Don't pay high energy prices protest

[Gmamaofboys13]

Drawing MN users attention to a campaign where 1 million people cancel their direct debits on the 1st of October as a protest against the high energy prices:

dontpay.uk/

No ofgem are not government owned they charge the energy company to look over certain complaints for consumers once the companies own complaints procedure has been followed.

the pro rioting types that pop up on threads like these never actually want to riot themselves they just want to encourage rioting by proxy

It’s very confusing- I thought this was what the Greens want/ wanted?
Higher prices and taxes for fuel , petrol etc to reduce demand and therefore carbon emissions with a positive effect of slowing down climate change. Price is used in all sorts of areas to dampen demand and fuel is no different. Anyone that votes Green should be delighted.

I wish you all the best of luck for the winter. Let us know how you get on!

Ps, your benefit/social housing bashing post earlier wasn't at all cool. I reported it and it was deleted. Do better.

That would be great, if there were alternative methods put in place by the government to survive the winter.

A secret guideline. One of the ones you don't know about and never will.

I suggest writing to the United Nations.

Oh my gosh. We aren't struggling, probably never will if I'm honest, but imagine berating people for going on holiday and not wanting to pay extortionate energy bills. Shell's profits were in the billions this quarter, Sunak is having a pool installed at one of his homes... I don't blame people for not wanting to live simply to pay bills.

It's outrageous really. All of these people who don't have a lot of money ganging up on people who do have a lot of money by not paying bills. No wonder they get cross.

Don't know about Tesco but business energy prices are currently way higher than domestic (if not on a fixed contract from before the huge rises) because businesses are not protected by the price cap.

Theres so much about what we cant do. Realistically what CAN we do to ensure everyone can put the heating on this winter?

Not signing up to this.
We'll try to struggle through but I can't see how this can be fixed.
The energy companies fix their own prices, the government can only mitigate, if they can, to a certain extent.

Maybe we shouldn't have been so greedy as to buying British Gas shares, in the 80s , which millions did and promptly sold them to make a few quid. Energy companies bought them up by the barrel load.

This really is our doing. We should have protested against the sale of a nationalised institution. All profits were ploughed back in to the industry ( which would now be green energy) whereas shareholders now get massive dividends.

''@Unphased
What do you expect the government to do, electricity and gas is sold on the open market, if you don’t pay, you will get a key meter fitted for energy at a dearer price, if to many people do it all the remaining suppliers will go out of business, with no energy for any one, or , the energy companies will just sell the electric abroad,You can’t go into a shop and refuse to pay your bill and walk out, this is no different,it’s time to cut down on holidays, eating out, takeaways, subscription TV, Amazon prime, new phone, stop tumble drying, wear more clothes indoors, etc, pay your essentials first.''

FFS...I always wonder how people get so indoctrinated that they start parroting this type of rubbish and blame people for not wanting to almost have to sell a kidney to pay for life's essentials.

Companies like British Gas have made enormous profit this year and are paying their shareholders fat dividends and their CEO a huge salary. Yet the consumer is supposed to freeze to death.

Funnily enough countries like France have managed to keep bills low and their increase is about 4%. Why? because utilities are in public ownership and their politicians know full well people would take to the streets if they tried what is happening here.

Yet in the UK we are supposed to just accept these absolute rip-off increases.

I do hope everyone cancel their direct debits and refuse to pay these ridiculous bills, full stop.

But I guess there will always be those who love to play the martyrs and use the opportunities to criticise those who have no interest in getting back to Dickensian standards of living.

@amijustparanoidorjuststoned I'm saying that you won't have much choice on the matter. You can either pay the market price, or you can go without. That's how the system works.

There is no obligation for the world's energy markets to give discount energy to the UK. The gov't could nationalise Shell and BP, although I have a feeling their shareholders may object to this (especially the ones that are pension funds). You can have those profits distributed to the people, but that only works the once. The company needs to grow to sustain itself, so eventually, you're going to have to stop bailing out the consumer.

And when that happens, people will be thrown back into the free market, where price is dictated by the marginal barrel or cubic metre of oil and gas. Which is where the big price spikes occur as too little energy is sought after by too many people, hence, supply and demand curves.

