MSE News: Energy bills to be made clearer

Former_MSE_Guy

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"All gas and electricity statements will include each household's current energy plan, yearly consumption and predicted bill ..."

Read the full story:

Energy bills to be made clearer

QuailtyControl

Why do nPower persist in printing on their bills that there is a daily charge of 2 units per day, and then charge an arbitary amount?
Surely in this age of computers the calculation is "date of this reading" minus "date of last reading" times two.
As those annoying meercats say "simples".
The potential scam is that unless you hold every bill, how do you know you are not being overcharged?

QuailtyControl

Why do British Gas instal defective gas meters?
Every bill has a "volume adjuster" in their favour. Surely this can not be applicable to every customer.
Having had a new meter fitted recently, I can vouch that this charge is still applied.


Also, has anybody else noticed the manipulation of "calorific value"?
Surely this is yet another "marketing tool" to extract more revenue from every customer.
I suspect that the futures market purchases cubic metres of gas not kilowatts.

Cardew

This statement from the report is puzzling!

Ofgem also said today that annual premiums those with prepayment meters pay compared to those you pay by direct debit dropped by 38% (£111 to £69) following its overhaul of industry regulations.
However, Ofgem is investigating two suppliers for continuing to overcharge.
Ofgem's Sarah Harrison adds: "Unjustified premiums have fallen significantly. However, we have made it clear to the two suppliers concerned we will take action if the differentials cannot be justified."

The question of pre-payment tariffs was raised on the Parliamentary Energy Committee a couple of years ago and all of the bosses(IIRC) of the Utility companies stated that the additional costs to administer the pre-payment meter scheme were not covered by their higher tariffs.

However since then they have reduced pre-payment tariffs(under political pressure) simply because PPMs are predominently used by the less well off; so it became a case of subsidising PPM tariffs from those using credit meters.

So it depends what is meant by 'unjustified premiums'? Unjustified by what criteria?

Cardew

QuailtyControl wrote: »

Why do British Gas instal defective gas meters?
Every bill has a "volume adjuster" in their favour. Surely this can not be applicable to every customer.
Having had a new meter fitted recently, I can vouch that this charge is still applied.


Also, has anybody else noticed the manipulation of "calorific value"?
Surely this is yet another "marketing tool" to extract more revenue from every customer.
I suspect that the futures market purchases cubic metres of gas not kilowatts.

Neither of your points has any merit!

Much as the Regulator(ofgem) is pretty toothless it would pick up on the(frankly) fraudulent practices you allege.