Sign up & Campaign for a New Way of buying Energy

1carminestocky

BallandChain wrote: »

Can I ask if the more vocal of our forum members have signed up to this campaign? I would like to think so as nothing else is being done right now for energy consumers.

I hope I'm not being too presumptious when I suggest I maybe one of the group you were thinking about here? I've signed up but TBH I'm entirely happy with taking my £250-£300 off the energy suppliers each year. If everybody was like me maybe they would be begging to be re-natioanlised...

Cardew

Thank you - that I take it means that you are not connected to the organisation in any way? Your reply is not as unambiguous as Primrose! You have just joined and every post has been promoting this organisation.


I believe that the person who started this scheme opened a thread promoting it, and it was removed; as it is a commercial enterprise using MSE to promote their product.

Frankly I cannot see any way the big 6 will allow it to work.

Cardew

BallandChain wrote: »

Can I ask if the more vocal of our forum members have signed up to this campaign? I would like to think so as nothing else is being done right now for energy consumers.

I think I qualify!

No I won't sign as I have no idea how it intends to work and this worries me:

Will members of Community Purchasing have to buy as one in bulk?
No, it’s not necessary and would be neither practical nor desirable. We will be able to give suppliers details of the potential demand. From this, if they want your business or to retain it, they are going to recognise that, for once, buyers are organising themselves. The market forces of this should be powerful enough to bring prices down, but we do need enough people on board.

If a cheaper tariff was to become available, the potential demand would be every house in the country.

Why would any supplier only offer such a tariff to people who had registered with this organisation?

How are we 'organising ourselves' by saying we all want cheaper fuel - who doesn't - and giving this orgaisation our details.

It seems to me that the quote above means they will give(sell) our details to a company who will contact us offering their various existing tariffs.

I cannot see how the people running the scheme expect to raise capital to pay their salaries - from us or the companies? On the now deleted thread they said there will be full time employees in an office.

Sorry to be negative, but I would need more details.

Mods - how about getting Martin to investigate and pronounce if it has potential for money saving - and for whom;)

Edit can't get rid of bolding - sorry

Hammock99

You're welcome Cardew - I have no commercial interest in Community Purchasing...trust that is unambiguous enough for you.

As to whether the big 6 allow it to work, there is only one way to find out - better to try and fail than bemoan our lot and not try at all. If you believe in the economics of buying power it cannot fail - the biggest hurdle is acheiving that buying power. As we know from Ofgem's report, only 17% of consumers actively seek to minimise their costs by switching - that's the hurdle. Ofgem also say that consumers can improve competition amongst these companies if they switched more frequently, which suggests they also consider something can be done. Sadly there will always be people who feel impotent in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds. Having said that it's encouraging to see the posts on this thread have been almost universally constructive, intelligent, polite and most importantly bullish.

Cardew

Hammock99 wrote: »

You're welcome Cardew - I have no commercial interest in Community Purchasing...trust that is unambiguous enough for you.

As to whether the big 6 allow it to work, there is only one way to find out - better to try and fail than bemoan our lot and not try at all. If you believe in the economics of buying power it cannot fail - the biggest hurdle is acheiving that buying power. As we know from Ofgem's report, only 17% of consumers actively seek to minimise their costs by switching - that's the hurdle. Ofgem also say that consumers can improve competition amongst these companies if they switched more frequently, which suggests they also consider something can be done. Sadly there will always be people who feel impotent in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds. Having said that it's encouraging to see the posts on this thread have been almost universally constructive, intelligent, polite and most importantly bullish.

Thank you!

Ofgem/Parliamentary Committee on Energy also stated that a huge percentage of those switching(20%??) moved to a more expensive tariff.

Why not get Martin to investigate this scheme?

To repeat, I can't begin to understand how it will work for us consumers.

It seemed logical to me that they would be able to 'deliver' a million customers to a company if they would offer x% off their cheapest tariff.

However all it seems to me, is that they will give a company a million contact details.

Please Please correct me if I am being thick - but explain to me how it will work.

BallandChain

1carminestocky wrote: »

I hope I'm not being too presumptious when I suggest I maybe one of the group you were thinking about here? I've signed up but TBH I'm entirely happy with taking my £250-£300 off the energy suppliers each year. If everybody was like me maybe they would be begging to be re-natioanlised...

