Bulb to be Nationalised?

Thrugelmir

wittynamegoeshere said:

Thrugelmir said:

doodling said:

Energy has historically been paid for quarterly in arrears. It is only in the last few decades that the distortions introduced by "fixed" monthly direct debits have arisen.

Coal merchants were paid on delvery. 

Yes, and we all know that back in the good old days there was no poverty and people never froze to death in the winter.

Wasn't that long ago.  

People who use oil , lpg etc still pay on delivery. 

Ultrasonic

Thrugelmir said:

wittynamegoeshere said:

Thrugelmir said:

doodling said:

Energy has historically been paid for quarterly in arrears. It is only in the last few decades that the distortions introduced by "fixed" monthly direct debits have arisen.

Coal merchants were paid on delvery. 

Yes, and we all know that back in the good old days there was no poverty and people never froze to death in the winter.

Wasn't that long ago.  

Possibly even still happening 

https://www.fredtarry.co.uk/uk-house-coal-and-wet-firewood-ban.html

WillPS

alsa1 said:

As for Bulb its still puzzling why they are struggling, I thought they only had one variable tariff? In their case they won’t have thousands of customers they have to honour at fixed tariffs signed up months ago. 

Because they haven't hedged enough. They are losing on every unit of energy they sell in every case currently.

MWT

Exactly, this only works if you are allowed to put up your prices as the wholesale cost goes up...

brewerdave

MWT said:

Exactly, this only works if you are allowed to put up your prices as the wholesale cost goes up...

And if we had a sensible OFGEM cap ,they wouldn't be about to fail !! Never thought of Boris as a Socialist but the current cap reeks of Corbynism !

phillw

brewerdave said:
And if we had a sensible OFGEM cap ,they wouldn't be about to fail !! Never thought of Boris as a Socialist but the current cap reeks of Corbynism !

The cap exists because of the daily mail/express reading red tories, you know the ones "you're being ripped off for years by the free market that exists to extract as much money as possible out of their customers, as long as it's not you".

QrizB

brewerdave said:

MWT said:

Exactly, this only works if you are allowed to put up your prices as the wholesale cost goes up...

And if we had a sensible OFGEM cap ,they wouldn't be about to fail !! Never thought of Boris as a Socialist but the current cap reeks of Corbynism !

The cap mechanism was introduced for PAYG tariffs in April 2017, and extended to include SVTs in January 2019. Both under the watchful eye of previous Conservative governments. Alexander de Pfeffel Johnson hasn't interfered.

The current Ofgem cap was calculated by Ofgem applying the rules of the cap mechanism. Every energy supplier had the opportunity to model the effect of the cap on their cashflow, consider the business risk and to set tariffs, hedge supplies etc. according to their own judgement.

The cap will be reviewed in April following the same rules.

Energy suppliers know the rules, and could have predicted the effect they would have during a rising energy market. Businesses going bust now, even better-run ones like Bulb, are doing so due to their own business decisions.

Verdigris

Yes, I thought SVTs and the cap were for fools.

Perhaps we're all fools now?

wild666

wittynamegoeshere said:

My experience of bulb was that their prices almost without exception only went up.  Despite their claims there is absolutely no commitment or fixed formula that in any way links their tariffs to wholesale prices - they just do what they like.  The wholesale price peaked shortly after I joined them, as which point they very quickly ramped their price up.  After prices fell hugely for months on end after they just spewed out excuses.  I'm sure they made plenty of money in the past, they were taking lots of profit while it was there.  They try and carefully cultivate an image of being some kind of carey-sharey mutual but they definitely like a big slice of profit, just like any other company.  I saved a lot by switching away from them.

I found their forum quite weird, there's a bit of a religious cult thing going on with them.  I think some were quite hooked on the whole £50 pyramid recruiting thing so didn't like anything but wonderful things to be said about them, presumably in case it affected their recruitment numbers.  Referral codes were sprayed all over the internet.

Whilst I was with Bulb I think their prices only every increased, their gas price might have decreased once just after I joined them but that was the exception.
Also their Standing charge went from around 15p to 26p in the time I was with them, I left just before they increased it to 26p. 
IMHO the standing charge should be the same all across the board no matter what company the person is with, no increase in the standing charge with a cheaper kWh price just a one off daily charge no matter who the supplier is.
We've seen companies with no standing charges but higher kWh prices or a set fee for one utility, electric, varying on how much electric is used to paying more on both the standing charge and kWh usage by selecting a capped price deal. 
If the standing charges are to keep the supply chain in good order then it should be an across the board price no matter who a person chooses to supply the utilities then they can only increase or decrease the kWh prices  

EssexHebridean

Another here who only ever saw prices increasing with Bulb. The referral thing was good, and I did get a couple of those bonuses from them, but I wouldn't have dreamed of referring anyone for the last year we were with them as their customer service was starting to look distinctly shaky. At the point at which they were starting to hike up DD's for absolutely no good reason, but purely to bolster their cashflow, I was actively warning people I knew to be with them that it was something to look out for, and probably tie to think about jumping. 

Whatever solution is now to be used to deal with what is looking like an increasingly definite demise, there are going to be a lot of folk with an awful lot of credit to try to regain, I suspect.