with cars and houses etc where there's a lot more too it, and values can change significantly over time (effectively alters the total amount paid/ owed).
It really seems a lot of people have not been taught or chosen to learn some basic numerical skills related to life, or how to apply them to life and finances etc. Whether that's energy, purchases with and without resale value, costs per unit (despite what the label says), houses, cars, mortgages, finance & credit, shares, investing, pensions, ISA's, tax etc. Does any of this get taught in school these days? It wasn't when I was a kid but it's probably more valuable than 70% of the subjects I learnt at Secondary school.
A bit of education would help people see through it mind.
People really need to learn about the unit rates (not price cap) and what that actually means. It's easy to learn and will pay back the time to learn it very quickly. You can even go one step further and learn to know what their usage is and when, and how that differs at the time of the year and even time of day, and you can take advantage of that and save even more. The more you learn, the more you will save.
The government has cocked this up massively by not talking in unit rates, and just talking in an arbitrary "price cap bill" or "average bill", which means nothing to anyone. This is probably intentional, to not help the public learn, so the energy companies can keep exploiting them with ludicrous rates and fake protections which are actually causing them harm.
It's the same with talking DD amounts, it means little for things which are not fixed in price at the time, or where there would be no variable balance at the end! Sure trust the DD figure for your sofa, it's not going to change after 5 years and there's not going to be a variable balance at the end. This does not work with energy where the unit rate or use fluctuates, or with cars and houses etc where there's a lot more too it, and values can change significantly over time (effectively alters the total amount paid/ owed).
It really seems a lot of people have not been taught or chosen to learn some basic numerical skills related to life, or how to apply them to life and finances etc. Whether that's energy, purchases with and without resale value, costs per unit (despite what the label says), houses, cars, mortgages, finance & credit, shares, investing, pensions, ISA's, tax etc. Does any of this get taught in school these days? It wasn't when I was a kid but it's probably more valuable than 70% of the subjects I learnt at Secondary school.
Lottowyn
Well-known member
I had £400 credit with Eon, so I requested £300 back via their online details and they repaid it inside a week.
I believe they have a policy of you only reducing your DD by 10% in one go.
Yes, you are right. I just assume the standing charge is the same for the tracker as it is the price cap so for comparison I leave them out but they would need to be included for the direct debit.
Edit: Just checked and the standing charge is actually lower at 41.61p on the Tracker vs Flexible tariff 49.77p
ThatFragranceGuy
Well-known member
It's really easy to make a spreadsheet with a few columns for example
Gas & elec for each tariff
Do it for whatever tariff you're on, current price cap, next price cap, and a tariff you're considering
Then have rows for standing charge, unit rate, annual usage /12, annual SC formula, monthly cost formula ((annual usage/12)+SC), expected overall annual cost formula (annual usage+SC for each fuel)
Then by plugging the unit rates in for each and any tariff you're looking at you can see what you shoulder paying and what your monthly / annual cost is on each
Takes a few mins to make and very useful tool
sherlock
Well-known member
Andy_W
Well-known member
Absolutely, and it's a shame that hiding behind basic numbers and insinuations like this works with so many folk, and that they're allowed to get away with it.
They do the same with inflation, like last month insinuating that prices are falling, "Inflation is down to 6%, from 10%, we're doing great!"
Erm nope, all that means is something which was £1 in 2021 went to £1.10 in 2022 and is now £1.17 in 2023 and still rising, by 3x the normal inflation rate or 200% more than the inflation rate "should" be. Even worse is they keep pretending inflation of these such rates is going to go away anytime soon when it can't as it's underlain core inflation, and that's underlain by inflation in housing (rents and mortgages) which are about to get absolutely jacked to ludicrous levels.
JustTheGent
Well-known member
Got to reiterate that it's always good to have a discussion and debate these things properly. Scrutiny is good - not bad. The tracker is obviously working for some, but it is a tracker. If prices go up - the tracker goes up. Those prices have the potential to go higher than a variable tariff or a fixed tariff. It's all well and good saying you can just leave - but what happens if people feel obliged to stick it out. There's psychology at play that could hit people's pockets. Even more so if you've turned down a fixed rate deal you were comfortable with. That deal probably won't be available for those running from the tracker in a rising market.
It's also worth noting that Octopus themselves and entities such as Money Saving Expert make it clear there is risk involved. Indeed, MSE suggest it's difficult to know if you will actually save any money. That's a very different narrative to what's been put out on here. Octopus say the tracker has represented around a 4% saving on the average bill. That's maybe £80-£100 which doesn't sound quite as good as what some have said they are saving. There's no guarantee that the tracker won't go the other way.
I don't really see a problem with TFG making some affiliate money. TFG and Andy are just doing their thing. Sometimes they are right and sometimes wrong. I'd think about giving each of them a job if they needed one. But they wouldn't be on the forums or social media as much - I'd be clamping down on that a bit.
It's also worth noting that Octopus themselves and entities such as Money Saving Expert make it clear there is risk involved. Indeed, MSE suggest it's difficult to know if you will actually save any money. That's a very different narrative to what's been put out on here. Octopus say the tracker has represented around a 4% saving on the average bill. That's maybe £80-£100 which doesn't sound quite as good as what some have said they are saving. There's no guarantee that the tracker won't go the other way.
I don't really see a problem with TFG making some affiliate money. TFG and Andy are just doing their thing. Sometimes they are right and sometimes wrong. I'd think about giving each of them a job if they needed one. But they wouldn't be on the forums or social media as much - I'd be clamping down on that a bit.
ThatFragranceGuy
Well-known member
If the prices go up you have the option to come off it penalty free.
You claimed to have spoken to people who were paying more on the tracker, perhaps you could explain how that's even physically possible considering the unit rate and standing charge has been consistently lower? Of course the answer is because you made that up, so no such conversation actually took place of course.
Or maybe you could ask one of the people in the large thread who have switched what their bills have gone up since joining? Of course you'll struggle, because they haven't gone up.
Or maybe you could check the average savings on gastracker.uk crowd sourced data?
No deal is £700 cheaper than the price cap, plus £50 for joining. Prices went up over winter last year, it was still below price cap majority of winter. The thread clearly calls out that prices can rise and if it's something you're not comfortable with it's not the product for you, so thanks for rewording the warning people were already given.
Even if someone joined now, at what is likely to be the trackers most expensive period, they would still be on course to save money long term as tracker, as you say, is variable but follows the wholesale price. If prices do go up, so will the price cap, so they'd pay more if they weren't on the tracker.
Anyone taking a fix is basically fixing at the current price cap which is hardly a bargain.
Juninhoburger
Well-known member
A.K.A The Tucker Carlson ploy
Andy_W
Well-known member
Every post he makes is a sad fabrication. It's odd that someone would spend so much time, to try and either deceive, troll, or post so much about things with no experience or knowledge, and only on topics which will cost people money in a cost of living crisis (if they listened). How embarrassing.