You were not being too presumptious Mr Carminestocky! I also had the following people in mind:

Reactor/Iamesbo
DirectDebacle
Incisor
Cardew (I can be optimistic can't I?)
*Mech

*For illustrative purposes only.

Come on guys we need you on board! :money:

BallandChain

Cardew raises some valid points so I'd be interested to know the answer too. Though to be honest the only worse scenario for me is just receiving a load of junk mail, which to my mind is a small price to pay if this campaign actually works.

tony222

Somebody is using MSE to promote this service. I name no names but some posts are very long and look like a sales pitch. Why would a not-for-profit company hide behind a registered office which is a company formation business? Why do they only have a PO Box? Why do they operate a call back service only?

It would be interesting to see which tariff anybody switching is put on to plus the additional discount for being a member. I am sure any successes will be reported here.

backfoot

I signed up just to see what it came up with. Nice idea in principle but until you get some live analysis back from them,it's very hard to judge.

I will report anything of significance.

Hammock99

I have mentioned this before but, as I see it the problem is twofold. The first is that we all believe these companies are profiting at the expense of consumers, but we don’t actually know and, even if we did, how much profit should they make? The second is that a large number of consumers are not switching and, as Cardew says, many who do switch to more expensive tariffs. Why? Well Ofgem concluded this was happening as a result of direct marketing (it is cheaper to pay for marketing than it is to lower prices). The problem therefore in large part seems to be consumers. Carminestocky hit the nail on the head – if every consumer took his approach we would be looking at a very different market and the resultant competition would ensure these companies operated to optimum efficiency. The fact is that the majority of consumers don’t operate as Carminestocky does and this is what I understand CP mean when they say consumers are not organised. The question is how to get that organisation. Well Carminestocky could set up a site which made recommendations and, with a large and loyal following of consumers who acted in unison, it would make a huge difference to competition in the market, hopefully to the benefit of all consumers. In short, Carminestocky would have clout with the energy suppliers.

As I say, right now nobody knows whether consumers are paying the correct price. A good example of this can be found in Tim Harford’s book, The Undercover Economist where he talks about the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wanting to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions and how difficult it was to find the true cost of doing this. Naturally the power generation companies lied about the cost and lobbied hard to stop mandatory regulation. The EPA managed to determine the true cost in the end by giving these companies the option to buy permits at auction to pollute (it transpired that it was far cheaper than anyone, even the EPA, had expected to reduce emissions than to buy the permits). In other words through market forces, the EPA found out what the true cost was of reducing sulphur dioxide emissions.


In the same way that the EPA didn’t know the outcome, none of us know how the UK energy companies would react to a more organised group of consumers. As I understand it, for this reason CP have no preconceived ideas about the final outcome. There are too many variables and the best people to determine the shape of a deal would be the energy companies – they know how efficient their operations are, how best to operate their businesses to the optimum and how much they want customer numbers or want to hang on to customers. No one else can get close to that.

CP state several times on their site that they will not pass details on to third parties without consent (I hope that proves to be the case and, for me, it’s a small risk) They also state that if a deal can be arranged, they will let their members know and that they can choose. Like everything in life there are no guarantees – we all have to evaluate the pros and cons and act, even if that means doing nothing for fear of getting junk mail. Along with others, Carminestocky and Ballandchain have articulated the pros and cons and decided on balance there may be more to gain than lose.

CP’s approach may seem somewhat esoteric to many because they haven’t spelt out how it will work, but I have concluded their basic stance is right because it would only stifle creativity. Get the numbers (the hard part) and rely on basic economics to see what transpires seems to be the message. The impression I get from the various posts is that people understand this and recognise nothing else has worked. There are obviously some pretty motivated money savers on this site. This should be right up their street and, although I imagine they are well able to look after themselves, there are others on the site who also look after the interests of those less able or motivated. This is a big issue, and it’s nice to see people joining forces to try and crack it. One final thought..it’s easy to get bogged down in the mire of detail and hung up with the current setup (pricing that varies according to whether we take both gas and electricity from the same supplier, region, consumption, payment method etc.). On the face of it these offer choice but are they really necessary? Do they add value or are they out there to confuse? Hope this helps.