The Magic of British Gas…..

This is another one of my irrelevant posts, which seem to be no less frequent recently  🙂

In late 2019, British Gas tried to get me to change to their “best value” fixed tariff rate, but I ignored their e-mails and letters as the price was more expensive than the flexible rate. It came to pass that if I had switched to their best value tariff, it would have cost me £25 more this year. I had wondered why they were so keen to get me to switch, although it makes sense now.

And, this is today’s little treat of an e-mail:

“Our cheapest like-for-like tariff is only an estimated £171.24.”

Then telling me that if I don’t sign up for this tariff soon I could end up paying £153.23 for the year. Hmmm. There is a big auto-switch button on the e-mail to click, which is located at the top, with these figures shoved at the base of the e-mail. Now, British Gas will claim that their more expensive rate is guaranteed to stay the same to allow me to forward plan, but that expensive rate also locks me in and there’s a charge of £30 to leave. I can leave their flexible rate at any time and without charge.

This is really sharp practice IMO, stating that the cheapest rate is available by just clicking a button, hoping people don’t scroll down. Although I’m more concerned currently that my electricity bill has soared to over £10 per month, that’s a by-product of not travelling as much  :/