They're at it again ! Energy deals.

[Jethro_uk]

Just got an email breathlessly wittering on about "fixed rate energy deals". Why it's almost as if I'm expected not to know how that went titsup for millions of people a year ago.

[Theo]

Marginally cheaper than the new price cap, but a bit of a gamble what will happen 3/6/9 months after that.

I assume they will very well hedge the price of energy they buy.

Theo

[Jethro_uk]

I assume they will take as much profit as they can and let the taxpayer bail them out when all goes south.

[David Wade]

I am happy with mine, but I did go to a big company... ... and I believe it will still be a good deal till it ends

[Brian Gaff]

I am still on mine till next year, If they really are offering them again, I prefer to go on them when I know the prices will be volatile. EDF seems not to have gone under by doing them, surely the problem with some suppliers was they miscalculated the losses if things went the way they went. Brian

[Andy Burns]

I can see that fixed term offers are likely to be a mugs game for the next year or two, they'll convince people to sign-up for them, then the variable price will go down ...

[alan_m]

So what is the problem? No-one had their electricity or gas cut off as a result of companies going bust.

In more normal times there were fixed contract deals where the tariff was cheaper than some of the the big utility companies but for some of the the 2 year deals it was more of a gamble as forecast price increase were already built into the tariffs but you paid them from day one of the contract. Some people selected what may have been more expensive deal for the certainty of their outgoings for 2 years. For the people who managed to take out these two year deals with companies still in business and before the massive rise in energy prices their gamble paid off in a big way.

Often these fixed price contracts required on-line accounts, paperless billing, monthly DD and latterly smart meters.

Over a decade or more I saved thousands over the standard variable tariffs from the big utility companies. I even had cheaper electricity/gas on a fixed price, fixed term contracts from the likes of British Gas and Scottish Power during that time.

I guess that some caution has to be taken with the current new fixed price offerings as prices are expected to come down and then perhaps go up again.

or

[SteveW]

The problem was that, when the companies went bust, their debts had to be taken on by the taxpayer and then be reimbursed by increasing the standing charges for all of us.

[alan_m]

You too are protected in exactly the same way if the company you are currently using gets in financial trouble.

The companies still in business had similar deals taken up by many thousands of customer. How much did they load on the bills because of all the fixed price deals they entered into before the massive price increases and presumably made a large loss servicing those customers?

[bert]

Compounded by the fact that Ofgem allowed them to draw on customers accounts in credit to fund day to day operating costs so all these accounts were drained - then they went bust.

[Andrew]

No, but *everyone* had their standing charge doubled at the behest of Ofgem, to pay for the 'lost credit' that was re-imbursed by the takeover company. Those who lost credits should simply have joined the list of creditors of the failed company and received from a few pence down to nothing.

The massively increased standing charges will never come back down.

[alan_m]

It doesn't mean that if a fixed deal becomes cheaper again you shouldn't go for it.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Of course not.. They will be passed to Green activists to tell us why we need to pay them

Simples!