Bulk LPG - Cheapest suppliers / supply route?

LittleVermin

Handyman1 wrote: »

I have a contract from Bp Gas who were taken over by Macgas and was told it was a fixed price for so long and then variable with a limited increase of 2.5p a litre every 6 months till end of contract, now one year into contract and price has gone up by 6p/litre, I disputed this and was informed that small print stated they can, if gas price increases considerably, and that I could not leave the contract, .........

morganv8 posted recently:

MacGas price hike Hi
I wonder if anyone can answer me this....
MacGas have just put their price up in Perthshire by 6ppl - the contract I am in with BP(who they have just taken over) states that if the price rise is more than my contracted 2.5ppl increase, then I can terminate. Sadly, they are quoting another clause saying that they do not have to provide evidence that backs up the price rise and that tough luck - i am stuck with them until June 3013 - Calor have offered me 10.95 ppl cheaper - what can i do?

No further comment necessary - though I hope people who were with BP and now are with MacGas get some joy. Not that BP was brilliant (their price only fell once in about 19 years that I was with them - their price rises were 'explained', when they bothered, with generalised woffle).

HateLPG

The following is the recent (earlier this year) agreement between Flogas and the OFT in respect of pricing:

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/consumer-enforcement/SKMBT.pdf

And similarly, the agreement between Calor (Northern Ireland) and the OFT:

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/consumer-enforcement/CGNI.pdf

The key parts for me are the following in paragraph 3:

a) WILL NOT include in its new customer contracts any price increase term for the supply of domestic bulk LPG to customers EXCEPT for a price increase term which:

(i) links any increase in price to an objective pricing index;...

and

b) WILL allow its existing domestic bulk LPG customers the same cancellation rights pursuant to a price increase as agreed with its new domestic bulk LPG customers, until such time as existing customers enter a contract whereby clause 3(a) is satisfied.

Now as far as MacGas are concerned, they claim that the increase they are forcing upon you is linked to an increase in an objective pricing index.

If they can not or will not provide the requisite justificationbased on hard data to the customer (or to the OFT) then, in my opinion, they have NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER to impose that increase as it is implicitly mandated in the OFT agreement that they must provide evidence of increases in the pricing index.

£Driver

HateLPG hi, thanks for sending info however I did not open it properly and lost your content. Is there any chance of resending it?
Thanks in advance.

Handyman1

Thanks for all the help from everyone.
I have sent e-mail as suggested to the OFT.
I will post any results


Cheers, Handyman1

57686893]Welcome to the forum.

Thanks for posting this warning. MacGas is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Flogas (a DCC company) of which there innumerable negative posts on the forum.

Before you start spending money on legal advice you might want to send all this info to Sharon Dias at OFT - with a copy to Tom Heideman who is looking at the competition element of the take-over of BP's LPG business by Flogas (see my recent

£Driver

HateLPG,
Thank you for reply - most useful.

LittleVermin

LittleVermin wrote: »

Estimated date of report is 3rd January 2013 (see here)......so something to look forward to after Christmas!

The expected date is now 11th January.

I see from the list that other firms have had to give "undertakings" to the Office of Fair Trading.

Flogas, which bought BP's LPG business and renamed it MacGas, has already 'voluntarily' reached the agreement on pricing which HateLPG mentioned here. It doesn't look - from Handyman1's and morganv8's posts (here and here) - that they have taken this agreement too seriously.

So maybe if you were a BP customer and now are supplied by MacGas you might like to check the paperwork, contact MacGas, etc ...and email both Sharon Dias and Tom Heideman (who is dealing with the take-over) at the OFT...as Handyman1 has done (thanks!).

Here are the email addresses again:

[EMAIL="sharon.dias@oft.gsi.gov.uk"]sharon.dias@oft.gsi.gov.uk[/EMAIL]

[EMAIL="Tom.Heideman@oft.gsi.gov.uk"]Tom.Heideman@oft.gsi.gov.uk[/EMAIL]

If you can see from the UKLPG website (here) that you have a very small number of potential suppliers - and those suppliers include both MacGas and Flogas - you might feel like emailing Tom Heideman that in the light of the posts from Handyman1 and morganv8 you are concerned. According to UKLPG I have just FOUR potential suppliers: Calor, Avantigas, MacGas and Flogas. Oh, I make that THREE! DCC - the owner of Flogas - bought up many small and large heating oil distributors but kept their previous names so people thought there was much more competition than there really was.

BTW Countrywide (Countrywide Farmers) has a tie-up with Flogas (not Calor, rachieb77: thanks to DAVID.T for telling us about this - here) and I've also been told of another independent which was made an offer by Flogas.
..

Hate_Calor

I really, Really hate Calor. I cannot express in words, fully the depth of my hatred of this company. They tell lies, talk to their own customers like c#ap and generally treat people like dirt. I would rather burn down my house than deal with them any longer. They do "drop deliveries" even though we have always told them only to deliver, upon request.
I was lied to by a manager at the company, who failed to live up to the agreement. (As I was struggling Financially at the time this led to legal action being taken against me.) I complained, stating that we had a verbal agreement, the Manager however, had a memory lapse and denied making the agreement.
I was not worried as I was always told the conversations are recorded, so I was confident the truth would be revealed......... However, this is untrue, they in fact only make a record of the calls. I know this may seem like a minor difference BUT its huge as calor were then able to dismiss my complaint as I had "no evidence"
Do yourselves a favour, if there is an alternative company in your area, CHOOSE THEM!!

HateLPG

Hate_Calor wrote: »

I complained, stating that we had a verbal agreement, the Manager however, had a memory lapse and denied making the agreement.

Which serves to underline the often stated advice in this forum: When dealing with LPG companies, always confirm everything in writing (in fact, this is good practice when dealing with any company that you do not trust 100%)

I have to say, saddening though it is, Calor's position here seems entirely true-to-type. Those who read my rantings years back will recall that, even in the face of a written contract, Calor insisted that black was white, completely refusing even to acknowledge certain terms in the contract. Eventually, after the exchange of many letters, they did eventually climb down. But only because I was able to threaten them with escalating matters. And in my case I had written evidence to support my case (my supply contract), so they really had no choice. I am quite sure that if it had been merely a verbal agreement I was arguing about, I would have got nowhere at all.

In fairness to Calor, it is quite clear from reading other posts in this thread and elsewhere, that this type of behaviour from LPG suppliers is not unique to Calor. In fact (with one or two notable exceptions) it seems to be Standard Operating Practice within the industry. I would no more trust an LPG salesman than I would trust a Snake Oil salesman.

HateLPG

A little delayed, but here is the latest Graph showing the available LPG pricing data for the past 24 months as of 1st December 2012:

Ace_gas_guzzler

Many thanks again to HateLPG for his ever-useful graph! The 41.9p per litre I got from Avanti looks to be a bargain, especially as it's fixed for 12 months!:rotfl: