As a nation, many of us stay loyal to our Energy suppliers without a good explanation. We comment on how much last quarter's bill was or how much the direct debits has just gone up yet our attitudes towards switching plays right into the hands of those suppliers who simply aren't giving us the best deals.



The moment we hear anything to do with cheaper energy suppliers and switching our gas and electricity, we hear alarm bells ringing which drowns out the sound of the good information which might be coming to us. Are we too lazy to switch or just plain ignorant to the benefits?

None of us are too lazy to stretch a few more miles out of the fuel tank as we drive around looking for a cheaper service station, of course we've probably just wasted fuel in getting there and caused minor damage to our cars by pulling debris from the bottom of the tank through the engine. Why is it that we would go through such efforts to save money and still do nothing about our energy bills?

Due to our laziness and, in many cases, ignorance, the big guys who supply our gas and electricity are getting richer and richer. We've all shopped around for various insurance, better deals on our Mortgages, lower mobile phone contracts and many of us will even switch banks to get the best interest rates. If we are a nation of strong consumers, then why do we continue to burn our money by sticking with expensive energy suppliers?

It would be easy to blame suppliers for higher prices but with such a high volume of loyal customers, it's our fault that we are not getting the best deals because we are not voting with our feet. There are loads of better priced suppliers out there and they have great customer service too, but it's so much easier to just moan about the prices and do nothing.

I think that the problem is that when the Energy market was deregulated, the whole country was inundated by a knock at the door - just as we were tucking in to our dinner! Hardcore door to door salesmen and women (or 'Field Sales Consultants') were sent out with two missions. One was to interupt your Shepherds Pie, and the other was to convince you that by changing that little name on the top of your Gas or Electric bill - you would be rich enough to buy a Fleet of Ferari's or purchase that island in the Bahama's you've had your eyes on! Ok - an exageration but people were mislead to the point where TV's Watchdog would have enough content to run many shows relating to disgruntled customers who switched with such sales tactics. Of course there are much tighter regulations in place to look after the consumer these days and in fact, everything is now stacked in the favour of the poor little consumer yet many of us still do nothing.

Is this still in our minds? Or is it just an excuse to do nothing. The fact remains that millions of UK homes are wasting ?millions every year on over priced energy bills and we seem to be happy to carry on trying to ignore the fact that Mr lower priced supplier can save us up to and over ?330 per year. Imagine if our house or car insurance quotes came out that much cheaper, we'd bite their hands so fast that we could get arrested for a hand biting related incident (not sure if this is an actual crime in the UK but I wouldn't be surprised). Of course the crazy part of it is that many of these lower priced suppliers actually offer a better level of customer service than some of the more expensive suppliers according to figures found on many price comparison sites such as Money Angels.

So then, can we win the price war? Yes, but we have to stop complaining and do something about it. There are great deals out there and we only have to give 28 days notice to any particular supplier. This means we can switch as many times as we like. Those switched on people out there probably switch their suppliers twice a year to get the best deal. If we think we are wise consumers then we must start to act accordingly.