Age Concern and Eon

footyguy wrote: »

Don't forget AgeUK are not alone in acting this way.

Many comparison sites, councils, other organisations offer collective switch tariffs that do not offer the best deals to consumers.
Only multi-millionaire MSE Martin appears to have the cojones (or money?) to stand up and say he would not put his name to any such collective tariff offered unless he could legitimately say it was cheapest (for most/the average user) i.e. that is why there is no PPM tariff offered in the MSE Big Switch 4.

And don't forget if he reaches the 100,000 limit cap just for the BG deal being promoted he is going to earn MSE £1.1million profit (i.e. after MSE costs & cashback offered to consumers).

I just watched Martin Lewis on ITV This Morning (Fri 5/2/2016) who said that MSE receives £60 for each collective sale and £30 is given to customers as cashback. Take BG, winner of Big Switch Event 4, the cap of 100,000 new BG customers would earn MSE £3million (excl MSE costs).:eek::eek::eek: Martin Lewis talks about Age Uk 'commercial arm' who are doing quite nicely with the tie-up with EON but MSE collective switch is lucrative for a few weeks promotion also.

Any energy company who offers collective switches, with the main aim to attach new customers, is basically not being honest to their existing loyal customer base by reducing their existing tariffs so that most of their customers can benefit. Customers like us who are price savvy have no loyalty to any utility company and until most of the public are like us, then the day for gimmick short term promotional/collective tariffs would be numbered.

It was easy for EON to maintain its 'EON Age Uk' customer base as most of these customers have no interest access and don't like change. Other 'Age Uk' products like insurance would need to be investigated also.

My gripe is Age UK is not a charity as such, its a normal commercial money making operation, and has been since 2007, when they launched 'intune' a company specialising in financial products for the over 50s. Charitable status should have been withdrawn many years ago or split off with separate non-charity accounts, the charitable status is merely a platform for a business model for selling and profiting from the elderly. In this case doubly exploited 1st by targeted selling and 2nd for an selling an uncompetitive tariff. Par for the course then that Ague UK's chairman Tom Wright chair's the government's official Fuel Poverty advisory group.

Tom Wright is a very 'charity' involved individual with amongst others Alzheimers Research, Poppy seller 92 year old Olive Cooke knew all about charities and had monthly direct debits to 27 charitable organisations. Others were Amnesty International, Child Survival Fund, Breast Cancer Care, Prostate Cancer UK Open Doors UK, Save the Children, Battersea Cats and Dogs Home, SPANA and Alzheimer's research,

I've no idea if the charities URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pressure_groups_in_the_United_Kingdom"]Lobbying[/URL that 'milked' her of money knew where the Clifton Suspension Bridge before her suicide .. .. I hope they do now, but I doubt it.

Advocacy and campaigning work on behalf of the older generation is admirable to the extent that they do that with their own and privately-raised contributions. However taxpayer money gifted by Government and used for political lobbying without the public's knowledge is like taxpayers money being used to pay a lobby group to lobby itself [GOV] - this seems to me to be clearly outside the bounds of 'charitable Status' perhaps the Electoral Commission in addition to any other areas would have a look at this.

31 mi££ion in a year for pushing funeral and insurance deals of the elderly and infirm, in fact £47.6 mi££ion last year from insurance firms, funeral plan providers and even lottery tickets..

- 482,000 home, travel and car insurance policies in a £21.9 mi££ion deal with AGEAS INSURANCE
- £9.4mi££ion for pushing 18,000 funeral plans from DIGNITY
- and an £8.6mi££ion LOTTERY deal
- then there's commercial deals for stairlifts, hearing aids, mobility sccoters

They have just been forced to consider closing the GOV funded training business they ran making the inadequately trained poor sods that worked for them potentiallty redundant - what does charitable mean in terms of status - where is the red line between giving and taking ?

I can REM when AgeUK was National Old People's Welfare Committee [NOPWC] 60 years later called Help the Aged it was very similar in organisation and funding to the also much loved Citizens Advice. The structure changed from directly helping people in the UK to a campaigning [lobbying] UK GOV to change both UK and global policies and practices and delivering direct help to people overseas.