PfP Energy ceases trading - here's everything you need to know

goatfaced

I don't think they're contriving to delay payment. They have no way of knowing what our final bills or balances will be. I will owe PFP around 300 and nobody is in a hurry to ask for that either. 

bagand96

devondiver said:

bagand96 said:

fly-catchers said:

Though somebody is earning the interest on the £340 credit I had/have with PFP.

Again, nobody is earning interest on your credit balance.  In the energy sector consumer funds are not ringfenced, money you paid to PFP just went into their accounts, and given that they are insolvent, there isn't any money!

At some point someone (BG, presumably) is going to have to pay out the credit balances. Up to the point this money is paid out it is in existence (albeit in the digital ether of accounting) and it is being utilised - by BG if it is they who are about to fork it out. Every day they contrive to delay payment they still have the use of this money. How can this not be referred to as interest?

So - my question is still: what rules etc. are in place to encourage BG (or whoever) to perform this function in a timely fashion?

- PFP (under the control of the administrators) have to issue Final Bills

- PFP then advise BG of account credit balances 
- BG then apply the credit amount to those accounts 

British Gas are not contriving to delay payment. They have absolutely no control of how quickly PFP produce the Final Bills. 

PFP are now controlled by the administrators. Part of the administrators duty is to minimise the costs of the administration process. As such PFP will now be run on a skeleton staff.

There are no rules on how quickly a defunct provider has to provide a final bill, how quickly that information must be passed to the SoLR, or how quickly the SoLR must apply credit to accounts. 

devondiver

bagand96 said:

devondiver said:

bagand96 said:

fly-catchers said:

Though somebody is earning the interest on the £340 credit I had/have with PFP.

Again, nobody is earning interest on your credit balance.  In the energy sector consumer funds are not ringfenced, money you paid to PFP just went into their accounts, and given that they are insolvent, there isn't any money!

At some point someone (BG, presumably) is going to have to pay out the credit balances. Up to the point this money is paid out it is in existence (albeit in the digital ether of accounting) and it is being utilised - by BG if it is they who are about to fork it out. Every day they contrive to delay payment they still have the use of this money. How can this not be referred to as interest?

So - my question is still: what rules etc. are in place to encourage BG (or whoever) to perform this function in a timely fashion?

- PFP (under the control of the administrators) have to issue Final Bills

- PFP then advise BG of account credit balances 
- BG then apply the credit amount to those accounts 

British Gas are not contriving to delay payment. They have absolutely no control of how quickly PFP produce the Final Bills. 

PFP are now controlled by the administrators. Part of the administrators duty is to minimise the costs of the administration process. As such PFP will now be run on a skeleton staff.

There are no rules on how quickly a defunct provider has to provide a final bill, how quickly that information must be passed to the SoLR, or how quickly the SoLR must apply credit to accounts. 

Thank you for attempting to answer my (rhetorical) questions.

The point is that for some time prior to going bust (and perhaps even afterwards) at least some of these companies (Symbio?) were taking large sums of money from (possibly) all their customers in a (possibly) criminal fashion usually, but by no means exclusively, in the form of hugely inflated advance estimated bills. Meanwhile the prevailing attitude amongst forum posters was "Don't worry. You are simply building up credit and you will get it all back". But when?

Now that these companies have folded it is apparent that they were operating unsustainably, supported at least in part by interest-free credit from their unknowing customers. Obviously, the regulatory framework which allowed this situation to develop is seriously flawed and requires a serious shake-down. The fact is that billions of pounds (eg Bulb 1.7bn just for starters) must now be found from the industry (that means us) to balance the books - and much of that requirement will be administration costs to sort out the mess. Applied across the breadth of now defunct power companies we are talking vast sums, and the yet-to-be-returned credit balances amount to substantial interest-free credit - which is not without cost to those unwillingly providing it.

Regarding timing of 'final bills' - I know that my (accurate) PFP final bill was available prior to 8th November, and this may well apply to most, or even all, PFP (and other) customers. So talk of final bills and balances not being available until after New Year are concerning to say the least. The fact that these final bills were posted on the PFP website seemingly in error - since they were hastily removed from view soon afterwards - should also sound alarm bells.

bagand96

devondiver said:

Thank you for attempting to answer my (rhetorical) questions.

