ESB massive standing charge increase?

twomeys

Hi all,

Not sure has this been discussed before but I was told today from an energy consultant that they have seen ESB bills with a new standing charge of €80 per month. Has any one any experience of this? If its true its ridiculous to charge business owners this at our worst time. She also told me customers are being moved in blocks so its not an accross the board over night increase. Surely if this is true there will be holy war?!

bungler

Yep its true they are offering a cheaper rate but not telling their customers that the standing charge can go up by 650%

stephenpalmer

bungler wrote: »

Yep its true they are offering a cheaper rate but not telling their customers that the standing charge can go up by 650%

Is this only for commercial or are we talking residential as well??? :eek:

HellFireClub

Absolutely outrageous, someone needs to take a chainsaw to the cost structure of this company, with the ESB average salary last year of €98,678, you'd have to ask what planet these people are living on, trying to pass these kind of outrageous labour costs onto small businesses that are struggling to stay open.

Greed greed and more f*cking greed is the order of the way with the ESB, send in Michael O' Leary and get all these unionised saps and arse scratchers out of the place with their €98,678 a year salaries.

Seriously, when is someone going to start making some hard decisions in this country that will put an end to this shocking public sector and semi state greed that we see, all paid for by families and small businesses that are really struggling like never before to stay on top of utility bills...

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/average-pay-and-pension-of-esb-workers-near-euro100000-2065160.html

ssbob

HellFireClub wrote: »

Absolutely outrageous, someone needs to take a chainsaw to the cost structure of this company, with the ESB average salary last year of €98,678, you'd have to ask what planet these people are living on, trying to pass these kind of outrageous labour costs onto small businesses that are struggling to stay open.

Greed greed and more f*cking greed is the order of the way with the ESB, send in Michael O' Leary and get all these unionised saps and arse scratchers out of the place with their €98,678 a year salaries.

Seriously, when is someone going to start making some hard decisions in this country that will put an end to this shocking public sector and semi state greed that we see, all paid for by families and small businesses that are really struggling like never before to stay on top of utility bills...

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/average-pay-and-pension-of-esb-workers-near-euro100000-2065160.html

Not an ESB worker myself but the figures you have quoted include the 10.75 employers PRSI, the €98,678 is total cost to the employer but still €90k a year average is ridiculous......................so much for the govt regulating this business, would hate to see it sold to a private company but at the same time it might make this industry more competitive.

Has anyone any idea how competitive we are in comparison to the rest of the world?

PhatPiggins

ssbob wrote: »

Not an ESB worker myself but the figures you have quoted include the 10.75 employers PRSI, the €98,678 is total cost to the employer but still €90k a year average is ridiculous......................so much for the govt regulating this business, would hate to see it sold to a private company but at the same time it might make this industry more competitive.

Has anyone any idea how competitive we are in comparison to the rest of the world?

Not very. Here are the highlights from the GCR 2010-2011:

http://www.weforum.org/issues/global-competitiveness

Ireland is on page 188-189

The problems of doing business section will sound very familiar

ssbob

PhatPiggins wrote: »

Not very. Here are the highlights from the GCR 2010-2011:

http://www.weforum.org/issues/global-competitiveness

Ireland is on page 188-189

The problems of doing business section will sound very familiar

Thanks for that, that is really interesting, it is obvious by that, that the two main factors restricting business in Ireland is govt Bureaucracy and access to finance, it seems that they can't change the finance situation no matter how much money they put into the banks so maybe they should focus on themselves and ridiculous situations like the ESB penalising small businesses!!:mad:

HellFireClub

ssbob wrote: »

Thanks for that, that is really interesting, it is obvious by that, that the two main factors restricting business in Ireland is govt Bureaucracy and access to finance, it seems that they can't change the finance situation no matter how much money they put into the banks so maybe they should focus on themselves and ridiculous situations like the ESB penalising small businesses!!:mad:

They could change the finance situation immediately by doing what everyone knows is the right thing to do and instead of putting pallets of taxpayers cash into our banks, get this money or a decent percentage of this money, into the real and emerging economy by going around the banks.

