MSE News: Energy firms to be allowed to contact rivals' customers to offer better...

MSE_Luke

The competition watchdog has said its new database to help boost energy switching won't lead to customers getting spam...

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'Energy firms to be allowed to contact rivals' customers to offer better deals'

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jamesd

How will MSE address the planned change so that only the price listing service provided by Citizens' Advice (13.265) will be trustable by consumers as containing all tariffs on the market?

Will MSE in its energy comparison pages be ensuring that MSE users know that only the Citizen's Advice database is trustworthy, with MSE's own brand one in the untrustworthy collection by not including all tariffs, including not listing all collective switch deals? Or alternatively, will MSE's products also be whole of market including every deal in the CAB database, including all collective switch deals, including deals that pay MSE or its data providers nothing?

All others are to have the whole market requirement removed and to be allowed to list only the ones that pay them commission or fees (13.278), with nothing other than something like a notice saying not all tariffs are shown in presumably tiny type to alert users that they aren't necessarily going to get the best deal.

Will MSE offer services to those who refuse to provide permission to access the central databases (ECOES and SCOGES) or phase 2 Midata that provide not just meter numbers as described in the story but also details of every supplier used since 1998 and all meter readings, meter switches and other details, including usage for every half hour interval for perhaps years so it's possible to see when people wake up, sleep or are out of the home and available for burglary?

How will MSE adapt to the new world where it is necessary for consumers to check many price comparison places (unless they use the CAB one) to be sure that they are getting the best normal (not collective) deal? As CAB observed, this does not look like a great improvement, increasing the work of consumers who want the best deal:

"13.287 Citizens Advice said the argument that this remedy would generate competition within the domestic retail energy markets was not as strong as suggested. In practice, removing the Whole of Market Requirement would increase, not reduce, the hassle associated with switching as consumers would need to check multiple PCWs to be confident they were getting the best deal."

MothballsWallet

So, the CMA is saying that you'd have to opt in to this marketing then?

Have they also said that the boxes to do so on the suppliers' websites must not be pre-ticked for opt in?

It'd be a waste of consumers' time if they said "it's opt-in, but we're not going to say how suppliers can default the boxes on their websites."

[Deleted User]

I've already swapped to using the CAB site to find the best deals and then check which switch site offers the best cashback for that deal.
If there is no cashback, then it's straight to the company website for a switch. So CEC only gets my business now if it is cost effective and only for the switch.
It is no longer my default choice.

jamesd

MothballsWallet wrote: »

So, the CMA is saying that you'd have to opt in to this marketing then?

No, they said that they rejected the opt in choice and people on standard tariffs long enough will get it unless they opt out.

MothballsWallet

MSE_Article wrote:

However, amid fears that the scheme could lead to energy customers being spammed, the CMA's report says you'll be able to opt out of being contacted by post, and "will only be contacted electronically if [you] explicitly opt in to such communications".

So, a contradiction between electronic and postal marketing then.

Of course, I keep forgetting this is the UK: consistency is optional but only if the regulator has enough brain cells to give a dam about it.

prowla

I'm registered with TPS, so if they phone me I'll tell them.
I tend to throw junk mail straight in the recycling.

vikingaero

Do they really need a database? Seems like a money making scam for Ofgem to charge suppliers and boost its coffers

Most companies have a database: Customers at Numbers 1, 6, 22, and 46 High Street Anytown are our current customers - everyone else isn't. Not rocket science

jamesd

Part of the plan is to tell all of the other companies which company we're a customer of so that they can send us more spamming switch offers, but now made to look more convincing by containing confidential information about us. But without any requirement to be a better deal or the best deal on the market.

redux

I don't like this, and I certainly would not want such ideas expanded across other types of product range

Anything that might again enable someone at a certain phone company or anywhere else to call me a lying c*nt because I refused to disclose my current supplier and tariff is going in the wrong direction.

GingerBob_3

jamesd wrote: »

Part of the plan is to tell all of the other companies which company we're a customer of so that they can send us more spamming switch offers, but now made to look more convincing by containing confidential information about us. But without any requirement to be a better deal or the best deal on the market.

Only if your current supplier has that information. It's good practice not to disclose personal details such as FULL name, DoB, previous address and so on to your energy and communications providers.