Energy bills - don't pay

I was never on SVR. I'm not stupid. I put my details in and without fail there was never a cheaper deal than the one I was on at the time. You must have been on terrible deals in the first place.
nope, I'm probably one of the most energy savvy people on here & having spent years working in the industry I know exacftky what was and wasn't out there to be had.

These sites exist because people save money by switching, and the sites get a cut. I find it hard to believe anyone could spend years with one provider and never save because the market is very fluid. We changed provider 4 times one year to make savings every time because the market changed so rapidly, and for 3 years we didn't even pay a bill because we referred so many people. If there were no cheaper deals, that entire market wouldn't exist.

EDF raised prices in UK by 54% compared to only 4% in France. So are we subsiding France????? The worst thing was privatizing the UK market.
We aren't subsidising France; we are paying the going rate. the French government is subsidising EDF in France and absorbing the losses. Currently predicted at £30billion in losses in France, and the Uk arm reported losses in feb.

 
Got all mine back when last one went belly up late last year.
Yeah it's protected. There are fringe cases where disputes occur but it's usually because people see a £ credit balance on a bill and presume it's like a bank account but usage is often billed in arrears so is deducted from the credit balance. Still, good practice to keep copies of things showing your balance if you're worried about your supplier
 
I don't know if this is the case, but it seems to me that what is being asked for is some solidarity from those who can pay for those that cannot pay. If you kids are going to starve you won't pay your gas or electric bills. That is a given.

If you can pay, the don't pay protest is asking for people to act as one and support those who simply cannot pay.
 
having spent years working in the industry I know exacftky what was and wasn't out there to be had.
Ah. Insider dealing.

Well at least I haven't spent half my life on pointless middleman energy trading scam sites which masquerade as 'choice' so I'll take that. When nationalised I never gave it a second thought and didn't have to.
 
Ah. Insider dealing.

Well at least I haven't spent half my life on pointless middleman energy trading scam sites which masquerade as 'choice' so I'll take that. When nationalised I never gave it a second thought and didn't have to.
takes about 5 minutes to log in, compare prices and click switch, after which everything is handled for you. They also email you whenever you can save a custom set amount so don't even have to check manually.

So unless you're about half an hour old, neither have I.
 
There is a longer term possibility (which I'm not even suggesting is remotely likely) which is that by everyone not paying their energy bills then all of the suppliers go bust and the government are forced to nationalise and act as the supplier. We know the suppliers don't make huge profits but they do make profit and there is no need for them. They don't do anything, they are just middlemen, so if we can remove them from the system we are one step closer to the optimal way of running. Even to the point that having a single variable tariff that everyone pays instead of all of the messing about with different companies having different SVRs, fixed offers etc that we all have to sift through to get the best price.

The suppliers have no incentive to drive prices down because they just pass the cost on. The government in that position though doesn't have to pass the full cost on. They could choose not to. They could also change the way the producers pay tax, force them to sell closer to the cost what they produce in the UK instead of us paying wholesale price for the energy/fuel we produce in the UK etc. Much more radical but things that would never happen in the current system.
Some of them are foreign, or are absolutely massive, which would be practically impossible to bust.

Intentionally busting marginally profitable companies so we can nationalise them is effectively theft, especially when we could have just bought out all the ones which went bust (or where going bust).

I wouldn't say they don't do anything, and would say some of them are actually quite good when they have chance to be, companies like Octopus and Bulb etc, and some others who went broke. They're not the problem, and trying to fix 1% of a problem and ignoring the other 99% is worse. You wouldn't remove the middle man, you would then end up with the government as the middleman, and to be honest I trust the energy suppliers over the government, which says a lot. It's unfair lumping everyone on the same tariff, as each people have differing needs. We should be trying to promote people using less energy, or generating their own, and using it away from peak times so stop the wild fluctuations, which is where the different tariffs can help.

You can't drive the prices down, if you have completely no control over the price of the product, like I can't control the price of Oranges or an iPhone. The only thing which can do it is demand decreasing or for the world to fix the price of all energy generation, and cap production profits, but the chance of that is zero. Even if we could do it, there would have to be some sort of agreement on the currency used, which would probably end up as dollars. Then even when things go to crap, you don't get a saving, as when things do go to crap the dollar just gets stronger (which is one of the reasons for our petrol price problem, the $ per barrel came down, but the dollar strength went up).

We can put taxes on our own production, but I suppose that would just make our energy companies less competitive, I'm not sure what sort of damage that might do, but expect it would put up production costs.
 
There’s an article going the rounds on SM where Martin Lewis has not advocated the ‘don’t pay’ method but instead, cancel DD and tell them you will pay for what you use, but raise a complaint… they’re offering slightly reduced tariffs but you refuse and it goes to an ombudsman.. they charge them £500 for every complaint…

But as has been said, they’ll get their money off us one way or another..

