Energy Price Cap

[VicW]

Why is the Energy Price Cap going up, is the cost of gas and electricity going up in the autumn? If they put the price cap up naturally the cost to the public will go up to match it.

Vic.

 

[Rewulf]

21 minutes ago, VicW said:

Why is the Energy Price Cap going up, is the cost of gas and electricity going up in the autumn? If they put the price cap up naturally the cost to the public will go up to match it.

Vic.

 

Ill try and make it really simple..

The cap has already gone up, in April , most of us ended up paying around 50% for electric and gas (combined)
The cap is set by the government, as a max limit for what we can be charged, this has been lifted , and will be lifted still further (60-70 %) in October.
This is because the wholesale price on world markets has gone up considerably.

Im not going to go into the whys and where for of it all , whether its justified , or whether its all Putins fault here, but its highly likely it wont be coming down for some time ,if ever.
Are we being scammed, most probably, what can you do about , little to nothing.

[Stonepark]

23 minutes ago, VicW said:

Why is the Energy Price Cap going up, is the cost of gas and electricity going up in the autumn? If they put the price cap up naturally the cost to the public will go up to match it.

Vic.

 

Electricity is priced in the UK and EU market at it's marginal cost (i.e. what ever it takes to buy that additional kwh) and due to grid interconnectivity (both electric and gas) we are in a bidding war with our neighbours and everyone bidding drives the price up, multiples of the cost of some production of legacy nuclear & coal and also renewables.

 

Currently gas on the open market is 350p\therm, divided by 29.3 is 11.94p\kwh gas, at 60% conversion to electricity is 19.9p\kwh electric, plus vat, green levies etc. and would represent the price, if their wasn't also a shortage of electricity in the EU.

 

Renewables are producing electricity around the 6p\kwh, but are paid at the marginal rates set by gas price and making a 300% to 400% profit at present.

 

Over the last few days, France and Italy have been paying 44p\kwh electricity to import from other countries such as the UK driving our prices up.

Price cap is s based on energy suppliers cost of acquiring electricity, not producers cost of supplying it and therefore is increasing as the marginal market price is increasing

 

[Rewulf]

There is a movement to try and combat this, I wont post a link, but its easy to find.
Basically it advocates to not pay the entirety of your gas/electric but what you think its worth.
The legality of this is questionable , hence I wont put the name or link up.

Martin Lewis had this to say on it though.

DO NOT refuse to pay your energy bill in October. Below is how you can make a stand and hurt your energy supplier without getting into debt/damaging your credit rating:

1. Cancel your DD & pay for what you use each month.

2. You then need to write a letter of complaint to your energy supplier. Once that complaint had been raised, your energy supplier can't take any debt collection work on your account, so they can't pass your details to the credit reference agencies etc. That bill gets put on hold whilst they try to resolve your complaint.

The energy company might offer you a small reduction - DON'T accept it. Keep the complaint open & hold strong.

3. Eventually, they will send you a letter of 'Deadlock'. A letter of Deadlock is a letter that is sent to you from your energy company saying they gone as far as they can with your complaint & can't go any further, so your only option now is to take it up with the energy Ombudsman.

For every complaint the Ombudsman receives, they charge your energy supplier £500 for every claim they have to investigate.

4. The energy companies also have limitations on how many complaints they're allowed open as well as a turnaround time of how fast they have to respond to a complaint & get a complaint closed. If they don't respond to them fast enough & don't resolve the complaints or they have too many complaints open, the energy firm will also get hit with a fine from the Ombudsman.

This is how your hurt an energy company. This will also put them in breach of their licensing conditions

& put their ability to trade at risk.

So if you want to fight these extortionate price hikes

1. Raise complaints

2. Do NOT close them

3. Take them to the Ombudsman

You can also submit a “subject access request” at the same time as the above. This means the energy company has a legal obligation to provide you with every piece of information they have on you; including telephone conversation transcripts, past bills, everything! This is time consuming for them to collect and is a huge hassle for them however they legally have only one month to comply.

