A little more research via firsthelpline, simplyswitch and unravelit reveals that the current best price seems to be with Countrywide (only listed on firsthelpline), then npower.  However, once again I find that I do not fully trust these sites.  They haven't got the tariff right for EBICo, so are the tariffs right for the others?  The only way is to phone for individual quotes to check.

That aside, I feel I've been truly stitched up!  I should have known it was too good to last.....

Another 15 minutes have passed and I can now scrub that feeling - I now feel much better!!!!

Just thought "who are countrywide energy anyway?",  Firsthelpline said they were part of Countrywide Farmers plc so I went to their own website and looked at the tariffs they quote there.  Instead of saving us over £100 a year, they would cost us over £100 a year more than the new EBICo fees.

The moral of the tale is NEVER switch without getting an individual quote from your potentially new supplier to verify the cost!  And when you call, ask:
a) when they last increased their prices, 
b) whether they will guarantee no more increases for any period of time, and
c) when they expect them to change again.

17 March 2006 - Got our latest Powergen bill and electricity prices went up on 10 March, so I decided to check out whether we were getting the best deal.

I tried three comparison sites, uswitch.com, simplyswitch.com and unravelit.com

The first two sites gave very similar results, claiming I could save over £200 a year by switching to British Gas, but I noticed that their prices for Powergen were wrong.  This made me wonder whether their British Gas prices were right?

So I called British Gas and got a telephone quote, which you can see below is far more expensive than Powergen!

unravelit.com gave a completely different top ten list, headed by EBICo Limited, a fair trade not-for-profit company.  Unbelievable single tier price which I also verified by telephone.

Not having heard of EBICo and (cynically) thinking it looked too good to be true, I researched further on the web and found a couple of news articles which only backed up the EBICo website.

My online application to switch was completed and I await confirmation

Confirmed pricing

All prices quoted exclude VAT and no standing charges apply.  Electricity only, standard rate (no Economy 7), quarterly payment on receipt of bill.