Automatic Contract Renewal - Is it legal?

poorgraduate

Hi,

Here's an interesting one...

I got a call from Powergen and after going through the electricity bill for the company I work for - they told me they could save me a considerable amount of money.

So I called British Gas to see if they could beat it and I was told that our contract was renewed for 2 years back in April (which it wasnt), so we couldn't leave them. The best they could do was reduce our contract by one year or extend the fixed contract for another one.

Turns out they automatically renewed our contract without any confirmation from us because we did not respond to a letter advising us that they were going to do this. What happens if the letter gets lost in the mail!!! It's crazy!

To me this sounds absurd and I can't believe it's legal, but I appreciate the thoughts of the forum on this matter before I start shouting my mouth off.

newmoneysaver_2

You get this with insurance policies too. Just a letter stating the £xxx will be taken an such a date! I guess they hope you don't notice and you will then be with them for another year! Sneaky, sneaky!

poorgraduate

Amazing -

Just spoke to the guy that quoted me at Powergen and he confirmed that this is perfectly legal - madness!

Thanks for your replies - surely something should be done about this...

As has been said its completely immoral

poorgraduate

Guys,

I've got another query for yer.

After complaining about the auto renewal of our electricity contract British Gas have agreed to do one of two things either:

a) Reduce our contract by 1 year.

or

b) Extend our contract and fix charges for another year.

What does the forum suggest?