Page 42
By Holly Thomas
A FAMILY business owner has
won a £247,000 PPI payout from
Lloyds Bank.
Mike Weaver, 61, took out several
payment protection insurance
policies when he set up his radio
hiring business in 1991. He recalls
being told that he had to buy PPI
to get the loans he needed.
Mike, from Coventry, submitted
a mis-selling claim back in March,
using the online tool on Money
SavingExpert.com. Ten days ago,
he was awarded the largest claim
the website has ever seen.
Mike says: ‘I thought we might
get £30,000 — I didn’t think we’d
get anything like this.’ He has
given his staff a bonus and plans
to throw a party.
Banks have paid out more than
£35 billion to customers who were
mis-sold PPI. The final deadline
for making a claim is August 29.
A Lloyds spokesman says that
commercial PPI payments do tend
to be far higher than retail ones.
[email protected]Top £247k
PPI payout
Check the cheapest green
energy deal near you
thisismoney.co.uk/energyinclude 100 pc renewable gas as
well as electricity.
Another trick is to dilute the
amount of renewable energy they
provide to as little as 15 pc — with
the remainder non-renewable.
P
eTer eArL, of Compare
TheMarket.com, says: ‘The
current labelling of “green”
can be confusing. Climate
change issues are increasingly
important for environmentally
conscious consumers.
‘But the energy market clearly
has a way to go before it is able to
offer all consumers a truly green
option. We need more renewable
energy, more price competition
and a greater array of green tariffs
that are transparently labelled.’
It is easy to get caught out. even
if a firm claims to be green, it does
not necessarily mean that all of its
tariffs are 100 pc green.
Lumo energy’s Online Variable
at £1,069 boasts being green,
but offers only 33 pc renewable
electricity and no green gas.
The cheapest green tariff is with
Outfox The Market, whose One
Variable 6.0 tariff costs £846 a year.
It offers 100 pc renewable electricity,
but not green gas.
The second-cheapest green tariff
is also from Outfox The Market
with its High User Variable at £865
a year. The third is from a new,
small supplier called Green. Its
Oak tariff costs an average of £867
annually and offers 100 pc renew-
able electricity and gas.
All three are variable deals,
which means prices could rise at
any time.
By comparison, the cheapest
non-green tariff is Orbit energy’s
Beat The Cap extra Jul19, which,
at an average of £873 a year, costs£27 more than the cheapest
green tariff.
The cheapest green tariff with a
Big Six supplier is British Gas
energy Plus Protection Green
Aug 2020v2, at £955 a year.
It offers 100 pc renewable
electricity and 100 pc offsetting
of your gas usage. It requires
customers to get a smart meter.
For customers who are not
online, the cheapest green tariff
where you will get a paper bill is
with Co-op energy. The Fixed
November 20 tariff costs £986 a
year. It is 100 pc renewable for
electricity, but the gas isn’t green.Increasing numbers of suppliers
now provide renewable electricity
as standard to all customers.
Only last month, e.ON announced
that it would automatically offer all
residential customers 100 pc renew-
able electricity at no extra cost.
Others include Bulb, Bristol
energy and Shell energy.
electricity generated from a
nuclear source is not deemed
renewable, but it does have a
much lower carbon footprint
than coal, gas and even solar.
eDF energy’s tariffs generally
offer electricity generated from
nuclear power.
To find out the true green
credentials of a supplier, search
on the firm’s website for what is
known as the fuel mix disclosure.
This should give you a clear idea
of the amount of energy that is
renewable and how it is generated.
The details should also be included
in the key information section on
your bill.
[email protected]BANKS must introduce a vital
security check to protect fraud
victims by March 31 next year.
Currently, they do not check if
the name customers provide
as a payee matches the name
on the account where they are
sending money. They only make
sure that the account number
and sort code correlate.
However, under a new system
called Confirmation of Payee,
transfers will be blocked if the
recipient’s name and account
number don’t match.
It is hoped this will prevent
customers being tricked into
making payments to fraudsters
posing as HMRC, for example.
Banks were initially supposed
to introduce the basic check last
month, but have experienced
technical difficulties.
The Payment Systems Reg-
ulator has told only the big banks
— Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, RBS,
Santander and Nationwide — to
meet the March deadline. Smaller
banks and building societies are
not under the same obligation.
[email protected]Banks face
deadline for
name check
SupplierOutfox the MarketOutfox the MarketGreenOutfox the MarketYorkshire
EnergyTariffOne Variable 6.0High User VariableOakFIX'D 19 2.0Green Gazelle - Fixed
until Sep 30, 2020Annual bill£846£865£867£881£922Exit feeNANANANA£60TermVariableVariableVariableFixedFixedSource: energyhelpline.comGOOD NEWS:
Green energy
deals are finally
affordable...
BAD NEWS:
They may not be
as eco-friendly^
as you think!
S
OArING numbers of
households are switching
to green energy tariffs.
environmentally conscious
customers previously had to pay
a premium of around £100 or more for an
eco-friendly gas and electricity deal.
But, today, four of the top ten energy
tariffs claim to be green — including
the very cheapest on offer.
However, households are being urged
to check the small print, as some tariffs
may not be as green as they seem.
With a green tariff, your supplier
commits to generating enough renew-
able energy to cover your usage.
This might be power created by solar
panels, wind turbines or water, for
example. In the UK, the largest source
of renewable electricity is wind power.
For gas, some suppliers use power from
renewable sources. So-called green gas
is made by turning plants or vegetables
into biomethane. Others offset your
usage by planting enough trees to absorb
the amount of gas you use.
Most of the cheapest green deals also
require you to manage the account online
and forgo printed bills to save paper.
So far this year, more than half of the
customers using comparison site energy
Helpline have opted for a green tariff and
interest is set to increase even further.
Mark Todd, energy Helpline co-founder,
says: ‘We organised around 250,000 green
switches last year. This year, it is set to
be more than 500,000.’
But experts warn that going green
is not always straightforward. In June,
a study by CompareTheMarket.com
showed that just one in ten dual-fuel
‘green’ tariffs supplied 100 pc renewable
power. Many suppliers offer only renew-
able electricity and then supply gas
from non-renewable sources, such as
coal-fired power stations.
Just two of the top ten cheapest deals
MONEY Mail readers with joint
accounts are worried about how
they will verify online purchases
from next month.
From September, you will need
a code to complete many online
transactions. This will be sent to
your mobile, email or landline.
But Lesley Kilbey, from West
Yorkshire, says that when her
husband Rob called their bank,
Santander, she was told only one
mobile phone number could be
linked to their joint account.
This would mean she couldn’t
buy anything online without him
reading out the security code.
However, Santander says the
problem is that only Rob has reg-
istered to manage their account
online. If they both set up their
own username and password,
they will each be able to link a
mobile number to the account.
[email protected]Joint account
web pay fears
THE FIVE CHEAPEST GREEN ENERGY DEALS
Picture: GETTY(^) Daily Mail, Wednesday, August 7, 2019
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