MSE News: British Gas fined £2.5m over complaints

bengasman

skysthelimit wrote: »

Do fines benefit the public?:think:

They certainly do.
Most importantly, big fines do hurt them in the only place where you can hurt them: annual profits. This one took out a cool full percent in just one go.
Shareholders will not be pleased; imagine you got a fine equal to a whole year's net wages for dangerous driving. Try and explain that to your missus.

The money paid helps to pay for public costs; drop in the ocean, but better than nothing.

Plushchris

bengasman wrote: »

imagine you got a fine equal to a whole year's net wages for dangerous driving. Try and explain that to your missus.

How on earth is that a comparison in any way to the drop in the ocean of a fine they got?

Surely the only way you can use that as a comparison would be if they got fined £1.3bn?

bengasman

Plushchris wrote: »

They should be made to take that £2.5 million off the dividends they pay out to shareholders..

Dividend is paid out of profit. More fines = less profit. Less profit = less dividend.
Fines this month alone meant 1.5% less profit, and demonstrably due to bad management.

But a 2.5 million fine plus a one million fine in just one month creates an enormous amount of bad publicity because it clearly shows what a bad deal customers get from BG. It is bound to cost them business as it will be published on every consumer forum and in every consumer organisation and all the media that:

A. BG/Centrica were fined for lying to us. (and if they lie about this, the lie about other things )
B. BG/Centrica don't give a hoot if you complain about the problems they cause.

bengasman

Plushchris wrote: »

How on earth is that a comparison in any way to the drop in the ocean of a fine they got?

BG made about £250 profit on their energy sales. Fines reduce the profit.
Turnover volume is totally irrelevant, it's the profit that matters. Plenty of companies gone bust because they had huge turnovers, but no profit.

Plushchris

bengasman wrote: »

BG made about £250 profit on their energy sales. Fines reduce the profit.
Turnover volume is totally irrelevant, it's the profit that matters. Plenty of companies gone bust because they had huge turnovers, but no profit.

But they didnt lose a years earnings though did they?

broxis11

oops wrong thread

bengasman

Plushchris wrote: »

But they didnt lose a years earnings though did they?

Of course not, nobody said they did, nor would it be realistic to hope/expect so.

eurmalian

I think bengasman is right here. Anything that lowers shareholder dividend is likely to have an effect. It may only be a couple of percent off, but for the majority shareholders who have thousands and thousands of them that's still going to be a lot of money lost unnecessarily. They're not going to be happy.

Plushchris

bengasman wrote: »

Of course not, nobody said they did, nor would it be realistic to hope/expect so.

So why did you compare it with getting a driving fine and losing a years wages?

bengasman

Guess that should have been: one percent of....