Flogas rip off standing charges

Jonsnape

We took out a new contract with Flogas for the supply of LPG in December 2020. We had agreed a fixed price for LPG for the first 12 months and a maximum price for the year after. A standing charge was also agreed at 22.18p per day. That standing charge was increased to 27.65p per day last September. We have just received a letter advising us that as of October 19th the standing charge will be increased to 41.47p per day, an increase of 50%.

When I phoned to ask why, I was told that all costs had gone up including deliveries and tank maintenance. I pointed out that we had not had a delivery this year and that we had not had any maintenance or inspection of the tank, therefore there was no justification in increasing the standing charge. They disagreed.

I decided to call them pretending to be a new customer and was quoted 56p per litre and a standing charge of 21.9p per day, 19.5pence less that they want to charge me now!

My LPG is on a fixed price of 42p per litre until the end of December and there is nothing Flogas can do about that as it is contractual. However they can increase the standing charge but not by more that 50% per annum. It would seem to me that as they can not increase the gas price, they have increased the standing charge by the maximum possible to compensate for the fixed LPG price.

I do not believe that the costs have gone up by 87% in 20 months and I would imagine delivery costs are included in the gas price especially for those who have multiple deliveries a year. We have had 2 deliveries and not maintenance or inspections since December 2020.

Lets not forget, they have offered me LPG at 56p per litre and a standing charge of 21.9p per day, less than it was when we took out the contract!

Sorting_Hat

Tanks are tested every 10 years with UG tanks having an additional 3 yearly test.

So apart from the initial visit to rebrand the lpg firm may never have cause to visit again.

Its best to think of these charges as rental for the tank.

drsquirrel

Is it possible to buy tanks outright and not have to pay a standing charge? I only found out about LPG standing charges recently which surprised me, I use Oil so this doesn't happen.

Sorting_Hat

Yes there are "self owners" but its rather a dead end as (here comes the science bit).
 Before the law change in 2009 if you rented the tank and wanted to change supplier it involved the physical removal of the existing tank (the old supplier) and the installation of a new tank by the new supplier. Even if the tank was underground.
 It was such a grind no -one would change, no wonder folk were encouraged to have underground tanks. So if you owned your own tank you were not tied and could shop about fill by fill.

It is illegal for a gas firm to fill another firms  tank, and the customer is agreeing that for a period of 2 years they will rent this or that firms tank and will exclusively buy gas from whoever's tank is at their property.

However

In 2009 the tank switching became easier and now (when the customer switches) the tanks are merely bought and sold between the gas firms and no physical exchange takes place (for the most part). This removes the advantage of owning your own tank, the LPG firms market and concentrate on the rented tanks (the ones with contracts) and the self owners get much higher gas prices, the hassle of paying to maintain and repair their tanks etc.

I should add for commercial the switch still involves the removal/installation process but that's another story.