The point is that for some time prior to going bust (and perhaps even afterwards) at least some of these companies (Symbio?) were taking large sums of money from (possibly) all their customers in a (possibly) criminal fashion usually, but by no means exclusively, in the form of hugely inflated advance estimated bills. Meanwhile the prevailing attitude amongst forum posters was "Don't worry. You are simply building up credit and you will get it all back". But when?

Now that these companies have folded it is apparent that they were operating unsustainably, supported at least in part by interest-free credit from their unknowing customers. Obviously, the regulatory framework which allowed this situation to develop is seriously flawed and requires a serious shake-down. The fact is that billions of pounds (eg Bulb 1.7bn just for starters) must now be found from the industry (that means us) to balance the books - and much of that requirement will be administration costs to sort out the mess. Applied across the breadth of now defunct power companies we are talking vast sums, and the yet-to-be-returned credit balances amount to substantial interest-free credit - which is not without cost to those unwillingly providing it.

Regarding timing of 'final bills' - I know that my (accurate) PFP final bill was available prior to 8th November, and this may well apply to most, or even all, PFP (and other) customers. So talk of final bills and balances not being available until after New Year are concerning to say the least. The fact that these final bills were posted on the PFP website seemingly in error - since they were hastily removed from view soon afterwards - should also sound alarm bells.

As an example I was with Yorkshire Energy who went bust almost a year ago, the SoLR was Scottish Power:

06/12/20 YE announced ceasing trading
04/02/21 Final bill from YE showing a credit balance
18/02/21 YE credit balance applied to SP account

Now that was before the current energy crisis and for me at least was quite a straightforward process (I seem to remember it took a lot longer for other MSEer's)   Obviously different companies involved, and BG are currently dealing with 7 SoLR's!

I wouldn't worry too much about the Final Bills appearing and disappearing.  Could be many explanations, a test run that wasn't meant to show to customers, or it was the first batch but they found some error in the process so decided to pull them all and start again.  We will never know, but at least it shows something is happening, and the fact yours was correct is a positive!

devondiver

bagand96 said:

devondiver said:

Thank you for attempting to answer my (rhetorical) questions.

The point is that for some time prior to going bust (and perhaps even afterwards) at least some of these companies (Symbio?) were taking large sums of money from (possibly) all their customers in a (possibly) criminal fashion usually, but by no means exclusively, in the form of hugely inflated advance estimated bills. Meanwhile the prevailing attitude amongst forum posters was "Don't worry. You are simply building up credit and you will get it all back". But when?

Now that these companies have folded it is apparent that they were operating unsustainably, supported at least in part by interest-free credit from their unknowing customers. Obviously, the regulatory framework which allowed this situation to develop is seriously flawed and requires a serious shake-down. The fact is that billions of pounds (eg Bulb 1.7bn just for starters) must now be found from the industry (that means us) to balance the books - and much of that requirement will be administration costs to sort out the mess. Applied across the breadth of now defunct power companies we are talking vast sums, and the yet-to-be-returned credit balances amount to substantial interest-free credit - which is not without cost to those unwillingly providing it.

Regarding timing of 'final bills' - I know that my (accurate) PFP final bill was available prior to 8th November, and this may well apply to most, or even all, PFP (and other) customers. So talk of final bills and balances not being available until after New Year are concerning to say the least. The fact that these final bills were posted on the PFP website seemingly in error - since they were hastily removed from view soon afterwards - should also sound alarm bells.

As an example I was with Yorkshire Energy who went bust almost a year ago, the SoLR was Scottish Power:

06/12/20 YE announced ceasing trading
04/02/21 Final bill from YE showing a credit balance
18/02/21 YE credit balance applied to SP account

Now that was before the current energy crisis and for me at least was quite a straightforward process (I seem to remember it took a lot longer for other MSEer's)   Obviously different companies involved, and BG are currently dealing with 7 SoLR's!

I wouldn't worry too much about the Final Bills appearing and disappearing.  Could be many explanations, a test run that wasn't meant to show to customers, or it was the first batch but they found some error in the process so decided to pull them all and start again.  We will never know, but at least it shows something is happening, and the fact yours was correct is a positive!

Personally, I only worry if I think it will help - which is usually never.

The fact remains that there seems to be little or no regulatory pressure for the companies involved to settle the accounts in a timely manner, with a minimum of heel-dragging.

I for one, for the reasons stated, find this a far from satisfactory situation which should be addressed by regulators as a matter of urgency.

bagand96

devondiver said:

bagand96 said:

devondiver said:

Thank you for attempting to answer my (rhetorical) questions.

