Energy firms going bust

For far too long it's been possible to make a one-way bet as a small energy supplier by offering a cheap tariff. If wholesale prices fall you pocket a profit. If wholesale prices rise you liquidate the company and walk away, leaving Ofgem to pick up the pieces. Ofgem have lately started being a bit tougher on this - see eg

Really? Did this come as a surprise when they set up in business?

But often it's the companies with the highest prices that have the poor customer service!

Funnily enough, some 9 months ago, I was talking to EDF who said that this was going to happen. They slightly changed their offers to customers to suggest cheaper deals elsewhere, only if they sustained the discount for a certain period.

I cannot help but wonder though if we might not all still have been better if it was all under government control as a non profit, rather than letting business types cream money off the top. OK so investment has to come from somewhere , but if it was run efficiently then any profit could be reinvested sensibly. Brian

Wasn't that the problem with a utility monopolies in the past - no real investment in the infrastructure for decades? The reason water companies are now fixing/replacing Victorian water pipes and other utility companies have a rolling policy of closing roads around my way for 8 weeks at a time.

Often the problem with Nationalization is that it allows the government of the day to balance the books by not investing regularly.

Name them:-)

Well, we seemed to built quite a few nuclear power stations in those days. How many have been built since privatization?

I don't pay much attention to customer service from electricity suppliers, that's just an online "paper exercise".

I'm far more concerned about the quality of service the DNO provides. The company/people who actually maintain the physical means of getting the electricity to me.

Robin snipped-for-privacy@outlook.com posted

It seems unlikely that you can do this without committing some cash to the venture that you will not get back.

The whole money making opportunity for carpet-baggers who probably went to the same public school as many MPs was invented by one of the most cynical con tricks on the general public since [insert Brexit | Clmate Cnamge | Passive Smoking as preferred).

We were told the naughty big five energy companies were confusing us proor mugs by offering "too many cheap rates". Do-gooders like Which and time-served "Labour" politicinans were wheeled up to say how unfair it was to offer us a confusing number of tariffs. So now, by law, the big five could not diversify their tarifss in order to sell to those of us spending five minutes to look for a bargain on a comparison site. Is there any other business where people are not allowed to offer bargains in case it confuses us poor mugs??

Anyway, most of the possible profits to be made from cheap rates are now mopped up by these opportunistic "energy companies" leaving a very small proportion for slightly reduced rates to the public. There are many ways people can start businesses and lose little fi they fail, but gain lots if they succeed, and this is one of them.

I'm generally minded to believe in AGW, but when I see what cynical con tricks our political masters are willing to play on us with the aid of sincere but misguided campaigners I do wonder.

Oh yes. But not a lot of cash. Supply companies were set up negligible share capital. A licence to supply only cost £450 or so. No need to lodge a bond or indemnity. And you could of course both set up the company and work for it, drawing a salary and pension contributions from day 1. Until this year there wasn't even a "fit and proper person" test or checks for sufficient finance.

It took me two plus years of deep research and calculation to conclude that renewable energy was a con, and a further two considering te skeptics case for AGW to conlude the same.

Post the brexit shambles I now realise that polticians do not lie out of expedience occasionally. They and the corporate chiefs lie totally about everything., AGW, Political correctness, social justice - it is ALL lies. We are lied to from the moment we try to find out what is going on till the moment we die. And then they mutter some more lies as we are lowered into the ground or burnt to a crisp.

Who told you the lie about being lowered into the ground or burnt? Soylent Green?

Touché.......

You'd have then thought Robin Hood energy would be a good bet.