Switch ? What a waste of energy.....

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has just made proposals designed to reform the energy market and increase competition to help consumers save money.

The CMA's 18-month investigation into the energy market was triggered by the recognition that households and small businesses pay £1.7bn a year more than they should. This works out at about £400 per household.

The Chair of the CMA investigation said:

"We have found that the six largest suppliers have learned to take many of their existing domestic customers - some 70% of whom are on default standard variable tariffs - for granted, not just over prices, but with their service and quality"

He said consumers who had switched had saved hundreds of pounds, but those who had not were paying more than they needed to.

So more of us should switch, and more often, in order to get a service which does not take us for granted. 

Hmmm. This advice has a few bugs, I think.  

The CMA more or less admits that the energy companies are predatory, and driven by profit. Maybe that's why they have so little regard for service and quality. The CMA suggests that some temporary relief might be gained by switching, a process we are all used to when tracking down insurance deals.

The charade is that we, the customers, can bring about competition as the energy companies vie for our custom, and that prices will fall. 

They want us to join in a vast game with the energy companies where we agree to be mice, and they the cats. Why ? Because the regulator will not regulate to make the companies charge fair prices within a fairer price structure. There is nothng new here. It has been this way for years.

Customer loyalty seems to be of interest to the energy companies only in so far as it makes the victims struggle less.

The advice about switching seems to me rather like seeing someone being attacked by lions, and yelling at them that they might prefer the tigers round the corner.

Unless there is some plan for regulating the energy companies, switching will simply lead to more imaginative predation.

The companies (almost) can't help it:

Saepe rogare soles, qualis sim, Prisce, futurus,
Si fiam locuples, simque repente potens.
Quemquam posse putas mores narrare futuros ?
Dic mihi, si fias tu leo, qualis eris ?

Priscus, you often ask me what I would be like if I suddenly became rich and powerful. So you think someone can say what they will be like in the future ? Tell me this: if you were turned into a lion, what would you be like ?