 

[Stonepark]

43 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

There is a movement to try and combat this, I wont post a link, but its easy to find.
Basically it advocates to not pay the entirety of your gas/electric but what you think its worth.
The legality of this is questionable , hence I wont put the name or link up.

Martin Lewis had this to say on it though.

DO NOT refuse to pay your energy bill in October. Below is how you can make a stand and hurt your energy supplier without getting into debt/damaging your credit rating:

1. Cancel your DD & pay for what you use each month.

2. You then need to write a letter of complaint to your energy supplier. Once that complaint had been raised, your energy supplier can't take any debt collection work on your account, so they can't pass your details to the credit reference agencies etc. That bill gets put on hold whilst they try to resolve your complaint.

The energy company might offer you a small reduction - DON'T accept it. Keep the complaint open & hold strong.

3. Eventually, they will send you a letter of 'Deadlock'. A letter of Deadlock is a letter that is sent to you from your energy company saying they gone as far as they can with your complaint & can't go any further, so your only option now is to take it up with the energy Ombudsman.

For every complaint the Ombudsman receives, they charge your energy supplier £500 for every claim they have to investigate.

4. The energy companies also have limitations on how many complaints they're allowed open as well as a turnaround time of how fast they have to respond to a complaint & get a complaint closed. If they don't respond to them fast enough & don't resolve the complaints or they have too many complaints open, the energy firm will also get hit with a fine from the Ombudsman.

This is how your hurt an energy company. This will also put them in breach of their licensing conditions

& put their ability to trade at risk.

So if you want to fight these extortionate price hikes

1. Raise complaints

2. Do NOT close them

3. Take them to the Ombudsman

You can also submit a “subject access request” at the same time as the above. This means the energy company has a legal obligation to provide you with every piece of information they have on you; including telephone conversation transcripts, past bills, everything! This is time consuming for them to collect and is a huge hassle for them however they legally have only one month to comply.

 

The problem is not the energy suppliers, the problem is the market they have to purchase from which was put in place by Government.

Energy suppliers make in the region of £32 per account per year profit, the main profit is made by the energy producers which are completely separate companies and which are free to sell across the EU, if not world wide to the highest bidder.

The change we require is to remove the "marginal pricing" element from the energy supply market so that electricity supply companies can access inexpensively produced electricity and not have to pay "gas market" prices for it and also ensure that the UK market demand is satisfied before we export and "surplus" energy.

[Rewulf]

5 minutes ago, Stonepark said:

Energy suppliers make in the region of £32 per account per year profit

Makes you wonder why they bother ?
But they do for some reason , 3.4 million EON customers in the UK , thats    £108.8 million @ £32 a customer , yet there usual reported profits are more like 5 x that ?

 

[Lurch003]

Sickening when you see the millions/billions the producers make in PROFIT as our bills are going through the roof 😞

 

With the system as broke as it is, it would make financial sense for a lot of people to give up honest work and go on benefits yet bring home the same each month

[Jaymo]

7 hours ago, Lurch003 said:

Sickening when you see the millions/billions the producers make in PROFIT as our bills are going through the roof 😞

 

With the system as broke as it is, it would make financial sense for a lot of people to give up honest work and go on benefits yet bring home the same each month

Benefits or not, you will still have to pay for your energy usage. 
Better getting sent to prison- fed/watered/ no tv licence/ free water and free heating. 

[Lloyd90]

11 hours ago, Rewulf said:

There is a movement to try and combat this, I wont post a link, but its easy to find.
Basically it advocates to not pay the entirety of your gas/electric but what you think its worth.
The legality of this is questionable , hence I wont put the name or link up.

Martin Lewis had this to say on it though.

DO NOT refuse to pay your energy bill in October. Below is how you can make a stand and hurt your energy supplier without getting into debt/damaging your credit rating:

1. Cancel your DD & pay for what you use each month.

2. You then need to write a letter of complaint to your energy supplier. Once that complaint had been raised, your energy supplier can't take any debt collection work on your account, so they can't pass your details to the credit reference agencies etc. That bill gets put on hold whilst they try to resolve your complaint.

