Energy prices set to rise another 40 percent.

[flapjackfairy]

So it seems Jeremy Hunt is refusing to lower the price cap despite falling gas prices meaning we are looking at another 40 percent hike in April.
We have 2 severely disabled kids who rely on lots of medical equipment and need a warm. house to stay well and that's not to mention the endless washing.
We paid £700 for December and are looking at around £600 for January so another 40 percent sees us paying up to a thousand a month in the winter.
I know spring is on the horizon but how on earth will people cope next winter ?
And all whilst energy companies double their profits to mega billions! It is disgusting!

Wow, Octopus have effectively removed the tracker rate from the market!

Only 50 people a day can join and apparently there’s a “six month” waiting list.

What a joke!

I'm not surprised given how widely it's getting talked about (not just on here).

I've saved over £10 v the SVR over the last week - it was definitely worth signing up.

Sadly today it's not as easy to switch to this tariff. Due to its popularity, they are now restricting it to 50 customers a day. So you have to go on a waiting list.

I think that’s really poor form from Octopus.

It was probably costing them too much money.

I know ! So much for that idea ! I was hoping to save 20 to 30 percent which would have been wiped out by the 20 percent rise in April!

Shame they have restricted this. I was considering swapping to Octopus, but bit any longer.

Anyway, I'd have just ended up with something what to worry about each day.

Turns out they’re upsetting quite a few customers today; the arbitrary restriction came late afternoon yesterday, but customers who had emailed them before then are being told they can’t switch, even though they requested it prior to the cut off.

I think this is now a massive PR disaster for Octopus; they have long championed themselves to be the ‘good guys’ in the market; the big boss sends out friendly emails etc. They need to reverse this restriction - and quickly! - else it’s not going to play out well for them. As you can see by a PP it is already losing customers and I have read that others are leaving!

Afaik they didn't advertise the tracker tariff or invite people to sign up to it.

They already don't make a profit (surplus ££ goes into their customer support fund).

If all their current and all new switching customers go on tracker, it's not going to be sustainable for them as a business.

I’m really surprised with octopus over this but did I read right that people are swapping and changing fairly frequently - I’d imagine that’s a big admin headache when things don’t go right? Surely doing a tie-in would have been better.

Octopus answered a few questions on twitter about the waiting list/limit today.

"It's been a niche product so normally very few people join, and as a beta tariff it's also very loss making. Tracker is designed to be a long-term proposition: taking both the highs and the lows in a volatile market.

We can sustain the loss at a certain level, but beyond that, need to put the money to looking after more vulnerable customers rather than too much subsidy for loss-making beta products."

Makes sense.