Ofgem response from deputy director on British Gas investigation and Headroom. New petitions!

New E.On Tariff - £96 cheaper than the current price cap!*

Petition: Stop Unfair Car Insurance Pricing Based on Credit Scores

New Regulator Guy Petition: Ban the "Loyalty Tax" on Broadband contracts

Evening everyone,

A few updates from me. First and foremost, I've received a response from Ofgem on our campaign calling for an update on the British Gas prepayment meter scandal and calling for an update on the headroom allowance review. I'll post the actual reply on my blog tomorrow (theregulatorguy.co.uk), but here is a brief overview of what has been said:

• The British Gas investigation is still ongoing, it takes time and we shouldn't expect a public update any time soon.
• The Headroom Allowance review was kept on the "long term" list when they reviewed their program of work earlier this year, it is not scheduled to be reviewed any time soon. 

Yeah, I feel the same way you do right now. 

Effectively, we got nothing out of them. This was kind of expected, and this isn't the end of the conversation. The Deputy Director himself has been polite and communicative, I'll be going back to him with some questions soon. I also want to apologise to you guys, it looks like there was an updated programme of work from Ofgem at the beginning of this year, which I missed during the period in which I was leaving my old company and beginning my new career as The Regulator Guy. That would have been the time for us to engage on this properly, so I'm sorry I missed it. 

I'll put into tomorrow's blog what my planned response is going to be, please make sure you're subscribed to my blog to receive notification of this post (use the link above to my website to get there), as I won't be posting it to the petition tomorrow. 

Right, second point, there are still tariffs available to switch to in the market. The current cheapest is the new E.On tariff, it's £96 cheaper than the current price cap which makes it around £140 cheaper than the predicted January price cap. If you haven't had chance to switch yet, please do click the top link and have a look. There is literally no benefit to you even paying £1 more per year than you have to, that's just extra profit for the energy supplires. 

Final point is that I've post links to 2 petitions at the top. One is a new one by me (the new broadband one) and the other has been started by one of my friends, she's really passionate about this petition (the car insurance one) and I agree with her 100%, so I said I'd share it with you guys as we're all like-minded people that are against unfair pricing in our regulated industries. Do me a favour, have a look at both and if you agree with one or both of them, sign them and maybe share them on your social media platforms please?

Final, final point! I know I'm still behind on responses to emails from the weekend and the end of last week, I am trying to get through them as quickly as possible and I'm sorry I haven't got back to everyone yet. That being said, you can still email me at Richard@TheRegulatorGuy.co.uk, please do this if you've sent me an email I haven't replied to and you need an urgent response, bring it to the top of my inbox and let me know, I'll prioritise your emails. Thank you for your patience guys!

Right, thats all from me on this update. As I said, I'll be posting tomorrow on my blog the actual letter I received from the deputy director at Ofgem, so check out my website tomorrow if you want to see that and my suggested response to that letter. 

If you don't hear from me before, have a great weekend everyone!

Richard Winstone

*DISCLAIMER: The link at the top of this update is an affiliate link. This means that if you click them, run a price comparison and ultimately switch service provider, I will receive a commission. This commission helps fund the regulatory work that I do. The commission does NOT increase the price you pay for the services,  you'll see the same prices whether you go through the link above, through the price comparison site directly or if you go direct to the service provider.