MSE News: Ofgem urges households to switch energy supplier

Former_MSE_Guy

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE news story:

"The energy regulator is calling on consumers to switch energy provider to cut costs at a time when power firms are making huge profits out of us ..."

Read the full story:
Ofgem urges households to switch energy supplier

Anon

It is good of Ofgem to notice. However, does Ofgem have views on the fairly recent ruse of adding cancellation/exit fees aka penalties onto the online tariffs, which means that people are now restricted/or may lose much of the saving from changing again when tariffs are falling.

Most providers now seem to levy them which suggests that it is an industry response to people waking up to their inflated prices and switching.

Anon

savemoney

Great are Ofgem, toothless watchdog

£105 on your heating bill: Energy giants cash in on





Energy suppliers are making more than £100 out of every customer by refusing to cut bills during the record freeze.
Wholesale prices of gas and electricity have fallen dramatically, but hardly any of the benefit has been passed on to customers.
As a result, the Big Six suppliers have seen their profit margins soar to a five-year high. freezing winter by refusing to pass on price cuts

2010

Basically there`s six power providers who seem more interested in giving comparison sites fat fees to get people to switch than actually competing with each other to cut energy prices.
The government don`t give a monkeys because the higher your bills the more VAT they get.
The higher the energy provider`s profits the more tax the government also gets.

This is why we get these continuous new tariff`s from the providers every other week claiming to be cheaper.
Some of these companies have over 20 tariffs, if not more!

Now to make matters even worse we have a useless so-called regulator OFGEM saying exactly what the energy companies want it to say.

What it and the government should be saying is, there`s going to be a competition`s commission inquery into the whole sordid business.

No wonder people are freezing.:mad::mad::mad:

talulahbeige_2

What so many people seem to forget is that BECASUE OF THE GOVERNMENT all energy suppliers are comapnies who are there to make a profit, they are businesses

What people who slag off all the energy companies don't see is the amount of money that the government make energy companies invest in upgrading power plants or making things greener. That money has to come from somewhere so where else do you suggest? It already comes out of the profits!
If none of the energy companies made a profit who do you think would supply your gas and electric?
People also seem to forget the 10's of thousands of people who work for energy companies who when you demand price cuts get penalised by not receiving a pay rise as they are pushed by parent companies to keep the profit as high as possible.

teddyco

When energy companies were made private, Ofgem was created to make sure they weren't gouging the public and customers got a fair deal.

Ofgem has failed to do that!

Sweey_as_a_nut

We had better tell Sid about this.

SwanJon

teddyco wrote: »

Ofgem was created to make sure they weren't gouging the public

Could you define gouging?
Centrica (BG parent) are going to announce their annual results this week.
What level of profit would you find acceptable?

(PS, I work for BG but don't get a share of the profits)

icefall

Sweey_as_a_nut wrote: »

We had better tell Sid about this.

:rotfl: I remember Sid

2010

Energy companies are making £105 of annual profit from each customer, leading to accusations they have "cashed in" on the cold winter.

Almost 10 pence in every pound paid by customers for their bills is now going directly into the coffers of utility companies.

Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, called on all the suppliers to cut their bills as soon as possible.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/household-bills/7292915/Energy-companies-making-105-profit-per-customer.html

mattcanary

The industry watchdog is a waste of space. Surely it would be better to force companies to reduce their prices, seeing as the wholesale price of gas has dropped considerably, rather than tell people they should shop around for the cheapest deal.
It is not exactly easy to find the cheapest deal, utility companies are almost constantly changing their products, and the majority of people have got better things to do wuth their time than constantly scour the internet searching for the cheapest deal (that is, if they even have an internet connection!)