70% gas price rise

IvanOpinion

Cardew wrote: »

Personally I would tend to believe the UK Government figures as well as the European Commission figures, plus masses of other data available, ahead of a comparison network like USwitch.

Especially when in one of the links above one of their spokespeople cam eup with the following

Anne Robinson, director of consumer policy at the price comparison website Uswitch claimed customers were being ripped off. "They are making five times more per customer this year than they were last year," she alleged to the BBC.

Where the heck she plucked that figure from goodness only knows ... I am guessing, giving her the benefit of the doubt, she must have applied 101 caveats afterwards putting it into context which just so happened not to get reported.

Ivan

moonrakerz

doveman wrote: »

I'm not sure where you got that idea. According to this comparison of the quality of life in European countries, we pay the third highest prices in Europe for energy, 49% more for gas and 5% more for electricity than the European average. http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/20080716/tuk-britain-bottom-of-quality-of-life-in-dba1618.html

A lot of these articles are highly selective in the figure they use. I daresay that if I set my mind to it I could show that Harrods are cheaper than Lidl !

A few months ago I posted some figures on this site supplied by an ex-work colleague in Germany. We both use Eon as energy supplier - his electricity was 34% more expensive than mine.
Yet I still keep reading that UK pays more for energy than any one else - sorry, don't believe it !

1carminestocky

Cardew wrote: »

This also gave me that idea!! - from Swanjons link.

Prices in Euro per kWh effective June 2008 for a consumption of 2000m3(approx 22600 kWh per year)€ per kWh gas
Average amount in euro per one kilowatt-hour of gas for domestic consumers. Based on an annual consumption of 2000m3 of gas. Measured in kilowatt-hour (1m3=10.3kWh).
Incl.taxes & duties.

Effective: June, '08

Lithuania 0.033
Latvia 0.034
Estonia 0.035
Bulgaria 0.041
Czech Rep. 0.045
Romania 0.046
United Kingdom 0.048
Luxembourg 0.049
Hungary 0.050
Poland 0.052
Slovakia 0.055
Belgium 0.055
France 0.063
Slovenia 0.064
Spain 0.065
Portugal 0.065
Ireland 0.070
Austria 0.075
Germany 0.082
Italy 0.086
Netherlands 0.124
Sweden 0.152
Denmark 0.152
Malta no data
Cyprus no data
Finland no data
Greece no data

Personally I would tend to believe the UK Government figures as well as the European Commission figures, plus masses of other data available, ahead of a comparison network like USwitch.

Remind me, did they ever actually state the number of WMDs they calculated there may have been Iraq?

SwanJon

Mazio wrote: »

I think the figures need to show consumptions in each country as well to be of any use as Sweden looks like they use very little gas and it is not one of their primary fuels if you do a google search and this could be the case for most of the higher figures?

As the price is per kWh consumption is taken into account - if you use more, then you will pay more.
The price of gas is the price of gas, no matter what other heating source you use. The point of Eclipse's report is that UK gas prices are now becoming more and more linked to the worldwide gas price.

1carminestocky

IMO definite case of 'price conditioning' going on here. Hit people with an inflated potential price hike, get them scared but resigned to a huge rise, then hit them with a 50% actual rise and relief all round. Human nature. My mate used to sell double glazing for a VERY large national company and they were trained to 'price condition'. He always said he could tell within 5 mins of walking into the house just how much the quote was going to be (experience, I suppose). So, if the quote was going to be say £6,000, he would subtly drop hints as he's measuring up about the windows 'being the best £8,000 you will ever spend' or words to that effect. Customer panics, thinks that sounds expnsive, oh dear. The REAL quote comes in at £6,000 and he thinks ha has a bargain, lol. Naughty.

Mazio_2

SwanJon wrote: »

As the price is per kWh consumption is taken into account - if you use more, then you will pay more.
The price of gas is the price of gas, no matter what other heating source you use. The point of Eclipse's report is that UK gas prices are now becoming more and more linked to the worldwide gas price.

I totaly agree with you but my point is the vast majority of people in Sweden will still be very toasty this winter as they use their woodburners and us lot in the UK will be better off buring £5 notes as it will be cheaper to heat our houses then gas. If the vast majority of people in the UK who had access to natural gas had been prepared for this with some sort of leadership some might have been able to change to another form of heating this would then reduce demand of gas for the rest who didnt.

doveman

Apologies to Cardew.

Clearly he was right that we have amongst the lowest gas prices in Europe and that report I linked to was a load of tosh!

Cardew

IvanOpinion wrote: »

Especially when in one of the links above one of their spokespeople cam eup with the following

Anne Robinson, director of consumer policy at the price comparison website Uswitch claimed customers were being ripped off. "They are making five times more per customer this year than they were last year," she alleged to the BBC.

Where the heck she plucked that figure from goodness only knows ... I am guessing, giving her the benefit of the doubt, she must have applied 101 caveats afterwards putting it into context which just so happened not to get reported.

Ivan

Ivan,
I think she was referring to the fact that BG made 5 times the profit in 2007(at £35.60 per customer) than in 2006 when it was approx £7 a customer.

It is something I really hate about the comparison networks - who make more than £35.60 in commission when they get someone to swap - is how they manipulate statistics in order to get people to swap. How much profit did USwitch make to be sold to a US company for £200 million

I hade a share once that paid a nominal 1p dividend as they were restructuring, next year they paid 80p and it was accurately claimed that the dividend had increased by 8,000%!!