Chantrey Vellacott DFK

"Everybody knows that suppliers look at any way of increasing prices..."

• Location: South East
• Sector: Accountancy
• Saving: £1.5k

Chantrey Vellacott DFK is a long established provider of accounting, taxation and related advisory services with offices throughout London, the South East and the Midlands. Its roots go back to 1788, making it one of the oldest firms of chartered accountants in the UK.

In 2005 the Croydon branch relocated to a Lansdowne Road office tower. As it approached the end of its initial electricity contract at the new premises, office manager - Derek Harris - checked the small print for any renewal clauses and kept an eye out for the suppliers letter with its proposed new rates for 2008. Sure enough, they were much higher than Chantrey Vellacott DFK was used to paying.

In Derek's words: Everybody knows that suppliers look at any way of increasing prices but what genuinely surprised us was that the saleswoman wasn't at all interested in keeping us as a customer on anything less than their pushy terms. They must work on the basis that there are enough people out there who don't realise they can just as easily switch onto new customer rates with a different supplier. It's a strange way of doing business but, sadly, that seems to be the way things are going with utility companies.

Derek used the renewal window to shop around and search for brokers who could offer cheaper prices on an impartial basis. Avoiding those who asked a seemingly endless stream of irrelevant questions, he ended up speaking to Make It Cheaper. It suggested a competitive one year contract and handled the transfer itself, with a promise to make sure that Chantrey Vellacott DFK is not rolled-over into unfair rates in future.

Make It Cheaper also has a strict data protection policy so won't be passing Derek's details on to any third party salespeople.