British Gas removes guarantee dates from SoLR tariffs...

paulbounty3

British Gas will be in breach of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008  (Regulation 5 Misleading actions) if they put the price up before 31 July 22.  

MWT

paulbounty3 said:

British Gas will be in breach of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008  (Regulation 5 Misleading actions) if they put the price up before 31 July 22.  

I'm not 100% certain of that given the claim on the part of BG that the conflicting information was a mistake, which they corrected when they became aware of it.

There does need to be 'intent' for them to be guilty under the regulations, and sadly I do think this is incompetence rather than something done to deliberately mislead.

BobT36

MWT said:

paulbounty3 said:

British Gas will be in breach of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008  (Regulation 5 Misleading actions) if they put the price up before 31 July 22.  

I'm not 100% certain of that given the claim on the part of BG that the conflicting information was a mistake, which they corrected when they became aware of it.

There does need to be 'intent' for them to be guilty under the regulations, and sadly I do think this is incompetence rather than something done to deliberately mislead.

Disagree (on intent). The initial "this was for business reasons" message, and the fact they ran that same "mistake" without it being detected for months, and with different dates on multiple tarrifs, point to otherwise.
 
I reckon they were perfectly happy to use the marketing & draw of a "guaranteed" price to reel in customers, but then reneged on their end when the going got tough. That's not how contracts are supposed to work, unless there's a specific clause that releases them from it, if the price rose over x amount, etc. This was clearly intentionally misleading marketing and backing-out ONLY when they're on the losing side. Typical big-biz strongarming. 

Whether they can be pinned legally for this though is the question, and whether the "mistake" BS will get them by. (Probably will, considering how rip-off Britain works). 

MWT

BobT36 said:

I reckon they were perfectly happy to use the marketing & draw of a "guaranteed" price to reel in customers, but then reneged on their end when the going got tough.

These tariffs were only available to SoLR transfers so there was no reason to try and make them particularly attractive and there was no need to 'reel in' anyone as the customers had no choice.

Also the wording in total was conflicting, rather than simply misleading.

It both said the price was guaranteed and also variable, so I'd still go with mistake, just a very big one which they should have noticed much sooner.

The details of the tariff had to be agreed with Ofgem before the SoLR appointment was made, so I suspect you'll find there was no doubt at the Ofgem side of this that it was a variable tariff, just badly communicated when it came to the customer side.

As I've mentioned a few times though, if anyone was going to try and take this to court, I'd go with the effect of the bad information being a failure to immediately get a fix elsewhere at prices that were a dim and distant dream by the time BG made it clear that there was no guarantee.

lisyloo

BobT36 said:

MWT said:I

paulbounty3 said:

British Gas will be in breach of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008  (Regulation 5 Misleading actions) if they put the price up before 31 July 22.  

I'm not 100% certain of that given the claim on the part of BG that the conflicting information was a mistake, which they corrected when they became aware of it.

There does need to be 'intent' for them to be guilty under the regulations, and sadly I do think this is incompetence rather than something done to deliberately mislead.

Disagree (on intent). The initial "this was for business reasons" message, and the fact they ran that same "mistake" without it being detected for months, and with different dates on multiple tarrifs, point to otherwise.
 
I reckon they were perfectly happy to use the marketing & draw of a "guaranteed" price to reel in customers, but then reneged on their end when the going got tough. That's not how contracts are supposed to work, unless there's a specific clause that releases them from it, if the price rose over x amount, etc. This was clearly intentionally misleading marketing and backing-out ONLY when they're on the losing side. Typical big-biz strongarming. 

Whether they can be pinned legally for this though is the question, and whether the "mistake" BS will get them by. (Probably will, considering how rip-off Britain works). 

Maybe but someone has to take it to court to find out, and whilst most here are satisfied with £100 then they’ll succeed in buying people off. It’s a tactic and it’s working.

beefturnmail

Does anyone have a record of what fixed tariffs were available in late November/early December last year?

QrizB

beefturnmail said:

Does anyone have a record of what fixed tariffs were available in late November/early December last year?

I'm sure someone does, but not necessarily anyone reading this forum.

You could look back to threads from around that time and see what people were discussing? Page 103 of this forum is currently the 1st of December, if you want somewhere to start:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/energy/p103

Here is a thread with some Scottish Power tariffs:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6315225/should-i-lock-into-new-deal-now/p1

On 26th November, mapleridge said:

Electric Standing charge is 23.29p and unit rate 19.52p
Gas standing charge is 23.02p and unit rate 4.08p

(I think that was a loyalty tariff)

and

On 26th November, Liamsn92 said:

ELEC: 29.285p per kWh and 24.02p per day

GAS: 8.338p per kWh and 26.12p per day

paulbounty3

beefturnmail said:

Does anyone have a record of what fixed tariffs were available in late November/early December last year?

Put in your postcode (bottom of page) to get a full list of Octopus available and historical tariffs.  

https://octopus.energy/tariffs

Gerry1

beefturnmail said:

Does anyone have a record of what fixed tariffs were available in late November/early December last year?

https://freepricecompare.com/home-energy/tariffs/top-20-cheapest-electricity-tariffs/

https://freepricecompare.com/home-energy/tariffs/top-20-cheapest-gas-tariffs/

https://freepricecompare.com/home-energy/tariffs/top-20-cheapest-dual-fuel-energy-tariffs/

Not exactly what you're looking for, but reasonably useful although it only shows average total costs.

You can check whether any given tariff was still available a few months later at Latest Energy Price Updates.

LtMike77

I put in a complaint a few days ago, got some silly reply not even answering my complaint properly and wanting to close it straight away.