Campaign to ban Standing Charges

[Deleted User]

busybee100 said:

Deleted_User said:

busybee100 said:

Have none of you never come across something you don't understand? Even when someone's tried to explain it to you? 

You know everything about pensions and double entry, even airmiles? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Simplifying the system would enable more people to take part in the comparison game. 

And once they can understand the tariffs and billing there's a whole new conversation about comparison site gaming the options.

If you say they didn't you know less than you think you did.

There are plenty of things that I don't understand or only partially understand, even after research or having it explained to me.  That's life.

What I do in those situations is either find an expert to act on my behalf, engage only with the simpler parts of the system that I can understand, or accept that I might not act in a completely optimal manner that someone with a better understanding might be able to do.

What I don't do in those situations is demand that someone re-writes the system to the detriment of the other users, in the hope that I will suddenly begin to understand and/or change my behaviour.

I'll say it again. To understand comparisons in the energy supply market, you must be able to deal with the concept of a bill in two parts.  Two.  That's all.  It really isn't that complicated.  There are many parts of the system that are more complicated and unnecessarily confusing, but tariffs are not one of them.

But this is fundamental. It's not an option. They are forced to take part and subsidise people who do understand the system.

"They are forced to take part" - true, they require the service, which is why there is nothing wrong with them paying in part for the provision of the service.

"and subsidise people who do understand the system" - not true.  There are (were) automatic switching services, comparison sites, independent advice services, places like this forum, price caps, the bit of the bill that says "we have this other tariff that might be cheaper for you" etc.  There is a non-negligible chance that they were on the wrong tariff for them - but this chance is barely changed by moving from two numbers to one.

Do you also have the same issue with the various E7 tariffs, with the range of splits between day/night rates?  People who choose the 'wrong' balance there are paying more than they need, indirectly subsidising others who make the 'right' choice.

Unless everyone pays precisely their individually calculated contribution to every service - someone is always subsidising someone else.  That's fundamental, and not necessarily wrong.  I wouldn't want the full contribution for overhead line maintenance for a small rural hamlet to fall only on the few occupants there, I'm quite comfortable that this part is subsidised by other users.  Similarly, everything government funded is someone subsidising others.

400ixl

busybee100 said:

Have none of you never come across something you don't understand? Even when someone's tried to explain it to you? 

You know everything about pensions and double entry, even airmiles? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Simplifying the system would enable more people to take part in the comparison game. 

And once they can understand the tariffs and billing there's a whole new conversation about comparison site gaming the options.

If you say they didn't you know less than you think you did.

Yes, but that does not mean that the problem is with what is being explained, but the way it is being explained needs to be clearer.

You keep saying the same thing, but keep avoiding the question as to why some of the population should be advantaged and some disadvantaged when the problem is with the way it is explained, and not with the way it is charged.

Even if they got rid of the standing charge, but still carried on describing it as the typical family will pay £X then nothing has changed.

I can only assume you are one of the people who will be advantaged by the removal of the standing charge.

[Deleted User]

400ixl said:

busybee100 said:

Have none of you never come across something you don't understand? Even when someone's tried to explain it to you? 

You know everything about pensions and double entry, even airmiles? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Simplifying the system would enable more people to take part in the comparison game. 

And once they can understand the tariffs and billing there's a whole new conversation about comparison site gaming the options.

If you say they didn't you know less than you think you did.

Yes, but that does not mean that the problem is with what is being explained, but the way it is being explained needs to be clearer.

You keep saying the same thing, but keep avoiding the question as to why some of the population should be advantaged and some disadvantaged when the problem is with the way it is explained, and not with the way it is charged.

Even if they got rid of the standing charge, but still carried on describing it as the typical family will pay £X then nothing has changed.

I can only assume you are one of the people who will be advantaged by the removal of the standing charge.

I don't think that's a valid assumption.  I read it more as that bb100 is concerned that the 'wrong' people are subsidising the system.

ariarnia

busybee100 said:

Have none of you never come across something you don't understand? Even when someone's tried to explain it to you? 

You know everything about pensions and double entry, even airmiles? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Simplifying the system would enable more people to take part in the comparison game. 

And once they can understand the tariffs and billing there's a whole new conversation about comparison site gaming the options.