A lot of the last major deposits of fossil fuels are owned by national oil and gas companies too. The ones we don't control. You're out of luck when it comes to dealing with them, especially as we may have to either keep paying in dollars (which are scarce right now), or even worse, maybe in a currency basket that the developing nations dictate at the behest of BRICS. And then you'll see what Sri Lanka dealt with when they ran out of currency to afford imported goods.

If you seriously think the French gov't underwriting energy increases means they're not paying these prices, I don't know what to tell you.

Who do you think pays for nationalised energy infrastructure? I'll give you a hint: it begins with "tax" and ends with "payers".

This is like buying something beyond your means on credit card and thinking the bank has just bought you a new Range Rover and you didn't have to increase your monthly outgoings. It's painfully naïve.

I will be paying because I can’t afford to destroy my credit history but the current prices are crippling us.

I have a severely disabled adult son and as a result we use a significant amount of energy, over and above a normal household of our size. Our energy bills have now rocketed to £420 a month.

After tax, NI, student loan, work parking, pension deductions I am left with £1600 a month. My mortgage is £895. Just a roof over our heads and energy takes almost all my wages and leaves us scraping by and using food banks.

I can’t move as our home is adapted for my sons disabilities and if we move we need to repay the disabled facilities grant we had to help towards the adaptions. And we can’t afford to do that.

It shouldn’t be the case that working full time in the NHS, in a professional job, and still you can’t afford to live. Yet I apparently earn too much for any benefits or government support, god knows how!

People with disabilities are as usual disproportionately affected by this. Even the cost of living grants are disproportionate. £150 if you have a disability but £650 if on benefits. We won’t even get the £150 however as my son isn’t on the energy accounts.

I am very very worried for the future.

But I guess there will always be those who love to play the martyrs and use the opportunities to criticise those who have no interest in getting back to Dickensian standards of living.

No, I just don't want my credit rating wrecked if I can help it.

On the subject of holidays, maybe some of these people booked them before prices shot up.

No way I’m doing this. I’m not risking poor credit/prepayment meter etc. I’d be OK with a complaint or a mass turn off of electricity for a couple of hours. Might work well if it was co-ordinated with reminders on social media 15 mins before, then 5 mins before. Then people can turn off for a minimum of 1 hour, more if possible. If you’ve got a mobile, surely you can just charge it up prior to that and just watch telly in the dark for a bit?

As with most complaint systems you need to go via your provider first. Ofgem is unlikely to consider a complaint purely on cost unless there is some aggravating factor-i.e. bill is wrong or the DD has been raised without reason- which is a fairly normal complaint. If you do not pay your bill, your risk a CCJ, a poor credit rating and you will be placed on a pre-payment meter. That way if you do not pay your utility company has no worries at all. I would be raising it with your MP being clear that this will decide how you vote.

Who are DontPayUK?

Why are people listening to them? I suppose it appeals to frightened people who can't think through to the inevitable end consequences of cancelling your dd to your energy provider.

You will be billed at an even higher price. If they have to chase you for it, or you pay late, they charge you for it. If you don't pay, it affects your credit score and they move you to a prepayment meter. The debt follows you if you move house.

Reporting them to the ombudsman is pointless. They will refer you back to your provider's complaints procedure. If your complaint is about high prices, it will be dismissed.

Their profits are not from residential sales. For anyone with a pension, your pension will be at least partly invested in energy.

The best we can hope for is even more government support that will ultimately be paid back through tax anyway.

The French government has intervened, but it was smart enough to retain control of EDF, so is able to restrict & manage consumer pricing. I don't expect the UK government to tackle anything that benefits ordinary people though - their loyalty is to business, & they are happier cutting taxes than seeing children eat.

But I'm loving your casual assumption that I can afford to stay warm this winter by losing a load of luxuries that I don't have, @Unphased. The fact that 4 million UK children are currently living in poverty seems to have escaped you. How nice for you.

"Pay your essentials first" - my arse. You have clearly never experienced poverty. Millions of households do not have luxuries, & cannot afford basic essentials. But you keep lecturing from your high horse about how the peasants need to "cut down", we'll all be so grateful for your sterling advice as we tug our forelocks to your wisdom & insight.