"Money for old rope"

I'm a great switcher. It's me what gets the competitive juices flowing in this moribund economy of ours. The UK has been leaders in opening up the markets - privatising monopolies (Russia copied our script) and then putting in place regulators to keep tabs on the rather too "free " markets.

In the 70's and early 80's we had two television channels, we had a few regional providers of electricity and one for gas, we had one GPO later to become British Telecoms which had a vice like grip on the telephone lines - that's all we had. Thatcher comes along helped by Keith Joseph and Milton Friedman and we had "competition". Except it hasn't worked as we'd imagined it would.

I'm now focusing in on the energy suppliers. We'd privatised the regional Gas and Electricity Boards  and allowed them to compete with each other outside their regions. They, however, had little interest in helping the consumer by cutting the divi for their shareholders. That's where the regulator came in. OFGEM was to ensure that these new businesses weren't taking advantage of the consumer. Except it didn't work. The companies had more and cleverer teams of analysts, economists and lawyers than the cash strapped regulator. They ran rings around it.

The solution was to allow others into the retail side of the market. Electricity and Gas has no ownership stamped on it - except at the household end where the gas and electricity meters are uniquely numbered. What you do is to allow (almost) anyone to deliver gas and electricity to individual householders.

It's pretty straight forward in theory to set up such a retail business. You need to secure your supply of gas and electricity and pay rental for the infrastructure (all these are owned by near monopolies). You need a decent CRM system  - holding meter details, meter reading, addresses, bank details etc. A payment system - DD preferred and a call centre - except you don't set up your own you contract out that to someone else. You buy your energy on the wholesale market and retail it to households. Nothing could be simpler.

OFGEM opened up the market to suppliers to the domestic market. The idea being that the spirit of entrepreneurship, free enterprise and competition would find ways of reducing the cost of energy to the consumer. And it worked initially. Clever people found ways of under cutting the big providers, they in turn fought back and reduced their prices. Except people are hugely conservative. I've known of consumers knowingly paying a £1000 a year more on their energy bills  and refusing to switch.

That's not what this post is about. It's about my experience. I've switched energy supplier at least 5 times. The last time was not voluntary. The company I'd signed up to One Select went bust in December 2018 - on reflection it's not surprising as I was paying £88 a month for gas and electricity and when they went belly up I had a credit of £120. Anyway, OFGEM stepped in and asked other companies to take on OneSelect's 30,000 customers. OFGEM would have done the usual viability checks - financial, systems, customer service that sort of thing - before signing over us abandoned OneSelect customers. We went to Together Energy - a small independent on the Clyde - proudly Scottish and keen on giving the consumer the best deal.

That seemed hunky dory. I was greeted as a new customer, told I could stay with Together or move and my credit with OneSelect was safe. So I stayed with Together. They're all on line - well meter reading and bills, but that was not a problem I'd was used to that. So I'd regularly put in my monthly gas and electricity meter readings.

They offered what I thought was a good 3 year fixed deal "Brexit 2021" I signed up to that. The winter monthly payments were high but they said they'd reduce in the summer months - this is fairly typical of small providers. I set up my Direct Debit (DD) and thought no more about it.

Then the bills can in. What started as a huge credit had turned into a massive debit. My bills did not take account of the DDs and one of payment I'd made! So I produced a spreadsheet showing on the one hand what my Together Energy bills showed and what I thought my account should show. I e-mailed their CEO

The CEO: Paul Richards

and the next day someone contacted me. On the first of July my bills were amended to show a credit which I agreed with. Victory!

I next received two bills on the 11th and 12th of July which were totally mad! They showed levels of consumption which were unrealistic,  based on estimated reads despite being given actuals. So I fired off a missive complaining - again copied to the CEO. Complete silence.

I received a bill today following my meter reading yesterday. It made me revisit the last two July bills.

The electricity meter readings are 5 digits, as are the gas readings although in preparing the bill only the first four digits are used. In preparing my two July and  August bill Together Energy have used the 5 digit gas readings  This has meant they hugely over estimated my gas consumption by a factor of ten! In the period from May to June I'd used £18 worth of gas - in July it rose to nearly £120!

Real sit up and beg incompetence! First, using the wrong figures, then not doing a simple comparison test and the final incompetence - not replying to a customer's legitimate complaint.

It really makes you wonder whether OFGEM were awake when they signed off Together Energy as competent to take on One Select's stranded customers.

I'm not holding out much hope that the company will get back to me. I suspect they're totally out of their depth.