Friends getting free gas should I report them

Spoonie_Turtle

rp1974 said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

rp1974 said:

Op,I get your annoyance with this,I've a similar situation regarding acquaintances,not friends committing benefit fraud.
I disagree strongly with their behaviour and have told them as much,even so I couldn't find it within me to stick them in,my conscience simply wouldn't allow it.

If you know for a certainty that they are definitely committing fraud, you absolutely do need to report them.

I'm very well aware of the fact that I should report it as their definitely doing exactly that without the least bit of shame but not quite gloating about it either.
However,I just can't do so,even though I know it's the "right" thing to do.
It's something I'd much rather have no knowledge of,it can't now become unknown.

Understandable.  But your only choices now are, do something about it, or do nothing and remain complicit (morally at least).

macman

If the supply is shipperless, then who exactly do you intend to report it to? It's not fraud, because you can't steal gas that does not belong to anyone.  The police aren't interested, and the industry has made no attempt to allocate a supplier. So, stalemate.
As I said before, if someone has made an illegal connection and bypassed or omitted the meter, then that is a criminal and dangerous act, but there's no evidence that this is the case here.

rp1974

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Understandable.  But your only choices now are, do something about it, or do nothing and remain complicit (morally at least).

It's not straightforward,reporting them would sit less easily on my conscience than living with the fact that you,me,and every other taxpayers footing the bill for their behaviour.
A little more context,their friends of the other half who has let it slide,I on the other hand have as little to do with them as is possible,unless unavoidable.
Not worth risking yet more domestic strife over it.

redbuzzard

chris1973 said:

I don't condone stealing of any kind. However the energy companies, can suddenly and magically find concessions for cheaper rates for certain people who fit the narrative, such as EV owners and now, magically those who are fitting heat pumps.

An energy crisis in its real shock and awe terms, and energy companies just a penny away from bankruptcy wouldn't suddenly be finding reduced rates and incentives for people owning certain 'appliances' - that is ludicrous. Yet that is exactly what is happening.

If energy companies can afford to give EV owners, cheap rate Electricity of 12p per kwh for five hours per night and also introduce 'comfort' tariffs with tiered rates at different times for Heat Pump owners, then they should give us ALL the option of choosing the same tariff Electricity or not at all and let people decide whether it will work for them

Personally, I think people genuinely struggling to heat one room should be priority for discounted energy rates in order to give them a fighting chance, as opposed to giving such subsidies to people who can clearly afford to pay up to £100k for an EV or follow green indulgences to install expensive heat pumps, but hey! what do I know, clearly i'm in a minority with this view.

Like I say, I don't condone what they are doing, but I can certainly see where they get their motivation from.

Off-topic but I'll bite. There is a bit of a pattern here, which started with solar PV when the lucrative feed in tariffs were effectively financed by bill-payers to reward people who could find £10,000 to install them.  It always looked to me like a scheme for transferring money to rich people, and the same could be said of EV price subsidies and BIK benefits.  On the other hand, these markets needed to be established and the way to do that is subsidies but I think those would have come from general taxation, perhaps by an addition to the higher rate of income tax.

Still I have a heat pump.  Because it seemed like the right thing to do when building a new house. Whether it will show a profit I don't know, but I will receive about £4,200 in RHI over the next 7 years IIRC.

Certainly heat pumps will contribute to a general saving of energy, because it is simply requires less energy than direct heating (without getting into the nuances of thermodynamic laws).  Provided they work, they look like a good thing.  And we can hopefully be more self-sufficient with renewable electric power than with gas.

ariarnia

my worry would be more about safety than right or wrong. something like 10 people died just recently in that explosion in jersey that was probably a gas leak. 

redbuzzard

Not too many people die in gas explosions.  My house fire was started by an electrical fault.  I suppose you can improve your safety by only having one of them:)

ariarnia

redbuzzard said:

Not too many people die in gas explosions.  My house fire was started by an electrical fault.  I suppose you can improve your safety by only having one of them:)

31 explosions a year according to this article https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/03/risk-of-deadly-gas-blasts-rising-as-cash-strapped-uk-homeowners-skip-checks

and yes theres less than there could be. but thats going to be becase gas is hevily regulated. 

this is about someone diying there gas. that's dangerous and worries me more than someone fiddling there bill. 

even if they were fiddling the lecky meter. thats mostly only dangerous to them. gas can take out a hole street if there unlucky. 

Qyburn

chris1973 said:

If energy companies can afford to give EV owners, cheap rate Electricity of 12p per kwh 

I believe someone on here said that Octopuses EV tarrifs are loss-making.

Mstty

Qyburn said:

chris1973 said:

If energy companies can afford to give EV owners, cheap rate Electricity of 12p per kwh 

I believe someone on here said that Octopuses EV tarrifs are loss-making.

I can't be bothered to check but don't Octopus make a loss anyway. But due to their backers apparently that is not an issue or other arms of their business make money like their billing software. 

Once they are in the cheap install of heat pumps market that will be another profitable arm that means they can offer loss leading products for their customers.

PZ19

Astria said:

frugalmacdugal said:

Hi,

do they have as gas meter, if so who connected that?

I also used to know someone in a similar boat, but they purchased a property at auction which was connected to the gas main, they reported that they had just moved into the address and was told:

"There's no gas at that address"

"Yes there is, we are using it."

"We don't have any records of it, we'll have to note it down as an installation"

6 months later, no difference, thinking they could sued for fraud/obtaining gas without permission, submitted a complaint,

6 months later, knock on the door, with diggers to install a gas main. Told there was actually a gas pipe already installed. Confused, they left.

Eventually, nearly 2 years after the first communication, they now actually have a working gas meter.

(It was working before, but they couldn't find any records of past readings, so started from scratch with a new meter)

Many years ago in London we had the very same conversation with a number of suppliers who all said no gas at the property..  bizarre, really was a case of computer says no..