Energy customers overcharged £1.6 billion a year 25 June 2009 at 11:35AM edited 16 January 2012 at 6:10PM in Energy 5 replies 975 views

Former_MSE_Guy

This thread is to discuss the following news story:

Energy customers overcharged £1.6 billion a year

Jublet

When prices went through the roof last year we were told it was because the price of energy had to follow the price of oil (someone blamed the EC for this.) Oil had gone from about $70 to $160+ a barrel at that time.

Now oil has gone down to about $60 a barrel, lower in the recent past, so why are gas and electricity not below where they were at the beginning of last year? It just doesn't add up.

wakeupalarm

As usual the energy companies change their excuses again. When the price was going up it was because the price of oil had gone up.

Now the price of oil has dropped they can't make that link anymore so they come up with the excuse that energy costs are only 50% of the cost of your bills. Why does the Government quango in charge let them get away with this?

1carminestocky

The Govt don't give a flying f.....fig, that's why. They get their 5% from us, the country's finances are currently in a parlous state with huge debts and massively dwindling income tax revenues. They really NEED to make the money somewhere so they make a few noises about forcing suppliers to reduce their prices every now and again and hope that the electorate eventually forget.

kippen_noedel

lol, I remember when BG posted profits of the year of £440m, Gordon Brown was quoted as saying he was considering a wndfall tax.

I had the annual report at the time and noticed BG paid nearly £1bn in corporation tax and nearly the same again in carbon levy.

The truth is out there & it doesn't come from the mouth of any politician.

Premier_2

Ofgem also disagree with the findings of Consumer Focus.

...
Consumer Focus said its research was based on methodology and data from the regulator Ofgem, and showed that energy suppliers were overcharging customers by a total of £1.66bn this year.

Ofgem said Consumer Focus had used its data incorrectly.
...
"We cannot accept Consumer Focus' claim to have used our methodology for calculating wholesale costs," the regulator said.
"They have borrowed some of it but they appear to have made assumptions that are simply wrong." ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8117962.stm

Some existing threads already started on this subject:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1775313

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1775427