Just seen this has already been mentioned… 🤷🏼‍♂️
 
There’s an article going the rounds on SM where Martin Lewis has not advocated the ‘don’t pay’ method but instead, cancel DD and tell them you will pay for what you use, but raise a complaint… they’re offering slightly reduced tariffs but you refuse and it goes to an ombudsman.. they charge them £500 for every complaint…

But as has been said, they’ll get their money off us one way or another..

Just seen this has already been mentioned… 🤷🏼‍♂️
Have you got a link to this? I've seen Martin Lewis warning people against the don't pay but the ombudsman thing sounds very un Martin Lewis-like

Also as I said before if you cancel your dd many providers will switch you to a more expensive pay on bill tariff. On average usage this costs £100-120 a year more as has higher standing charges and unit rates

Also the part about having a fee is correct, but the ombudsman first checks if there is a case to answer. You'd need to show that you have a valid reason for your complaint and challenging the deadlock letter they've sent you as a final response.

Doing this because you cancelled your DD is unlikely to get past the first gate so it won't be ombudsman chargeable. If you had a genuine cause for complaint this idea might have some merit but majority won't and it takes a while to get that deadlock letter.
 
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EDF raised prices in UK by 54% compared to only 4% in France. So are we subsiding France????? The worst thing was privatizing the UK market.
Exactly my point.

So if Gladys’s from no 33 doesn’t payer her £500 bill what impact will it really have on on France state run energy co
 
Civil disobedience has put paid to problems in the past. Whilst this is not a direct government policy like poll tax was, it is fair to say that the government should sort it out. Their mismanagement has caused the problem.
 
Exactly my point.

So if Gladys’s from no 33 doesn’t payer her £500 bill what impact will it really have on on France state run energy co
Well they're ran as different companies for starters so it will push EDF Uk supply arm into a massive loss (seeing as they were already predicted for one), which they will just eat up and use it for tax writeoffs for the next few years on projects they're already doing in the Uk.

Seems peope were moaning when they thought we were subsiding France but are happy with it being the other way round? Weird
There’s an article going the rounds on SM where Martin Lewis has not advocated the ‘don’t pay’ method but instead, cancel DD and tell them you will pay for what you use, but raise a complaint… they’re offering slightly reduced tariffs but you refuse and it goes to an ombudsman.. they charge them £500 for every complaint…

But as has been said, they’ll get their money off us one way or another..

Just seen this has already been mentioned… 🤷🏼‍♂️
I've just seen this post and they've just used his picture to get traction, definitely not a Martin Lewis message or good advice
 
Civil disobedience has put paid to problems in the past. Whilst this is not a direct government policy like poll tax was, it is fair to say that the government should sort it out. Their mismanagement has caused the problem.
Not really this is a bit of a myth as thatcher was by then growing unpopular in the Tory ranks ( look at heseltyne and the Westland affair) so the poll tax was largely a smokescreen.
 
EDF raised prices in UK by 54% compared to only 4% in France. So are we subsiding France????? The worst thing was privatizing the UK market.
Agree. Electricity supply is not and never was a 'market', completely ridiculous concept. My understanding is that the wholesale cost of electricity into the 'market' is set at the level of the most expensive generator into the base grid load, currently gas fired power stations. If it was centrally run the price would be an average across all sources of generation, renewables, nuclear, etc., etc........
 
Someone I know earned £65k the other year just stood in a supermarket selling energy deals by getting people to switch from one deal to another (and then back again when a cheaper deal became available). That money goes on everyone's bill, and multiply that by every other sales person and comparison site that's out there and you get an idea of how some people are doing on the back of what is essentially a rigged system. These energy sales jobs shouldn't even need to exist. This, along with many other essential national assets/industries, just need to be re-nationalised.
 
Have you got a link to this? I've seen Martin Lewis warning people against the don't pay but the ombudsman thing sounds very un Martin Lewis-like

Also as I said before if you cancel your dd many providers will switch you to a more expensive pay on bill tariff. On average usage this costs £100-120 a year more as has higher standing charges and unit rates

Also the part about having a fee is correct, but the ombudsman first checks if there is a case to answer. You'd need to show that you have a valid reason for your complaint and challenging the deadlock letter they've sent you as a final response.

Doing this because you cancelled your DD is unlikely to get past the first gate so it won't be ombudsman chargeable. If you had a genuine cause for complaint this idea might have some merit but majority won't and it takes a while to get that deadlock letter.
It was on FB.. had quite a few shares now but I can’t link just now..

It was more a warning that people are saying Martin Lewis recommended not to pay your bill when he actually hasn’t, a bit like the parking ticket issues…

I’m not doing any of it as although I think prices are way to high, I’m still able to pay..

Those that are struggling need help and all the info out there’s becoming a mine field…
 
Th
This will never work in this country as people will pay making any gesture pointless and this resulting in those dissenters being prosecuted and blacklisted.

In France it would work but this isn’t France.
They , thatchers tory government, backed down over the poll tax rebellion in the late 80s.
 
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