Omni Energy switched unprofitable customers without express consent

ChaunceyGardiner

Omni Energy switched unprofitable customers without express consent | Energy bills | The Guardian

wittynamegoeshere

Incredible.  Desperate measures!

So they're next in the queue to go bust then.

I'll order the popcorn when one of the big six goes pop.  It's perfectly possible, depending on how successful they all are at misleading their existing customers into switching to vastly more expensive tariffs.

Grizzlebeard

wittynamegoeshere said:

Incredible.  Desperate measures!

So they're next in the queue to go bust then.

I'll order the popcorn when one of the big six goes pop.  It's perfectly possible, depending on how successful they all are at misleading their existing customers into switching to vastly more expensive tariffs.

If one of the BIG6 looks like going under the Government will step in, like with the banks.

They really can't afford to let 6 million homes float around with no SOLR's, and the last BIG5 would just become wobbly dominoes.

dbks

"

Ofgem, the energy regulator, does not permit suppliers to switch customers without their consent, except as part of a takeover of all or part of a business. But the Guardian has seen communications indicating that the company began manually signing customers up with rival suppliers such as Bulb and Scottish Power without telling them, using their personal details to open new accounts.

Both Bulb and Scottish Power have investigated the switches and are cancelling them, meaning the customers will revert to Omni."

and

"It is estimated that as many as 3,000 customer accounts, roughly 1,600 households, may have had their accounts moved without their knowledge."

How can that occur?

I admit I am not particularly familiar with switches involving PPMs (which is what Omni Energy serves), but doesn't an energy company contact every new customer, just like they do with credit metered customers?

Perhaps even more so when it involves a PPM, as the customer will usually need a new top up device/key etc.

14 day cooling off period surely applies to all such switches too.

wittynamegoeshere

One of the government stated yesterday at the Tory conference that they will not be bailing out any energy companies.

Ofgem have a procedure for when they can't appoint a SoLR, basically they take over and run the failed company themselves.  They've already appointed a company to get ready to do it.

Regardless of the size of the next failure, it's possibly becoming unlikely that any other company will volunteer to be the SoLR because, as Omni's behaviour shows, they're making a loss from many or most of their customers now, so why invite more in?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/30/ofgem-prepares-for-looming-failure-of-a-leading-energy-supplier

QrizB

There was a thread from an Omni customer a few days ago:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6302340/omni-energy

dbks

"A source familiar with Omni’s actions said that senior executives at the company had spent days switching hundreds of customers at a time, focusing on the highest energy users."

According to a recent thread about this, albeit after securing express approval for a switch, I understood that Omni were using a 'switching partner', which I understood was probably either a comparsion site or an auto switching service they teamed up with. (probably for a  share of the kick-back)

In particular this link within that thread:
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/omni-energy-predicts-13th-uk-170332736.html

Sounds much more feasible than their senior executives switching hundreds of customers themselves.

QrizB

wittynamegoeshere said:

Regardless of the size of the next failure, it's possibly becoming unlikely that any other company will volunteer to be the SoLR because, as Omni's behaviour shows, they're making a loss from many or most of their customers now, so why invite more in?

No supplier will make a loss on SoLR customers. Any losses can be claimed back from Ofgem (who will then recover them from the rest of us, via higher bills in future). Taking on a million customers as SoLR might even improve the balance sheet for a supplier.

MWT

QrizB said:

wittynamegoeshere said:

Regardless of the size of the next failure, it's possibly becoming unlikely that any other company will volunteer to be the SoLR because, as Omni's behaviour shows, they're making a loss from many or most of their customers now, so why invite more in?

No supplier will make a loss on SoLR customers. Any losses can be claimed back from Ofgem (who will then recover them from the rest of us, via higher bills in future).

That rather assumes that the next price cap will be set at a level which allow the supplier to sell for more than it costs them as they don't get an unlimited ability to recover their losses...

Shedman

So just to speed their demise no doubt they should now also be getting a fine for breaching data protection regs.

Kind of ironic in a way that one of those companies (although probably not Bulb from what we've been hearing on the forum) now switching those customers back are likely to get them again soon under SOLR process...

Shedman

And didn't Utility Point do something similar a few months ago by switching some electric only customers to Neon Reef (although I expect those customers are now very grateful 😊), but I don't recall Ofgem getting involved in that one?