Energy market - new standards of conduct

Consumerist

Ofgem's <Retail Market Review> is finally rolling out for domestic and small-business customers.

Some of the long-awaited benefits are:-

• Discounts cannot now be held until the end of a contract - they must be distributed throughout the year.
• Fixed-price contracts must be fixed for the duration of the contract.
• Those on fixed-term contracts will have a 42-day switching window before the end of the contract (and for another 20 days after) within which prices must be held and no early termination fees can be charged.

Finally, something to help us out. :T

Nada666

Some of the long-feared disadvantages:

standing charges;
no obligation to tell customers about all tariffs.

Consumerist

Nada666 wrote: »

Some of the long-feared disadvantages: standing charges; no obligation to tell customers about all tariffs.

Suppliers may set the standing charge to zero if they want.

How long do you want the list of available tariffs to be? Just long enough to make the information useless, no doubt.

DragonQ

1st and 3rd are sensible, don't understand the 2nd. How can a tariff be fixed but not fixed?

Nada666

DragonQ wrote: »

1st and 3rd are sensible, don't understand the 2nd. How can a tariff be fixed but not fixed?

There are lots of tariffs with a misleading "fix" or "fixed" in their name in which what is fixed is only the discount from a variable standard tariff.

Consumerist

DragonQ wrote: »

1st and 3rd are sensible, don't understand the 2nd. How can a tariff be fixed but not fixed?

Suppliers often "fix" a discount to another of their variable tariffs. So it's not really a fixed-price tariff, it's only really a fixed-discount.

My understanding of the new licence conditions is that such a tracking tariff must track something over which the supplier has no direct control (e.g. an index of some sort).

Nada666

Consumerist wrote: »

Suppliers may set the standing charge to zero if they want.

How long do you want the list of available tariffs to be? Just long enough to make the information useless, no doubt.

No, suppliers may set the "standing" charge to be uncapped and pro rata to your consumption if they want. It is not set to zero.

How many iterations of enquiry do you think a consumer should have to go through to compare prices? Surely you should just have one list with all alternatives. That does not alter the number of options - it just means you can see them all at one time.

Cardew

Nada666 wrote: »

There are lots of tariffs with a misleading "fix" or "fixed" in their name in which what is fixed is only the discount from a variable standard tariff.

Exactly!

Whist prices could be initially set, say, 10% below the Standard tariff, the 'fix' might only guarantee that prices would remain, say, 2% below the Standard tariff for the term of this fixed tariff.

So they could raise prices by 8% in the case above and this would comply with the terms and conditions of tariff.

Or if the Standard tariff rose 6% the above fixed tariff could increase by 14%.

Consumerist

Nada666 wrote: »

No, suppliers may set the "standing" charge to be uncapped and pro rata to your consumption if they want. It is not set to zero.

If a charge is pro rata to consumption, I don't quite understand how it can be a "standing" charge. It's a contradiction of terms.

Edit
From the RMR para 2.13:-

While our policy requires suppliers to adopt a standing charge and unit rate structure, we do not specify the level of standing charge and consequently any standing charge can be zero.

Hope that clarifies the position.

zerog

Pretty good, now extend the definition of "fixed" to phone contracts as well.

Consumerist

Cardew wrote: »

Exactly!

Whist prices could be initially set, say, 10% below the Standard tariff, the 'fix' might only guarantee that prices would remain, say, 2% below the Standard tariff for the term of this fixed tariff.

So they could raise prices by 8% in the case above and this would comply with the terms and conditions of tariff.

Or if the Standard tariff rose 6% the above fixed tariff could increase by 14%.

Exactly what, exactly?

My point is that these shenanigans will now have to stop.