Surprise, surprise, gas prices are being hiked again. Funny how the energy companies can respond so quickly to rising wholesale prices when it's apparently so difficult to pass on savings to their customers when prices fall.
Adam Scorer, of Consumer Focus, points out that "wholesale prices are around half of their peak in 2008, and yet in the same period customers' prices were cut by less than 10%".
Ofgem, supposedly the regulator, says nothing on the matter, and seems likely to do even less. npower's recent refunds to customers who overpaid for gas in 2007 seems to be largely due to the efforts of the self-styled "statutory consumer champion" Consumer Focus, which continued to work with the company when the Ofgem investigation resulted in an average repayment of only £6 to 200,000 customers.
Ofgem's website says that "Protecting consumers is our first priority", and it boasts, in its latest Consumer Bulletin, that it is presently (and ungrammatically) "propos[ing] making energy suppliers give 30 days [sic] notice of price rises". Customers everywhere will feel relieved about that, and doubtless very proud of Ofgem for taking such a stand on their behalf.
It's always good to know these regulators have their priorities sorted — especially since the utilities' retail customers fund them. As Ofgem says, "We recover our costs from the licensed companies we regulate. Licensees are obliged to pay an annual licence fee which is set to cover our costs". Presumably that fee is ultimately added into the utility bills…
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