The energy company might offer you a small reduction - DON'T accept it. Keep the complaint open & hold strong.

3. Eventually, they will send you a letter of 'Deadlock'. A letter of Deadlock is a letter that is sent to you from your energy company saying they gone as far as they can with your complaint & can't go any further, so your only option now is to take it up with the energy Ombudsman.

For every complaint the Ombudsman receives, they charge your energy supplier £500 for every claim they have to investigate.

4. The energy companies also have limitations on how many complaints they're allowed open as well as a turnaround time of how fast they have to respond to a complaint & get a complaint closed. If they don't respond to them fast enough & don't resolve the complaints or they have too many complaints open, the energy firm will also get hit with a fine from the Ombudsman.

This is how your hurt an energy company. This will also put them in breach of their licensing conditions

& put their ability to trade at risk.

So if you want to fight these extortionate price hikes

1. Raise complaints

2. Do NOT close them

3. Take them to the Ombudsman

You can also submit a “subject access request” at the same time as the above. This means the energy company has a legal obligation to provide you with every piece of information they have on you; including telephone conversation transcripts, past bills, everything! This is time consuming for them to collect and is a huge hassle for them however they legally have only one month to comply.

 

 

I highly highly doubt Martin Lewis said that at all. 
 

There are absolutely LOADS of things being banded about on Social Media where they slap Martin’s name on it to make it viral / add some sort of credibility. 
 

There are a number of ‘causes’ saying various ways to avoid / not pay the bill. 
 

They are a dangerous tactic that risk having marks against your credit, which could impact peoples credit ratings, ability to get finance, loans, mortgages etc. 

 

A lot of idiots who don’t own property etc are throwing about these myths, they are going to get themselves and anyone else who follows them into a lot of bother. 
 

 

Imagine going into a shop for food, a forecourt for fuel, or eat out for a meal; then only throw down what you think it’s worth and storm out. 
 

People are going to get themselves into even more bother taking silly advice from social media. 
 

People should be very cautious. 

[Jim Neal]

20 minutes ago, Lloyd90 said:

 

I highly highly doubt Martin Lewis said that at all. 
 

There are absolutely LOADS of things being banded about on Social Media where they slap Martin’s name on it to make it viral / add some sort of credibility. 
 

There are a number of ‘causes’ saying various ways to avoid / not pay the bill. 
 

They are a dangerous tactic that risk having marks against your credit, which could impact peoples credit ratings, ability to get finance, loans, mortgages etc. 

 

A lot of idiots who don’t own property etc are throwing about these myths, they are going to get themselves and anyone else who follows them into a lot of bother. 
 

 

Imagine going into a shop for food, a forecourt for fuel, or eat out for a meal; then only throw down what you think it’s worth and storm out. 
 

People are going to get themselves into even more bother taking silly advice from social media. 
 

People should be very cautious. 

Agreed.

I think if this was actually attributed to Martin it would be in his weekly email?

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/latesttip/?anchor=energy&utm_source=MSE_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=09-Aug-22-31bfc1f85e943dd9e0a-62f2bacd8458f7718314bb508e7c5670&source=CRM-MSETIP-31bfc1f85e943dd9e0a&utm_campaign=nt-highlights&utm_content=7#energy

I can't find any such advice on the energy section of the MSE website so would have to concur with Lloyd that this is a bit naughty of someone.

[Rewulf]

44 minutes ago, Lloyd90 said:

There are absolutely LOADS of things being banded about on Social Media where they slap Martin’s name on it to make it viral / add some sort of credibility. 
 

There are a number of ‘causes’ saying various ways to avoid / not pay the bill. 
 

They are a dangerous tactic that risk having marks against your credit, which could impact peoples credit ratings, ability to get finance, loans, mortgages etc. 

Did you even read it ?

It says nothing about NOT paying your bill, the first line says DO NOT stop paying your bill.

If Martin Lewis didn't say it , is it still poor advice ?

