Hi Everyone,
I just wanted to say great work this week on raising complaints to Ofgem! Thank you all for committing, it's been a lot of work on my end and I'm so grateful for all the support you're showing. I've been CCed in around 1,200 complaints in the last 48 hours, and I'm sure there are more than that!!!! I've tried to filter through and reply to anyone that had questions, i've still got a few replies to send but I promise I will get back to you all (probably tomorrow now).
If you have a spare minute, please share the petition again, I'm trying to keep the momentum up. Share it on Twitter and tag me (@RichardWinstone) or on facebook and tag my company, who are letting me spend lots of time on this petition and giving me a platform to promote more in-depth information on (@over50sMoney)
If you haven't already emailed Ofgem to complain and would like to, I've copied the instructions below!
Please send an email to feedback@ofgem.gov.uk
Please add my email address as a CC richard@over50smoney.com
Please set the subject to “Complaint: Change the Price Cap Formula”
Then copy and paste the message below (just the italics bits) into the text of your email:
Good afternoon,
I’ve signed a petition for Ofgem to review and change the price cap formula. The petition has now reached 160,000 signatures and is still growing. You can view the petition here https://chng.it/pyvwJZ8R
Our complaint about the calculation of the price cap primarily rests on the following two points:
EBIT (profit) – setting EBIT as a percentage of costs means energy suppliers are being rewarded for having higher costs and, with the complete absence of fixed rate tariffs available, they are incentivised to keep their costs rising rather than trying to reduce costs
Headroom – Headroom allowance is also set as a percentage of costs, this is providing excessive and unnecessary headroom in the market, which will obviously be unused and therefore just account for more profits for the suppliers.
With the government’s Energy Price Guarantee and your flawed price cap formula, we’ll see billions of pounds of public money being spent on record-breaking profit levels for private energy companies. Ofgem’s job is to protect consumers, not to allow suppliers to profiteer from public money.
My specific requests and questions:
1. Change the EBIT calculation from 1.9% of other costs to a fixed £10 per household
2. Change the Headroom Allowance calculation from 1.46% of other costs to a fixed £10 per household
3. How do you plan to reintroduce competition to the market and force domestic energy suppliers to once again offer cheaper fixed-rate tariffs?
As the Energy Price Guarantee is already in effect, I would like to stress the importance of reviewing the price cap formula QUICKLY. The longer you wait, the more public money is being wasted on excessive supplier profit levels.
I look forward to your response.
Kind regards
[enter your name]
Thanks again everyone, i'll be back on friday with another update (more important things to be done tomorrow).
Richard