Omni Energy switched unprofitable customers without express consent

wittynamegoeshere

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). Taking on a million customers as SoLR might even improve the balance sheet for a supplier.

They'll get back any customer debt from Ofgem, but will then immediately start making a loss on every unit that each new customer uses.  As Omni's actions prove, these companies would prefer their existing customers to go away, so they're not going to be keen on getting more.

You know the energy market has failed when companies are actively trying to get rid of customers!

QrizB

wittynamegoeshere said:

They'll get back any customer debt from Ofgem, but will then immediately start making a loss on every unit that each new customer uses.

Ofgem will meet the excess cost of supplying the customers for the 6 months of the SoLR tariff. It's all there in the Ofgem docs if you look.

MWT

QrizB said:

wittynamegoeshere said:

They'll get back any customer debt from Ofgem, but will then immediately start making a loss on every unit that each new customer uses.

Ofgem will meet the excess cost of supplying the customers for the 6 months of the SoLR tariff. It's all there in the Ofgem docs if you look.

It is the 6 months after that which may be painful...

MWT

Shedman said:

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?

Yes, but much like E.ON moving customers to E.ON Next, that sort of shift to a related entity is usually covered in the T&C's.

QrizB

MWT said:

QrizB said:

wittynamegoeshere said:

They'll get back any customer debt from Ofgem, but will then immediately start making a loss on every unit that each new customer uses.

Ofgem will meet the excess cost of supplying the customers for the 6 months of the SoLR tariff. It's all there in the Ofgem docs if you look.

It is the 6 months after that which may be painful...

That I can agree with. It will depend on the Ofgem cap (which will be based on the price of energy in the current period) and the actual price of energy from April to October. If the cap rises but energy costs drop, the suppliers shouldn't have any problems. If neither happen, well it could be awkward.

dbks

Shedman said:

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?

Did you inform Ofgem?
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78056940/#Comment_78056940

Or did you simply leave it in the hope someone else would?

I don't seem to see any reports other than here on MSE that this was happening, so perhaps if everyone did like you and left it for someone else to report, then Ofgem were perhaps not aware. I doubt Ofgem read these forums.

Interestingly, no one who was affected and advised to raise a complaint back in February this year if they were unhappy with the situation appears to have ever come back to tell us how it went, whether it was necessary to escalate it to the ombudsman service, etc.

Ofgem did get involved when Ebico tried to switch their customers from SSE to Robin Hood Energy. They stopped it before it started and told Ebico to get express permission from each and every customer before they switched them (or leave them with SSE)

Sadly, Ofgem did not get involved when RHE then sold all Ebico cutomers, along with their own, to British Gas. (without even informing Ebico beforehand it seems)

Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained as they say. BG offered to match or better the Ebico no standing charge tariffs, and removed the huge minimum charge that applied to many.

Now all those BG customers with their zero standing charge tariffs have presumably transferred to the British Gas Zero Fixed Oct 22 tariff for another 12 months super cheap supply. Seems it was even cheaper than the previous Ebico no standing charge tariffs.

So good infact, that even new customers should be flocking to BG to grab it.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6303163/electricity-only

(even beats suppliers capped default tariffs)

Streaky_Bacon

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.

Hilarious.

I can't help picturing them hunched over the boardroom table, ties askew and plates of leftover takeaway strewn around, as they frantically keying in customer details on supplier websites. "I've signed five more up at Scottish Power, Bob!"

wittynamegoeshere

QrizB said:

wittynamegoeshere said:

They'll get back any customer debt from Ofgem, but will then immediately start making a loss on every unit that each new customer uses.

Ofgem will meet the excess cost of supplying the customers for the 6 months of the SoLR tariff. It's all there in the Ofgem docs if you look.

Thanks, I didn't know they did this.

Ofgem are preparing for the SoLR system to stop working though, they think that they will run out of volunteers at some point soon.

Many are concentrating on defensive survival rather than expansion, I've read of at least one of them saying they're just not interested.

The sort of people who went to the likes of Omni and Symbio (me) are not the sort who are going to hang about when they try to make a profit out of us.  Perhaps if one of the biggies goes down there may be some interest from others if they can cope with the numbers, as these customers will be the sort who can't be bothered to move however much you charge them, i.e. the dream customer.

Shedman

dbks said:

Shedman said:

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?

Did you inform Ofgem?
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78056940/#Comment_78056940

Or did you simply leave it in the hope someone else would?

I don't seem to see any reports other than here on MSE that this was happening, so perhaps if everyone did like you and left it for someone else to report, then Ofgem were perhaps not aware. I doubt Ofgem read these forums.

Interestingly, no one who was affected and advised to raise a complaint back in February this year if they were unhappy with the situation appears to have ever come back to tell us how it went, whether it was necessary to escalate it to the ombudsman service, etc.

Ofgem did get involved when Ebico tried to switch their customers from SSE to Robin Hood Energy. They stopped it before it started and told Ebico to get express permission from each and every customer before they switched them (or leave them with SSE)

Sadly, Ofgem did not get involved when RHE then sold all Ebico cutomers, along with their own, to British Gas. (without even informing Ebico beforehand it seems)

Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained as they say. BG offered to match or better the Ebico no standing charge tariffs, and removed the huge minimum charge that applied to many.

Now all those BG customers with their zero standing charge tariffs have presumably transferred to the British Gas Zero Fixed Oct 22 tariff for another 12 months super cheap supply. Seems it was even cheaper than the previous Ebico no standing charge tariffs.

So good infact, that even new customers should be flocking to BG to grab it.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6303163/electricity-only

(even beats suppliers capped default tariffs)

Didn't say I was affected so not sure why you infer that I should have reported it (or are you asking if I actually did...which I did as I did send a tweet to Ofgem about it as I said in the thread you referenced but didn't get any response).   I am actually with Neon Reef of my own choosing anyway so pretty keen they stay in business.  

I just asked the question again now as, although UP and NR shared some common directors, they were still separate entities with their own supply licences (so probably not directly related as in EoN and EON Next as somebody else alluded to) and, as I understand it from what people commented, they didn't transfer people on the same tariffs as they had under their UP contract which I am assuming EON did when they moved customers to EON Next(?).  Hence it seemed comparable to this issue with Omni.  Anyway all a bit of a moot point now.