The point is that for some time prior to going bust (and perhaps even afterwards) at least some of these companies (Symbio?) were taking large sums of money from (possibly) all their customers in a (possibly) criminal fashion usually, but by no means exclusively, in the form of hugely inflated advance estimated bills. Meanwhile the prevailing attitude amongst forum posters was "Don't worry. You are simply building up credit and you will get it all back". But when?

Now that these companies have folded it is apparent that they were operating unsustainably, supported at least in part by interest-free credit from their unknowing customers. Obviously, the regulatory framework which allowed this situation to develop is seriously flawed and requires a serious shake-down. The fact is that billions of pounds (eg Bulb 1.7bn just for starters) must now be found from the industry (that means us) to balance the books - and much of that requirement will be administration costs to sort out the mess. Applied across the breadth of now defunct power companies we are talking vast sums, and the yet-to-be-returned credit balances amount to substantial interest-free credit - which is not without cost to those unwillingly providing it.

Regarding timing of 'final bills' - I know that my (accurate) PFP final bill was available prior to 8th November, and this may well apply to most, or even all, PFP (and other) customers. So talk of final bills and balances not being available until after New Year are concerning to say the least. The fact that these final bills were posted on the PFP website seemingly in error - since they were hastily removed from view soon afterwards - should also sound alarm bells.

As an example I was with Yorkshire Energy who went bust almost a year ago, the SoLR was Scottish Power:

06/12/20 YE announced ceasing trading
04/02/21 Final bill from YE showing a credit balance
18/02/21 YE credit balance applied to SP account

Now that was before the current energy crisis and for me at least was quite a straightforward process (I seem to remember it took a lot longer for other MSEer's)   Obviously different companies involved, and BG are currently dealing with 7 SoLR's!

I wouldn't worry too much about the Final Bills appearing and disappearing.  Could be many explanations, a test run that wasn't meant to show to customers, or it was the first batch but they found some error in the process so decided to pull them all and start again.  We will never know, but at least it shows something is happening, and the fact yours was correct is a positive!

Personally, I only worry if I think it will help - which is usually never.

The fact remains that there seems to be little or no regulatory pressure for the companies involved to settle the accounts in a timely manner, with a minimum of heel-dragging.

I for one, for the reasons stated, find this a far from satisfactory situation which should be addressed by regulators as a matter of urgency.

That's administration for you, not just in the energy industry. Companies in administration do not operate in the same way as normally trading companies. 

Ofgem can only regulate licensed every suppliers, which PFP ceased to be the moment administration was announced. 

It's par for the course when bouncing round the bottom of the energy market with suppliers giving dirt cheap rates... it often doesn't end well (even before the current crisis). It wasn't all that long ago that consumer credit balances weren't even protected. 

Delburn

It looks like PFP was in somewhat of a mess, which may the explain the delay in final bills.

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09135694/filing-history

According to the administrators:

OFGEM had granted a supply licence to a company which had no bank account.
The supply company had no formal intercompany agreement with the related company where all payments were being routed through.
It is uncertain which companies in the PFP group own various assets and and in the opinion of the administrators the PFP companies were filing incorrect accounts.

Given that the PFP supply company had no bank account in its name, the administrators were saying they could not produce final bills unless British Gas pays for the process, or a creditor loans the company the money needed.  A later comment suggests an agreement might have been reached with British Gas.

QrizB

Delburn said:

It looks like PFP was in somewhat of a mess, which may the explain the delay in final bills.
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09135694/filing-history

That's a fascinating (and in some ways horrifying) read, thank you for sharing the link.

devondiver

Delburn said:

It looks like PFP was in somewhat of a mess, which may the explain the delay in final bills.

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09135694/filing-history

Yes. Very interesting, thanks. I note that the administrators are saying, even just 7 days ago, that the final billing "process will take a number of months to complete".

I note also that the British Gas PFP Energy Customers Information page states: Last updated - Thursday 11th November; Next update Thursday 25th November! I guess they must be working late tonight - but not holding my breath!

t0rt0ise

My pfp account now says that I owe them 14 pounds which it also says should be paid by december 1st but there is no bill for me to see how it was worked out.  Working out what I do owe, it could only be that amount if they are billing until 30th September. Oddly too BG has already billed me for elec used since 1st October. As the takeover date was supposed to be earlier in September, I presume this is all a mistake and that's maybe why the bills have been removed on the pfp site.