Atlantic Electric&Gas Retrospective Price Increase - SURELY ILLEGAL?

Cardew

It is legal and a late formal notification works to your advantage in many cases.

You now have 14 days to apply to switch supplier, and you will pay for your gas/electricity at the pre-increase rate until the switch is made(is there a 30 day max from application to switch?)

So you will get over 3 months at the pre-increase tariff rate.

If you really like Atlantic, you can always switch back!!!

i_like_shoes

heywood wrote: »

Sorry - you are way off the mark here.

If you went to Tescos to do your shopping, and the person at the till totalled your trolley, but then said - by the way, our prices increased 2 months ago by 29%, but we have too many customers to inform in that time, and not enough staff to change the labels, so pay me the extra for those 2 months now please - would you not be slightly displeased???

And i bet they smile when they say it :rotfl:

Vestra

heywood wrote: »

Sorry - you are way off the mark here.

If you went to Tescos to do your shopping, and the person at the till totalled your trolley, but then said - by the way, our prices increased 2 months ago by 29%, but we have too many customers to inform in that time, and not enough staff to change the labels, so pay me the extra for those 2 months now please - would you not be slightly displeased???

Not if I could still have the product and pay for it at Asda at their prices if I so wished.

Vestra

And as I said I'm not making excuses for them as I too have to pay energy bills! But that just seems that's how it is with energy companies.

KimYeovil

How many times is this going to be brought up??? THE THREE MONTHS RULE IS IN THE CONSUMER'S FAVOUR. You have the opportunity to get between one and ninety three days energy at the pre-increase price. Bad luck if your bill coincides with the increase. Good news if it was two and a half months ago. Do you all genuinely not understand the reason and the reasonableness of the policy?

Where Atlantic's policy is unfair is when they reimburse those who complain. THAT is an injustice that should be stopped.

heywood_2

KimYeovil wrote: »

How many times is this going to be brought up??? THE THREE MONTHS RULE IS IN THE CONSUMER'S FAVOUR. You have the opportunity to get between one and ninety three days energy at the pre-increase price. Bad luck if your bill coincides with the increase. Good news if it was two and a half months ago. Do you all genuinely not understand the reason and the reasonableness of the policy?

What is the three months rule?

Cardew

heywood wrote: »

What is the three months rule?

65 working days is 3 months. see my post above.

ph0u203d

Please see here for a similar experience I've had with British Gas...

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=15025647&postcount=111

...the problem here was made worse by the fact that the cheapest tariff available on the market was in fact British Gas's new Click Energy 6, and so to switch to this would mean sticking with my current supplier, thus not being able to take advantage of the 'tell us you want to switch supplier & the price rises won't affect you' clause.

I successfully argued with British Gas that it was due to their organisational inefficiency (in taking 14 days to send a notification via e-mail) that I had unknowingly been paying over-the-odds for my energy when I could have switched to Click Energy 6 on the day of the price change. You may wish to do the same with Atlantic if they too are offering a new cheaper tariff.

I have written a letter to OFGEM to highlight the fact that, in some instance, this '65 working days to notify customers' rule can in fact work against the customer when they have no real option but to move to a new tariff with their current supplier. Surely it is feasible for the energy suppliers to decided on their price rises but delay them until they have pre-warned customers?

heywood_2

Cardew wrote: »

65 working days is 3 months. see my post above.

Thanks - but that does not answer my question

Cardew

heywood wrote: »

Thanks - but that does not answer my question

How doesn't it answer your question?

Ofgem recently made a ruling that Energy companies had 65 working days(which is 13 weeks - 3 months) to formally notify their customers after they had increased prices.

What is it you don't understand?