All this money is going to pay for what are bad debts, how on earth is a small start up business ever going to get a start up loan when taxpayers funds that are being injected into the banks, are all going to pay for what was going on back in 2006, 2007 and 2008???

It's madness what is going on in our name, and this is just more of it, preserving Celtic Tiger remunerations and salary levels in workplaces such as the ESB, public sector and semi state organisations are allowed to climb up the arse of small businesses and then we have another government quango coming out today and scratching their heads at what they now call our "intractable employment problem"...

What else are you going to have BUT an intractable employment problem when you have funds available but instead of using the funds for what could be going on in 2011, you are using the funds to pay for the insane policy errors and the rampant greed of back in 2006?!?!?!?!?

maxer68

twomeys wrote: »

Hi all,

Not sure has this been discussed before but I was told today from an energy consultant that they have seen ESB bills with a new standing charge of €80 per month. Has any one any experience of this? If its true its ridiculous to charge business owners this at our worst time. She also told me customers are being moved in blocks so its not an accross the board over night increase. Surely if this is true there will be holy war?!

Before believing everything you hear especially from someone that probably gets a commission from another energy supplier and ranting about it, check it out properly.

You can go onto a different plan and pay a higher standing charge and lower unit charge, for some it works out cheaper, for others it doesn't. If it doesn't suit, you simply stay on your current tariff and absolutley nothing else changes.

btw. esb charges are now in the lower half of european prices

Peter Sweeney

Sounds like mis-information, if anything the regulation would be trying to bring down prices

HellFireClub

maxer68 wrote: »

btw. esb charges are now in the lower half of european prices

We shouldn't tolerate mediocracy here by clapping ourselves on the back because we are half way or there abouts in relation to those countries around us.

Imagine how much more competitive they would be if the full average salary cost to the ESB per employee wasn't just under 100K a year?

Le Graduate

Peter Sweeney wrote: »

Sounds like mis-information, if anything the regulation would be trying to bring down prices

There is no regulation of prices anymore.ESB were de regulated on the 4th of April this year.Competition will drive up/down prices.

Obviously if ridiculous tariffs are being charged and customers are being treated unfairly the regulator will step in.

Le Graduate

Myself and Srameen were talking about this the other day:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Le Graduate
I'm not saying your wrong but where did you get the staff number drop = 1% drop in a consumers bill? I took a look at ESB's annual report for 2009 but I can't see any section of the report that refers to it.

CER determination?!

Thanks
Have a look at the Payroll costs as a percentage of total costs. Fuel, & Materials account for most, then there are contractor costs making up the balance.

The CER sets the Distribution Use of System tariff and the Retail Prices. He determines such items by reference not only to actual costs but those costs he considers reasonable and in line with best practice. The payroll costs form part of this and are referenced in his adjudications.

ssbob

Le Graduate wrote: »

Obviously if ridiculous tariffs are being charged and customers are being treated unfairly the regulator will step in.

You seem so sure that our govt is so good at regulating?!

They may step in but how long would it take?

careca11

HellFireClub wrote: »

Absolutely outrageous, someone needs to take a chainsaw to the cost structure of this company, with the ESB average salary last year of €98,678, you'd have to ask what planet these people are living on, trying to pass these kind of outrageous labour costs onto small businesses that are struggling to stay open.

Greed greed and more f*cking greed is the order of the way with the ESB, send in Michael O' Leary and get all these unionised saps and arse scratchers out of the place with their €98,678 a year salaries.

Seriously, when is someone going to start making some hard decisions in this country that will put an end to this shocking public sector and semi state greed that we see, all paid for by families and small businesses that are really struggling like never before to stay on top of utility bills...

