Customer Services - winners and losers

modsandmockers

This forum is repeatedly bombarded by questions from energy consumers who clearly have absolutely no understanding at all about how to manage their energy bills. And the replies mostly come from a small number of individuals (myself included) who find these things easy.

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that, because something is obvious to one person, then it should obviously be equally obvious to everybody else.

The energy suppliers appear to me to deliberately make it difficult for their customers to find an answer to the very simple question ‘how much is my energy costing me?’. As a result, many of their customers get into all sorts of difficulties, and get no useful help at all from so-called Customer Services. The energy suppliers appear to think nothing of allowing massive debts to accrue before eventually selling the debts to a debt collector at a tiny fraction of its true worth.

So who eventually picks up the tab? Yep - you guessed it - it’s the same small number of individuals (myself included) who find these things easy.

Bark01

You make the same arguments here:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/68737330#Comment_68737330

Why start a new thread?

JJ_Egan

Same arguments can be taken for many areas of life a huge lack of consumer nous and basic of life are never taught .

naedanger

modsandmockers wrote: »

So who eventually picks up the tab? Yep - you guessed it - it’s the same small number of individuals (myself included) who find these things easy.

I don't see how the tab is picked up by those who find these things easy. (In general it is the opposite, because those who find these things easy tend to avoid the pitfalls, obtain reasonable deals and know what to do if they are overcharged or denied their rights e.g. through supplier incompetence.)

modsandmockers

Bark01 wrote: »

You make the same arguments here:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/68737330#Comment_68737330

Why start a new thread?

Because the situation continues, and the arguments need to keep being made. The energy suppliers ride roughshod over their own customers' rights to fair treatment, whilst the regulatory 'improvements' continue to allow them to treat their customers with contempt.

naedanger wrote: »

I don't see how the tab is picked up by those who find these things easy. (In general it is the opposite, because those who find these things easy tend to avoid the pitfalls, obtain reasonable deals and know what to do if they are overcharged or denied their rights e.g. through supplier incompetence.)

The bad debts of those who do not understand these things are surely passed on to the customers who manage their affairs successfully.

naedanger

modsandmockers wrote: »

The bad debts of those who do not understand these things are surely passed on to the customers who manage their affairs successfully.

The costs arising from bad debts are spread across all paying customers not just "the small number of individuals (myself included) who find these things easy".