BRITISH GAS - A GOOD DAY TO BURY BAD NEWS

[donnie]

They are raising their prices by around 18%.

It's a good day to bury bad news, right? what with the News Intl crisis and all....

agreed.

the bill rises by scottish power and bg are awful.

where are the regulators?

that's an average of £190 extra per year increase.

That was my first thought when I read about BG. Brilliant day to announce that bit of news isn't it. I am so cynical and reading today's papers, why wouldn't anyone be.

quite, aquos.

The BG price rise was trailed for days though - they said in a House of Commons select committee soemthing that indicated that they would put prices up soon and they always do these things on Frdiays. Robert Peston and some papers said on Monday that it would be this week.

I am trying to move from BG Business at the moment and they are being difficult.

I am with BG do you think I should bother moving or is this increase an inevitable given for all the other companies too?

I've swapped to e-on - they seem way below BG at the moment, but you never know whether they're all going to put the prices too, do you? 18% though was enough for us to wave goodbye.

absolutely irishbird, greedy scum bags the lot of them.

BG is usually first to move but other companies are pretty close behind them. Their basic tariff is usually nothing like their best priced tariff.. so shop around. Wholesale gas prices are only part of the jigsaw... mostly these companies are buying forward rather than risking spot rates... and the costs of supply have to be factored in as well. Fossil fuels are finite, renewables are expensive and we're on a national mission to reduce carbon emissions. I can't see prices going anything other than up.

I agree that OfGas should be looking into what has prompted the latest round of increases. The last lot was because of a large rise in wholesale costs. Fair enough. But when prices fell, they didn't trip over themselves to reduce and now they're going up again.....

The regulator should be looking at whether or not there is proper competition in this sector because right now it feels rather like a cartel.

I got figures from a comparison site but because of the way there's a history of different companies being incumbent at the start, a whole load of different charges apply depending onwhere you live. So using postcodes of various of my family and extended family (relations in S Wales, Devon, Sussex, Staffs, Humberside) I found that the price from BG for me in N Wales is almost 20% more costly than for someone on the same tariff in Hull area.

In most cases we have standard pricing (eg for subscription to Sky, cost of milk in a branch of Tesco, etc) and for what a call on BT costs, or posting a letter. However, there has been no desire to charge the same in all regions for Gas or Electricity, simply because they can get away with it, and firms only undercut each other when they want to!

I'm leaving BG now.

Me too.

when prices fell, they didn't trip over themselves to reduce and now they're going up again.....

I didn't think they reduced them at all

Exactly, I could swollow the price rise when things are bad if they dropped prices when things are good, but they don't seem to, do they?