45 minutes ago, Lloyd90 said:

highly doubt Martin Lewis said that at all. 

I will concede that it was claimed Martin lewis said it, and it's possible he didn't. 

[Lloyd90]

2 hours ago, Rewulf said:

Did you even read it ?

It says nothing about NOT paying your bill, the first line says DO NOT stop paying your bill.

If Martin Lewis didn't say it , is it still poor advice ?

I will concede that it was claimed Martin lewis said it, and it's possible he didn't. 

Yes I did read it, I also saw it on social media. 
 

I have also looked into it and saw that Martin Lewis never appears to have said it on any of his own social media accounts (hence another loads of nonsense with his name slapped onto it)… 
 

I did however see people who know about financial services commenting on the original social media post saying that people cancelling their DD’s and following this ‘strategy’ could still get a mark against their credit report etc. 

 

In the current climate this could have disastrous consequences for people down the line. 

 

 

I think it absolutely is poor advice. 

Even if everyone followed the strategy, and caused the energy company they are with to become overloaded with complaints, and fines etc… what do you think would happen? 
 

The idea is being banded about that it would be ‘sticking it to them’… 

The reality is, if everyone did it and the energy company was fined £500 per person (which in reality is unlikely to come true) they would go bankrupt. 
 

What then? You’d get transferred to a new company with an even higher energy rate / bill. 
 

 

[Rewulf]

7 hours ago, Lloyd90 said:

I did however see people who know about financial services commenting on the original social media post saying that people cancelling their DD’s and following this ‘strategy’ could still get a mark against their credit report etc. 

OK so weve established that it didnt actually say to STOP paying your bill, glad you cleared that up for us 

But now weve gone on to 'Paying by anything else than DD 'could' affect your credit rating, which could have disastrous consequences' ?
How does that work then , financial services alchemy ?

7 hours ago, Lloyd90 said:

Even if everyone followed the strategy, and caused the energy company they are with to become overloaded with complaints, and fines etc… what do you think would happen?

The idea is being banded about that it would be ‘sticking it to them’… 

The reality is, if everyone did it and the energy company was fined £500 per person (which in reality is unlikely to come true) they would go bankrupt. 

What shall we do then Lloyd, nothing ?
Suck it up , give it some stiff upper lip Britishness ?
'It'll all be alright one day dear, dont worry, we might have to sell the house to pay the gas bill, and move into social housing, but the government says this house is too big for us anyway, and would be far better served if an Afghan family lived in it , rent free'

My bills for gas and electric, for modest house and business , have gone up £2000 already, theres a strong possibility of a similar rise in October, now I dont know about you , but that hurts.
The best bit, it doesnt end there, because when other businesses have to pay more , they start putting prices up, knock on effect, compounded with pump prices going up, and the cost of living really does end up in crisis.
It gets better, what do you think happens then, crime goes up, fuel thefts are already happening, people are already in debt to energy companies , food becomes more expensive, the general happiness of the population goes down as we struggle, tensions cause riots ect.

But youre worried about the energy companies going bankrupt ?

If we dont protest in some way, what do you think will happen ?
Nothing except more of the same , higher prices , more poverty , as all social classes except the upper echelons slide down the food chain.
You can make a stand now , even by registering your disapproval , because later will be too late.
 

[udderlyoffroad]

11 hours ago, Lloyd90 said:

their DD’s and following this ‘strategy’ could still get a mark against their credit report etc. 

 

3 hours ago, Rewulf said:

But now weve gone on to 'Paying by anything else than DD 'could' affect your credit rating, which could have disastrous consequences' ?
How does that work then , financial services alchemy ?

Probably, by forgetting to take a monthly meter read and thus getting estimated bills and reminders.

I would urge everyone to not have a DD and have the self-discipline to take readings monthly and pay only for the energy used.

[Rewulf]

5 minutes ago, udderlyoffroad said:

I would urge everyone to not have a DD and have the self-discipline to take readings monthly and pay only for the energy used.

