It will likely come as welcome news to British Gas customers which has a draconian approach to customers. They tend to move magically the previous occupant’s bill over to your name and claim the lot. Which is why when I moved into my current property on day one I “used” £200 worth of Gas and Electricity. It is also likely why British Gas will be the brunt of the representations of being the Bad Guy here. Admittedly, other companies are bad but I am sure that British Gas is going to top the list. Its been nearly a year since we moved in and asked EDF Energy to take over for dual fuel. “Our” latest British Gas bill game in at £500
They all blame the wholesale cost of energy, which according to British gas accounts for 54% of the bill. Of course, the wholesale cost has increased by 25% and the consumer bill by on average 38% so where did the rest of that increase come from? Surely, the sending of bills hasn’t increased that drastically. Lets face it, stamps have remained much the same price for years. Minimum wage hasn’t increased that much either so we can assume these costs are negligible in terms of our consumer bill. So what can that possibly leave that accounts for that huge bill? Oh yeah, the Greedy CEOs of the Energy industry. They are just increasing their profit margin at our cost, again.
Which is why Ofgem the industrial regulator has opted that it is time to investigate the energy suppliers. They did a similar investigation in 2008 however, and pretty much ruled in the favour of the energy companies. Let us hope that this time round they actually hit the energy companies very hard. Huge fines and order them to reduce prices. And whilst they are at it, open up the industry for freely moving between providers. Which clearly is not the case here.
References
UKFundraising
ManagementToday
