Energy Suppliers

embebe

Why does OFGEN when appointing Suppliers of Last Resort always appoint be big Energy Companies with abysmal Customer Service records? So far I have suffered to lousey Customer Service from Scottish Power, EDF and E.ON.

JJ_Egan

Why presumably due to the big 6 having more capitol behind them .

As opposed to moving you to another non big and finding as in the past that the non big companies cannot cope with the influx .

But you could always ask Ofgen .

brewerdave

embebe said:

Why does OFGEN when appointing Suppliers of Last Resort always appoint be big Energy Companies with abysmal Customer Service records? So far I have suffered to lousey Customer Service from Scottish Power, EDF and E.ON.

Not always true - I got moved from Iresa to Octopus in 2018 (when they were relatively small but were good), from Usio to First Utility(awful) and then from One Select to Together Energy (the worst of the lot !)

MWT

The suppliers get an opportunity to tender for the SoLR responsibility and show how they would minimise the costs to the central funds by assuming some of the risk themselves in exchange for the new customers...

That tends to be how a smaller company could 'buy' new customers in volume...

If nobody tenders then Ofcom pick a supplier, in which case it is more likely to be one large enough to handle the work involved...

UnclaimedEnergy

When choosing suppliers, One of the biggest factors that Ofgem take into account is how much of the industry levy the new supplier tends to use. 

If a supplier offers to cover a good amount of the customer credit out of their own pockets, they're more likely to be given the customers.

For every SoLR there is an Ofgem document stating the reasons why the new supplier was chosen. If you're really interested in knowing why instead of just having a rant then you can look them up online

Example: https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/appointment-edf-energy-supplier-last-resort-0