Lock in contracts

fatboy88

Hi, i have tried to contact Martin through the standard email regarding the legality part of the new lock in contracts as i have been disputing this on the commercial side for some time. I have a letter from there energy committtee stating there is a revew at present.

I got an auto email bounced back to me so i thought i would try here

thanks
will

Cardew

I ssume you mean penalty clauses for leaving the tariff before a nominated date? e.g. you pay £30 per fuel if you leave BG Websaver 3 before 01 December 2009.

There are currently several threads running on this subject, and there seems to be no question that they are legal - no different to Telephone contracts, mortgages, Sky etc.

What is highly questionable is the practice of automatically switching you to a new tariff, with exit penalties, when your existing tariff finishes.

DVardysShadow

Cardew wrote: »

What is highly questionable is the practice of automatically switching you to a new tariff, with exit penalties, when your existing tariff finishes.

This practice does not stand up at all. But, because these companies are used to pushing their customers around, they will get away with it until someone comes along who is willing to fight them to the bitter end.

MUNCHKIN123

I studied law many years ago as part of my Accountancy Qualification.

Martin's email re Scottish Power Energy lock in for a new contract asks if this is legal? It mentions they are investigating whether it's allowed to lock you in by default.

I am rusty on the exact terms and wording .................but in essence the consumer is protected by the law on this one. I have some of the terminology at work as we recently had a dispute with a supplier who tried to lock us into a new 5 year contract.

A supplier can't enter you into a new contract by default. Ie if a contract ends and they try to say if you don't change / cancel you are automatically entered into a new contract this is unfair.

Example of an unfair term (from FSA web site)
An unfair term automatically extend a fixed-length contract unless the customer states they do not want to extend it, and where the deadline within which the customers have to state this is unreasonably short .

fatboy88

To me they are trying it on like the commercial utility contracts. They basically give you a months notice 2 03 months before your contract ends and if you forget or if you never receive the letter. They will auto renew your contract at usually a 60% mark up. This you cannot get out of until the next year comes round.

This may be unfair but it is what they have been doing for years and as i am just 1 person they pretty much ignore me but at least they are looking into it from that letter i got

Cardew

fatboy88 wrote: »

To me they are trying it on like the commercial utility contracts. They basically give you a months notice 2 03 months before your contract ends and if you forget or if you never receive the letter. They will auto renew your contract at usually a 60% mark up. This you cannot get out of until the next year comes round.

This may be unfair but it is what they have been doing for years and as i am just 1 person they pretty much ignore me but at least they are looking into it from that letter i got

Just to clarify, you are talking about the practice with commercial tariffs?

fatboy88

Yes it mainly is with commercial contracts but what i am trying to say is they are trying to transfer commercial style contracts to residential. The markup may not be as high when they tie you in but the method is still the same which is why i wanted to know about the legal part of this

Sorry if i'm not very clear but never been too good at explaining things