One of my bug bears being charged for having a bill . What a RIP OFF How on earth is one expected to pay their bill if they cant view it ? The paper bill rip-off: Millions can’t check their statements online, but phone giants are now charging up to £36 a year just to put bills in the post Almost all major telecoms giants charge between £1 and £3 for each paper bill The real cost of providing a paper bill is estimated to be no more than 45p Around 4.5 million adults did not use the internet in 2018, according to the ONS
The standing charge is my next big moan I have used no gas ( it supplies just 2 gas fires) during the summer yet still charged over £20.00 . RIP OFF What Does Standing Charges Mean? Standing charges are fixed amounts that are applied to gas and electricity bills. The standing charge helps the supplier to cover fixed costs, which include the provision of a meter and connection to the network. A standing charge is made up of a combination of the fixed charges associated with providing electricity and gas services and a share of the supply costs in serving the account. All energy tariffs include standing charges. A portion of standing charges go towards covering government initiatives to reduce carbon emissions. Standing charges are listed on energy bills as a daily unit rate. There are some energy plans that do not include standing charges. However, an energy plan with standard charges is often less expensive than one without.
... Good thread Captain. Yes. This is a real financial crisis for everyone except the stinking rich. The polititions of all persuasions haven’t got a clue what to do about it. Load of shite they are. ALL of them!
Wholesale natural gas prices in the UK have more than tripled in the last year and are more than four times higher than the seasonal average over the previous five years. Before the start of the energy crisis last year, average annual costs were around £1,100 pounds.
Well at the moment I am on direct debit of £200 a month to OVO. But I know soon even that is not going to be enough!
You really need to look at this one in reverse. The cost of maintaining the grid and metering is fixed, so the money has to come from somewhere. If it was added to the unit charge, light users would benefit slightly, and heavy users would be paying more than their fair share. Industrial users would be paying hundreds of times the maintenance costs, to a point where it could even affect the cost of food. I see more of a rip off in the recent increase of electricity costs being blamed on oil and gas prices, since at the same time, suppliers are claiming to be supplying renewable energy. Since all electricity comes from the national grid, how it was produced is purely geographical
I still maintain if you dont use it you shouldnt be charged a standing charge .My gas meter is probably as old as me and I can see any costs to them as they never come round any way for meter readings . I havnt seen anyone come for a meter reading in about 5 years now . As regards costs of the grid this should be bourne by the companies that were privatised for profit and who have very little interest in the consumer. Apart from British Gas the others are all owned by French ,German and Spanish companies .
The way that it all works is one of the most misunderstood subjects on the planet. The generating stations and high voltage grid, (down to 11,000 volts delta) are owned by the central electricity generating board and regulated by central government and the atomic energy authority. Their costs are included in the wholesale price of electricity, a common figure. The local grid networks that cover individual areas run the transformer substations that reduce the voltage to 415 star and provide a grounded neutral and either separate or PME earth. This allows a 240 volt supply to domestic customers. They add their costs to the wholesale, depending on their area. Long overhead runs, along with transformers up poles in farming areas and reinstatement of roads and footpaths in cities are their major costs. From their connection hub, to save cable, they run parts of their network at 11kv This operation is known as DNO (district network operator) Then we come to the retailers and this is where the fun starts. They simply sell the electricity to the end user. Although they will give you an account, your TRUE account is the mpan, held on a database by the DNO. This never changes for a premises, regardless of your supplier. When you sign up with your supplier, you simply give them permission to access your mpan. Originally, the DNO maintained and read the meters, maintaining responsibility for their calibration (legally 10 years) Then the fun really started, when the government decided the the DNO's held a monopoly and allowed the retailers to both read and replace meters with their own. However, they were not allowed to work on the cable network before the service head in the premises. To save meter readers, they started installing AMR meters that contained a modem. They also used their own data collection companies. It gets worse. Along cane the meercats and the opera singer; resulting in customers changing their suppliers, more often than their underwear. Just think about it. The new supplier was taking over meters installed by dozens of different companies and had no idea where the data was going. Even if the found out, the data company were not interested, since they were not being paid. In an attempt to sort out the mess, along came G4S. Back to a monopoly, as well as guys working on metering with less than a days training. In the first year, more than a dozen of them managed to kill themselves, many started fires, while hundreds of meters were connected to the wrong households. WHAT A MESS.
After a couple of years trying to sort the mess out I could write a book on it. It would no doubt be published as a comedy One example was the retailer who tried to secure an account for a London local authority. After looking at their costs, they looked at the costing for their civic center, libraries and offices, telling them that their existing supplier was ripping them off. Without realising that something must be wrong, they agreed to roughly halve the cost on a 3 year fixed price contract. Fortunately I managed to save heir asses, simply by asking them what figures they had used for more than 60,000 lamp posts