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/average-pay-and-pension-of-esb-workers-near-euro100000-2065160.html

its outragous what people will believe ,
i work in the ESB and have done for 7 years ..................and I can tell you €100,000 a year my arse

senior management upwards earn this sort of money
but the rest of us don't get anywhere near that "FACT"
stop tarring us with the same fechin brush ...its embarrassing

Le Graduate

ssbob wrote: »

You seem so sure that our govt is so good at regulating?!

They may step in but how long would it take?

It's not the government the Energy Regulator is independent like the National Consumer Agency. In the past they have been quick to address issues such as disconnection rates and mis selling by certain suppliers.It depends on what is going on in the market.For the mean time they state that their role is to monitor the market through a high number of criteria.

ssbob

careca11 wrote: »

its outragous what people will believe ,
i work in the ESB and have done for 7 years ..................and I can tell you €100,000 a year my arse

senior management upwards earn this sort of money
but the rest of us don't get anywhere near that "FACT"
stop tarring us with the same fechin brush ...its embarrassing

Nobody is tarring you with any brush, but it is true of any business, that an "average" salary of this level is not suistainable and therefore the ESB need to get this under control.

All we are saying here is that the ESB as a whole needs to look at its cost base before imposing crippling standing charges on the ordianry business people of this country.

bungler

maxer68 wrote: »

Before believing everything you hear especially from someone that probably gets a commission from another energy supplier and ranting about it, check it out properly.

You can go onto a different plan and pay a higher standing charge and lower unit charge, for some it works out cheaper, for others it doesn't. If it doesn't suit, you simply stay on your current tariff and absolutley nothing else changes.

btw. esb charges are now in the lower half of european prices

My brother got a letter from ESB saying save money call us now. I rang them and asked what would we save and the guy said to me he could change me from my standard General Purpose tariff onto a Prime General purpose and teh rate would go from 0.1527 per unit to 0.1299. I asked was this all that would change and he said "That is the only change" What he DID NOT tell me was that our standing charge would go from 149.65 per year to 934.98 per year, and INCREASE of 785.33 per year on teh standing charge, when we worked out that we would save 221.37 per year with the new rate we would still have to pay 563.96 per year extra by getting screwed over on teh standing charge.

I also did teh same for another business i own on a Nightsaver tariff rate i am on now is 0.1503 and ESB can offer me 0.1390 which is a great saving BUT my current standing charge is 166.44 per year and AGAIN they did not tell me the new standing charge would go up to 1040.25 this is 873.81 MORE than my current charge and with annual saving on the RATE of 319.96 this still will leave me to pay 553.85 EXTRA per year.

This is fine because i worked out all charges but other people in business are simply just looking at unit rates and saying " Great ill save money" and ESB are not outlining the possibility of huge increases. So to quote your first paragraph i have worked it out and we WOULD have got screwed if i had of just listened to teh rep on the phone who was trying to mis sell so he could make commission. So i am more than happy to stay with Bord Gáis becuase they havent tried to screw me over and being in business i respect that from my suppliers

HellFireClub

careca11 wrote: »

its outragous what people will believe ,
i work in the ESB and have done for 7 years ..................and I can tell you €100,000 a year my arse

senior management upwards earn this sort of money
but the rest of us don't get anywhere near that "FACT"
stop tarring us with the same fechin brush ...its embarrassing

Do you think the average salary in Eirtricity is just shy of 100K?!?

MyPerfectCousin

So, which supplier is offering the best deals for small businesses these days?

bungler

MyPerfectCousin wrote: »

So, which supplier is offering the best deals for small businesses these days?

Just in my experience i am sticking with Bord Gáis. I have tried Energia who were a nightmare, would take DD weeks before the due date and without giving me a bill.

Found Airtricity's billing department a joke and they dont use ESB meter readings a lot of the time so bills were never accuarte even though i would ring them in myself.

With BG the last 8 months and havent had any trouble, i also signed a 12 month offer which freeze's my prices which has turned out to be worth its weight in gold with the way energy has been rising.

just my opinion

ssbob

Le Graduate wrote: »

It's not the government the Energy Regulator is independent like the National Consumer Agency. In the past they have been quick to address issues such as disconnection rates and mis selling by certain suppliers.It depends on what is going on in the market.For the mean time they state that their role is to monitor the market through a high number of criteria.