If you say they didn't you know less than you think you did.

pensions are a good example. i don't understand much about my work pension scheme or about our sipp investments. i'm signed up to the work pension scheme because the advice on here is that its better to be signed up than not signed up. i don't know the return on investment or what percentage of my pay it costs. i know what it takes in money each month from my payslip and when i can take it. if i wanted to know more then theres lots of info available and a full board on here that could help. but i'm not really that interested in it and probably wouldn't get it anyway. pensions are a complicated thing. 

lots of people dont understand about pensions and might not have a pension or might not have the best possible pension arrangement for them. thats one of the reasons the government introduced the mandatory pension scheme. so everyone who was earning above a set amount would be auto enrolled in a scheme that wasn't the best in the market but was better than doing nothing.

that's exactly what the ofgem price cap does. anyone who doesn't switch (because they can't understand or aren't interested) goes onto a fixed rate that ofgem have decided is 'fair' given the wholesale price. 

anyone who wants to research and shop around can. anyone who doesn't understand can access an advice service (or places like this forum) for help. anyone who doesn't want to ask for help or can't understand even with help is on the ofgem fix. 

400ixl

[Deleted User] said:

I can only assume you are one of the people who will be advantaged by the removal of the standing charge.

I don't think that's a valid assumption.  I read it more as that bb100 is concerned that the 'wrong' people are subsidising the system.

Thanks, I did try to look but the posts just keep repeating the same thing and avoiding answering anything else so couldn't see if there was a bias at play.

[Deleted User]

400ixl said:

[Deleted User] said:

I can only assume you are one of the people who will be advantaged by the removal of the standing charge.

I don't think that's a valid assumption.  I read it more as that bb100 is concerned that the 'wrong' people are subsidising the system.

Thanks, I did try to look but the posts just keep repeating the same thing and avoiding answering anything else so couldn't see if there was a bias at play.

You might be right, but I'd never assume bias when legitimate concern could be just as likely.

400ixl

It is unfortunate that the way that they describe it is so generic when there could be easy calculators which only need 2 pieces of information (3 if on dual supply).

You need the region and the annual number of units consumed per year. A simple calculator could then work out the standing charge x 365 and the number of units time the unit rate. This could then be broken down into yearly, monthly, weekly or daily rates if needed.

Every supplier should be forced to put this type of calculator on their home page. It could even cover for all of their different rates from a drop down if people wanted one of the other rates.

There is no need to make that actual way the cost is distributed unfair which will not actually change anything without changing how it is described.

ariarnia

400ixl said:

It is unfortunate that the way that they describe it is so generic when there could be easy calculators which only need 2 pieces of information (3 if on dual supply).

You need the region and the annual number of units consumed per year. A simple calculator could then work out the standing charge x 365 and the number of units time the unit rate. This could then be broken down into yearly, monthly, weekly or daily rates if needed.

Every supplier should be forced to put this type of calculator on their home page. It could even cover for all of their different rates from a drop down if people wanted one of the other rates.

There is no need to make that actual way the cost is distributed unfair which will not actually change anything without changing how it is described.

thats how most quotes work. you normally have to click a box somewhere to see the exact unit rates and i'd bet that most people don't because they don't really matter to most people when doing a basic comparison.

the problem is when people dont know how many units they use and only know what they pay in there dd. the number of people who come on here and say they pay 50 quid a month and think thats meaningful information is vey high. thats the problem that needs fixing. once you know how many units you use then you can use one of the (very many) calculators or comparison sites that are available. nothing at all to do with the standing charge. 

busybee100

I have to keep repeating myself because people throw in an irrelevant argument or get nasty over intelligence and age. 😱

Just as I keep explaining how complicated the system is to some users, others come back and say it's not or nothings going to change or why should we change? See I do listen. 😁

There is a problem, I do agree the  Government messaging is dire. I think we need more intervention.

I agree there's probably less disparity atm because of the cap.

BikingBud

[Deleted User] said:

It's especially pointless when you insist on ignoring anything anyone says and misunderstanding the situation by comparing incomparable concepts.  There are hundreds of examples of pass-through direct costs, or of requiring a fixed cost to access a service or function beyond membership fees.  You are choosing to ignore all of these with your quite bizarre insistence that only one way of business is permissible despite any evidence to the contrary.

The original topic was "campaign to ban standing charges".  Banning a legitimate way of pricing doesn't seem like "how competitive markets generally work" to me.  Letting suppliers choose if they want to pass on the attributable costs directly as standing charges or if they wish to roll them into unit costs seems much more like correct and competitive market behaviour.

Convince it is a competitive market.

It's definitely a broken market and needs overhauling but competitive?