Definitely, unless you have a smart meter of course, I dont, as they flatly refuse to give me a time when theyre coming, insisting I stop in all day and wait for them.

[Lloyd90]

4 hours ago, Rewulf said:

OK so weve established that it didnt actually say to STOP paying your bill, glad you cleared that up for us 

But now weve gone on to 'Paying by anything else than DD 'could' affect your credit rating, which could have disastrous consequences' ?
How does that work then , financial services alchemy ?

What shall we do then Lloyd, nothing ?
Suck it up , give it some stiff upper lip Britishness ?
'It'll all be alright one day dear, dont worry, we might have to sell the house to pay the gas bill, and move into social housing, but the government says this house is too big for us anyway, and would be far better served if an Afghan family lived in it , rent free'

My bills for gas and electric, for modest house and business , have gone up £2000 already, theres a strong possibility of a similar rise in October, now I dont know about you , but that hurts.
The best bit, it doesnt end there, because when other businesses have to pay more , they start putting prices up, knock on effect, compounded with pump prices going up, and the cost of living really does end up in crisis.
It gets better, what do you think happens then, crime goes up, fuel thefts are already happening, people are already in debt to energy companies , food becomes more expensive, the general happiness of the population goes down as we struggle, tensions cause riots ect.

But youre worried about the energy companies going bankrupt ?

If we dont protest in some way, what do you think will happen ?
Nothing except more of the same , higher prices , more poverty , as all social classes except the upper echelons slide down the food chain.
You can make a stand now , even by registering your disapproval , because later will be too late.
 

Honestly, I don’t know what we should do. 
 

The high price are due to reduced supply and a surge in demand, and it’s a problem across Europe and seems to be a problem that no one has the answer to. They are predicting blackouts and energy shortages across several EU countries. 
 

I never claimed to have the answer, I’m simply advising people be very cautious following ‘advice’ that’s been falsely attributed to someone to give it false credibility that is likely to cause them further problems down the line, on top of the hardship already being experienced. 
 

My own energy company went bankrupt. We fixed at a decent rate for 2 years and they went up in smoke and we weren’t even told for several months. 

 

Next thing we are signed up to British Gas at their variable tariff with no option to fix and a rate that is considerably higher than what we initially signed up to. 

 

 

The harsh reality is that we most likely will have to ‘suck it up’. 
 

Some people won’t have the flexibility to ‘suck it up’ and will be severely impacted by this. 
 

A lot of people will be able to ‘suck it up’ at considerable loss of standard of living. 
 

The foreign holidays, the nights out, meals out, booze, sky etc, will have to be cut back on.
 

Shooting clays, cartridges, buying a new gun, driven shooting, etc, will most likely be cut back on by shooters who struggle with the rising costs. 
 

The expensive brand new cars on hire purchase / pcp / balloon payments will have to go back and people will have to drive old bangers like many people used to. 
 

I have already heard of many tradesmen etc giving back their trucks and going back to the transit vans etc.  

 

 

What other options are there? 
 

I’m not worried about the energy companies in any way, I just can’t see people making complaints just for the sake of it making any difference. 
 

[markm]

This is a worldwide issue. 
 

In Key West right now and on the TV news is constantly - 

 

1. Cost of living. We’ve noticed a massive price hike since 2019 in supermarkets etc.  

2. Cost of electricity (they must used loads running air conditioning 24/7).

3. Cost of petrol (although USA had always moaned about it). It’s currently $4 a US gallon…..

Edited August 10, 2022 by markm

[Lloyd90]

9 minutes ago, markm said:

This is a worldwide issue. 
 

In Key West right now and on the TV news is constantly - 

 

1. Cost of living. We’ve noticed a massive price hike since 2019 in supermarkets etc.  

2. Cost of electricity (they must used loads running air conditioning 24/7).

3. Cost of petrol (although USA had always moaned about it). It’s currently $4 a US gallon…..

 

Have fun Mark. 

 

Head down to the Smokin Tuna bar if you get the chance, was there just a few weeks ago, great food, live music, we really enjoyed it. 
 