Hi Le Graduate,

Do you not think the way they are misselling to Bungler below is a huge issue? I have heard of this from about 12 different businesses who were specifically told nothing else would change then all of a sudden...........whack, a massive standing charge. Because alot of this is completed over the phone then they have no go back...........................

The Energy regulator should really set up an independent website showing all energy costs for both businesses and private individuals like for example compare the market etc!

bungler wrote: »

My brother got a letter from ESB saying save money call us now. I rang them and asked what would we save and the guy said to me he could change me from my standard General Purpose tariff onto a Prime General purpose and teh rate would go from 0.1527 per unit to 0.1299. I asked was this all that would change and he said "That is the only change" What he DID NOT tell me was that our standing charge would go from 149.65 per year to 934.98 per year, and INCREASE of 785.33 per year on teh standing charge, when we worked out that we would save 221.37 per year with the new rate we would still have to pay 563.96 per year extra by getting screwed over on teh standing charge.

I also did teh same for another business i own on a Nightsaver tariff rate i am on now is 0.1503 and ESB can offer me 0.1390 which is a great saving BUT my current standing charge is 166.44 per year and AGAIN they did not tell me the new standing charge would go up to 1040.25 this is 873.81 MORE than my current charge and with annual saving on the RATE of 319.96 this still will leave me to pay 553.85 EXTRA per year.

This is fine because i worked out all charges but other people in business are simply just looking at unit rates and saying " Great ill save money" and ESB are not outlining the possibility of huge increases. So to quote your first paragraph i have worked it out and we WOULD have got screwed if i had of just listened to teh rep on the phone who was trying to mis sell so he could make commission. So i am more than happy to stay with Bord Gáis becuase they havent tried to screw me over and being in business i respect that from my suppliers

maxer68

bungler wrote: »

So to quote your first paragraph i have worked it out and we WOULD have got screwed if i had of just listened to teh rep on the phone who was trying to mis sell so he could make commission. So i am more than happy to stay with Bord Gáis becuase they havent tried to screw me over and being in business i respect that from my suppliers

Its as simple as this - NEVER believe what a sales person tells you. Check all the facts for yourself.

This especially goes for telecom & gas & electricity reps. They are only interested in commission, nothing else.

ESB have had different price plans for a long time - its been unregulated in the buiness market for a number of years and this higher standing charge plan has been around for a while, but you need to be using about €1500 / month to make it worth while.

The best way to save on electricity bills is to reduce useage - if you have downligters, the new 9w LED's are brighter than 50w halogens. (we got 30 from dhgate.com for less than €200) New combination heaters use 60% less electricity than standard heaters. Auto turn off / turn on systems can also ensure no-one wastes power.

weshtawake

Just started up a new business a few months ago and before ESB would connect us we had €1500 taken out of our alreday scarce resources. Out of the goodness of their precious little hearts they will give this back to us in 14 months time if we pay our bill to them on time in the interim.

Daylight anti-business robbers!

bungler

MyPerfectCousin wrote: »

So, which supplier is offering the best deals for small businesses these days?

If your based in Dublin you are more than welcome to PM me and i can give you contact details for the chap i deal with in BG or give them a bell personally

bungler

weshtawake wrote: »

Just started up a new business a few months ago and before ESB would connect us we had €1500 taken out of our alreday scarce resources. Out of the goodness of their precious little hearts they will give this back to us in 14 months time if we pay our bill to them on time in the interim.

Daylight anti-business robbers!

I think this is becuase of how much bad debts there is. we had to pay 2k a while back because we opened a new business. we asked why did we have to pay and we were told that becuase we were a new business and because electricity works 8-10 weeks without being billed they needed secuirty in case we went bust and left a debt with them. we had no choice and we had to pay it