Additional cost on gas bills from Scottish Power

Splats_2

I have both gas & electric from Scottish Power. Today I received a letter telling me that due to the fact that I have an independent gas transporter (IGT) (??) I will have to pay an additional cost ("only 80p a week" - that works out at £41.60 extra a year, roughly another 8% on my bill!).

1) Does anyone know how I find out who my IGT is?
2) Do the price comparison sites include such a cost in price comparisons.
3) Are there any other gas companies out their who are/will be charging for this. Or is it a start of a worrying trend?

Is it fair that I have to pay more because my gas is not carried by Transco?
This seems like a back-door price rise to me - a considerable one at that. I will certainly look to be changing. I was all set to move to Powergen but their price rise beat me to it, negating any potential gain from transferring. However, I will need to know that I will not be hit by such a surcharge from whoever I move to.

Any ideas anyone?

MarkP

The same topic is being discussed in the thread "Independent Gas Transporters (IGT)", if anyone is interested.

Splats_2

Yep, I had noticed it (only after posting this) and I have put a reply on there as well. Perhaps someone clever could merge the two threads together. (I don't even know where to start doing this).

echo

I have had a very interesting reply from energywatch about a complaint I sent to them about SP's price increase.

If anyone is interested in seeing this reply I will forward, but being a PC Virgin I would need you to send me your email addresss as I don't know how or if I can attach an email to this message. My email is dk@mccall11760.fslife.co.uk.

Splats_2

Echo, could you not give a summary of what was said here? - this may prevent your inbox growing rapidly in the first instance.

Anyway, Energywatch seem to be onto the case. They have released a press release stating that SP stands to make £5.4million and have called for SP to suspend the price hike. See:

http://www.energywatch.org.uk/media/show_release.asp?article_id=808&display_type=archive

MarkyMarkD

Yep, I had noticed it (only after posting this) and I have put a reply on there as well.  Perhaps someone clever could merge the two threads together.  (I don't even know where to start doing this).

I can't do this, but I can do a link to the other thread: http://forum.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Utility;action=display;num=1101313702