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Thinking of trying Victorian Energy Compare to find the cheapest energy plan? We decided to give it a try, and got a little more than we bargained for…
In case you’re unfamiliar with it, the Victorian Energy Compare is web-based application, run by the Victorian Government. Electricity and gas suppliers load their plans into their application, which allows customers to find their cheapest plan from what is loaded.
One of our Umpires ran their own business electricity plan through the app to see what savings they could find.
So What Happened? The result was for the ‘Simply Energy-VIC Business Plus 43′ plan. That plan includes a 43% pay on time discount. According to Victorian Energy Compare, the cost without discount is $1020, versus $580 after the discount is applied.
But the math doesn’t actually stack up. These figures imply that the discount is applied across the entire bill, instead of just the usage.
Actually, the discount on this plan is just for usage, so the actual amount after discount is $794, not $580. So it appears that the plan was loaded incorrectly in this case.
There is no way of knowing if this were an accidental error. We’ve seen a number of errors in recent times. The worst case we’ve seen was when Powerdirect plans for business had the discount double counted, so that they looked very cheap on Victorian Energy Compare but were not cheap at all. (Powerdirect are an AGL brand). This error continued for an extended period.
In any case, if you have joined Simply Energy via this website, we implore you to at least contact them to find out if you are being charged correctly and are receiving the discount that you expected.
Better still, why not find out if there is an even better deal out there for you. In our experience, Simply Energy are not among the cheapest providers and we are confident that we can do better for you.
Here at Energy Umpire, we pride ourselves on ensuring you get the cheapest deal and make sure you are always getting the cheapest price possible by comparing all plans, and all suppliers in the market.
Why not try us today, and see what we can find for you.
Our savings were found by checking the discount application – discount of 43% applied to whole of bill using their tool, whereas the actual discount will only be applied to the usage component of the bill.