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@ granny_ring if you do leave Avro make sure there is minimal credit and you cancel the DD straight away (see issues earlier in thread).
I have since been awarded £60 by the ombudsman which Avro have paid into my old closed account (supposed to have been direct to me) and they have turned off the phones and webchat.
The benefits of the market place.
Absolute rubbish the lot of them.
they have turned off the phones and webchat.
Their phone lines are open for 'emergencies'. I was able to speak to someone when I tried, tou just have to get creative.
What's the best way to deal with being hounded for a ridiculous bill. Short version is my Mother rented a 1 bed flat for 2 months and has a bill for >£900, £850 was for the first 7 weeks! Nothing different in last 2 weeks regarding usage. Meter readings taken by me at all stages and are correct.
Bulb refuse to admit something has gone badly wrong, sympathetic etc etc but are now threatening "debt recovery" via email as they only have old address. This has now been going on for over a year. Mother has now gone into care so very tempted to ignore. Any advice or 'inside' knowledge welcome.
With regards to not being billed, it’s an interesting one. I don’t think Steve is correct on the way suppliers work, my understanding was that they buy wholesale & resell to you.
They buy wholesale, futures and horse trade amongst themselves.
Strictly speaking there’s no way to tell that the energy you are using is the stuff they paid for but all units in the grid would be accounted for so you are using someone’s.
There is no possible way anyone can tell because there is no connection between what is purchased and your meter.
Your meter reads what you use and that is used by a energy company you have a contract with to bill you.
There’s probably enough losses in the system & accounting that it gets Thoff somewhere though.
It's a question of what it costs someone to fix.
In theory switching supplier is a seamless and automated process. In reality it only takes a slight bit of incorrect information (transposed digit/previous supplier missing something/slightly incorrect address) and it falls down. These suppliers haven’t got the resources or systems to resolve.
The systems are designed to be fully automated and built by the lowest bidder.
Someone mentioned "what the energy cost the energy company" .. unless you have a smart meter then there is no way to know what it cost the energy company. It depends what their exact blend of costs were for the 30 mins or so for each use. That depends what trading they had at that exact time.. including futures, spot, over capacity/under capacity trading etc. At any one 30 min period the energy being supplied will be a blend of all of these ...
The difference is this are many many times the losses...
Try this analogy ... you have a car wheel that needs some air every 3-4 months but it is not worn and had 80%+ tread left. It never gets dangerous but you are losing 0.5 mpg after 3 months. Do you spend money on diagnosing the fault (bead, slow puncture, valve, rim) or just stick some air in every 3-4 months?
A near guaranteed "fix" would be new tyre, rim and valve but that might cost you £1000 ... and it might only need a valve or resealing or it might be the rim needs resealing ... or it might be a bit of all of them ???
Alternately, you can wait until the tyre is almost worn and have a new tyre fitted and perhaps get the current rim recoated while you're at it, meanwhile you lost a few quid in MPG perhaps compared to your overall vehicle running costs??
Tyres are a replaceable item, like customers... why would they spend £1000's saving £15/mo when the average customer switches how ever many times a year and it's the next companies problem and their operating costs are hundreds of millions?
Add to that how can they legally bill someone who they don't have a contract with?
Lots of ‘challenger’ brands entered the market then failed which has muddied things – which disproves the above suggestion that barrier to entry is too high.
Not really, it really proves the barriers are the wrong barriers ... and not focussed on the customer.
nothing to do with the supplier. There’s a ‘distribution network operator’ responsible for the bit between National Grid and the meter. Customer indirectly pays for this via the supplier.
and yet it's the energy "supplier"'s twitter being asked why... just like it's the energy "supplier" sets taxes when prices go up.
I don't get why so many people pay by DD, seems to me they have you on a hook then and can pretty much charge you what they want. We've been with BG for 12 years, take a meter reading, put it in online, transfer money for what we use. I'm sure someone will tell me this method costs an extra £2.67/month but it's no hassle.
At my previous address I was with Scottish Power, my new place was an ex-rental with pre-payment meters. I inform Scottish Power who use a company called Lowri Beck to install new smart meters, after 5 cancelled appointments they finally get installed, all the time costing me a fortune on pre-payment top ups.
Scottish Power then charge my gas on a different tariff. I provide readings and photos of the new meter with the installation sticker, serial number etc. This is completely ignored and they deny a new gas meter was ever fitted. I take this up with the ombudsman, relay this saga over the phone and he gets it resolved in a day, my bill is corrected, difference reimbursed and a £50 apology made.
I transfer to someone else who then became Shell Energy, even with the supplied data on which my tariff was based and subsequent readings they said I'm paying too much so drop my DD a few quid. At the end of my contract I then owe them something like £150 to make up the shortfall. When I leave a negative google review they reply within minutes saying I should give regular readings and they can sort out a payment plan.
It also seems the smart meters Scottish Power supplied aren't compatible with other suppliers.
Taking back control If or when the UK leaves the EU it will all be different.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8325/
These state owned companies, but not UK state, are doing OK.
https://www.uswitch.com/gas-electricity/guides/which-energy-suppliers-are-british/