Also went snorkelling on the coral reef, was a good day out  

 

The cost of fuel is averaging about $4.50 ish per GALLON across the USA atm, have gone across several states. 
 

They are all moaning how expensive it is now. Makes you wonder what it used to be. 
 

Mind you the truck they gave us only does 17 mpg so can see why they’re not impressed 🤣

[Rewulf]

9 minutes ago, Lloyd90 said:

Next thing we are signed up to British Gas at their variable tariff with no option to fix and a rate that is considerably higher than what we initially signed up to. 

Maybe because the original suppliers business model simply couldnt work.
An example here, who had to be bailed out by Notts city council, where that money could have been used for more worthy projects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood_Energy

10 minutes ago, Lloyd90 said:

What other options are there? 

Well I mentioned one little protest earlier , but you didnt seem to like it, and it doesnt matter if Martin Lewis penned it or not, he certainly wont be struggling to pay his bills this winter.
If 1 % of people who read it follow the advice, its 10s of 1000s of people making noise.

10 minutes ago, Lloyd90 said:

I’m not worried about the energy companies in any way, I just can’t see people making complaints just for the sake of it making any difference.

As I said , if we say/do nothing , its taken as acceptance, there have been no fuel protests this time  around , despite the fact that the price has been artificially inflated.
This is because we are lead to believe that protest in any form is useless, 'They cant help it' but they can, the supply is being strangled to create higher prices, and you can blame Putin all you like , but all the main energy producers are complicit in this.
Biden went to Saudi last month to ask the Arabs to produce more , only because hes taking flak at home for high prices, they gave him the finger.
The US is using that much domestically they struggle to find any to export, but the oil companies are fine with this situation as profits increase.
Russia is selling oil out the back door to many European countries at knock down prices, who then sell it on for profit, the whole situation stinks of corrupt price fixing, and we just have to suck it up ?
Its time to stop being sheep, and make a stand, lots of small protestations to make one large message.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Read this;

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-11070049/What-Dont-Pay-UK-happens-cancel-energy-bill-payment.html

[oowee]

6 minutes ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Read this;

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-11070049/What-Dont-Pay-UK-happens-cancel-energy-bill-payment.html

No different from gluing your hands to a motorway. 🙂

Looks like we suck it up some more. The figure quoted is an average of £3135 pa but I am hearing figures of £4k average. Central heating will not be for everyone at this rate. 

[Rewulf]

7 minutes ago, oowee said:

No different from gluing your hands to a motorway.

The cause is completely different.

The hand gluers are green nut munching quacks that probably dont work.

The movement has equated the potential strike to the national Poll Tax strike, which saw more than 17 million people refuse to pay the Poll Tax in the UK in the late 80s and early 90s.

What happened to the Poll tax ? 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Come in and warm yourself by this roaring candle!  

[Jaymo]

22 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

The cause is completely different.

The hand gluers are green nut munching quacks that probably dont work.

The movement has equated the potential strike to the national Poll Tax strike, which saw more than 17 million people refuse to pay the Poll Tax in the UK in the late 80s and early 90s.

What happened to the Poll tax ? 

It evolved into Council tax of course. Same tax, different name but now more expensive than Poll tax would have been. 

[oowee]

3 minutes ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Come in and warm yourself by this roaring candle!  

19 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

The cause is completely different.

The hand gluers are green nut munching quacks that probably dont work.

The movement has equated the potential strike to the national Poll Tax strike, which saw more than 17 million people refuse to pay the Poll Tax in the UK in the late 80s and early 90s.

What happened to the Poll tax ? 

Not suggesting the cause is the same. The hand gluers are spot on even though I would disagree with their tactics. Clearly insulation should be top of the governments agenda.

The poll tax was a stupid govt proposal. This is a market response. It's a bit like trying to be Kanute. Half a free market for energy, and water can't be the way particularly when we need to tackle climate change. Maybe Corbyn was right after all 🤪

Looks likely that water will be the next panic waiting to happen.