MSE News: Prepaid energy bills to be capped

robin58

molerat wrote: »

https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/energy-market-investigation

My reading between the lines is that OFGEM has been as much use as a chocolate fire guard, much of their tinkering over the past few years needs undoing and they need to get their finger out and do something to actually regulate the market as is their mandate :eek:

HEAR! HEAR!

Put molerat in charge of OFgem!!!

Wolf3

Dumb prepayment meters are a very costly way for a supplier to bill a customer.They are always breaking down or getting deliberately damaged or fiddled and cost the earth to run including a profit to Mr Khan etc .We are always having to visit these outdated old meters to either top up or reset or try and mend after someones rammed something into the slots.They are already subsidised down to standard tariffs ( they used to be higher ) after the MPs decided to have an uproar of indignation after they found out that the poorest in the UK were paying the highest rates. The answer to the problem..Smart prepayment meters... like they have over in Northern Ireland where they are very popular and attract lower than standard tariffs..No need to cap, just get smart with them as quickly as possible.

agree with you 100% the paypoint system is both antiquated and expensive. the sooner these are in place the better.

backfoot

davidgmmafan wrote: »

This would not work. It's taken me all of five seconds to imagine the following scenario. Standatd tariffs are banned. All suppliers launch new tariffs. Lets call the one most customers are on non standaard tariff 2.0. Viola problem solved!

Except that nobody is better off.

This is David Cameron's idea. It will never get off the ground as it would involed a similar tariff to above. Instead of non standard tariff 2.0 suppliers could simply get rid off all the other tariffs. Viola everyone is suddenly AUTOMATCALLY on the suppliers cheapest tariff.

As others have suggested Ofgem is part of the problem rather than part of the solution. For all the whinges I hear the water industry seems to be much better for customers, at least frmo my point of view. If Ofgem were in charge of that they would just nod through any price increase the water companies wanted.

Ofgem failed on gas sculpting, was spectacularly slow to react to a huge number of issues with NPower's billing system, and this report shows the four tariff approach has failed (I remember social tariffs starting to disappear when this was brought in).

I can't see a way forward if Ofgem is involved.

I didn't know David Cameron had suggested this? Do you have a link?

The online prices can easily be monitored prior to introduction of my suggestion.

Any increases would have to be fully explained to OFGEM. It would be easy to monitor, as the number of tariffs for the same thing are drastically reduced.

It isn't difficult and would work. It was how prices worked prior to privatisation and for a while after with (price - x efficiency) gains. The difference would be a low starting price point and simple competition between suppliers thereafter.

To equalise profits there could be a slight drift upwards but inter supplier competition and the presence of new suppliers , who compete purely on low entry prices, should keep price pressure on.

Much slicker and faster to implement than the phone number exercise.:j

xxallixx

please can you tell me what happens to the money already on a pre paid meter if you switch ?
thank you.

SwanJon

xxallixx wrote: »

please can you tell me what happens to the money already on a pre paid meter if you switch ?
thank you.

On a traditional prepaid meter (not Smart) the credit will stay there for you to use (at least until you top up with the new supplier's card/key, maybe afterwards too).

Technically this is money you have given to your old supplier but you are then using gas/electricity from your new supplier so you could end up with a balance. In practice for normal amounts I don't think any supplier chases it. They might if it was hundreds.

davidgmmafan

Here you are

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19986929

Quietly forgotten and never held to account for this. I remember seeing the announcement on PMQ's and the subsequent confusion as the minister knew nothing about it.

I don't know if he fudged his lines or what.

Anyway reading some comments elsehwhere I was reminded of something else that would help - petrol forecourt style pricing. People just don't grasp standing charges or the tiered tariffs we had before that. People do understand (well mostly) x pence per kwh.

This would aid switching and competition if they go that route.

davidgmmafan

PS you lost me at any increase would have tombe explained to Ofgem. Is this 'like being svaged by a dead sheep' Ofgem? This report says, at best, their four tariff scheme has failed.

Look how long they took to even look into the Npower debacle when there was ample information available in this public forum. They simply aren't up to the job. Consumer Focus were imho, can't get those folks back?

backfoot

Thanks for the link. Neither the report nor yourself actually explain why the idea wouldn't work. It vaguely talks about reducing competition but doesn't explain why?

We all recognise that Ofgem haven't been up to the mark, but that in itself doesn't destroy the premise. The comment about Ofgem merely tries to draw attention away from whether the proposal has merit.

The whole emphasis on competition would be to achieve nirvana where everyone actively shops around and switches to the cheaper tariffs and away from the dreaded 'standard' (substitute rip off) tariff.

I am simply suggesting a fast track process which is fair and equal for energy users.

I've yet to hear a robust argument against it.

backfoot

GB Energy, a new entrant to the market, do not have a 'standard' tariff.

They offer a fixed term of one year or a variable tariff.

Both are competitive, certainly on electricity for me and you do not default to a much higher standard rate.The suggestion to do away with standard tariffs is totally workable.:)

pineapple

Switching isn't helped by the difficulty in just getting the rate and any standard charge. I don't want to see usage estimates for a particular type of property - I'm a big girl and I can work it out myself. I just want a simple search to bring up the unit rates of all the suppliers. You should be able to get this without going onto someone's spam list and without having to wade through annual estimates then the dig around for the actual unit rate of a particular tariff. .