On 13/04/2017 13:11, Jeff Layman wrote:
On 13/04/17 09:37, Robin wrote:
On 13/04/2017 08:24, Jeff Layman wrote:

Is that what a deregulated market is supposed to be doing?

As others have said, yes. Many people think they want a much more
tightly regulated market. Oddly, they are rarely people who wanted to
be spared choice in other areas and would have been happy to drive a
Trabant.

But I don't know if a deregulated market is supposed to be doing that.
It might be the result of deregulation, but is it the intended result?

No it is a side effect. The intended result was to encourage people to
change energy supplier but it just hasn't worked. The most vulnerable in
society typically without internet are on the worst possible tariff.

The suppliers are offering a huge choice and you just have to work out
which one is best for you. Anything is better than std variable rate.

Just make a comparison with food shopping. You want to try a different
coffee so you look on the supermarket shelves. Maybe there are ten or so
different brands and each has two or three jar sizes, and perhaps a
couple of "special offers". Quite difficult to make your mind up, maybe,
based on cost. But what if there were 1000 options? Sure, you can look

There are 246 sorts of coffee on Tescos online groceries today (and they
have cut down their range as a part of rationalisation):

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/prod...&Ne=4294793660

FWIW Gold Blend 200g and Milicano 170g are both on decent offers.

at the shelf labels which usually show "X pence for y grams" or
whatever, and save some time finding the cheapest, but it would still
take ages. And if that was the case for *everything* you wanted to buy,
you'd spend your whole life shopping, as probably next week the offers
would be different.

It is always amusing to look for the ones where thanks to offers you pay
more for less as a result of confusion marketing.

It's so much easier with petrol. You drive past a garage which says
120p/l. The next garages could be above or below that, so you know which
to buy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but petrol is just another type of
deregulated fuel, so why is it so different for gas and electricity?

You have to think about buying fuel fairly regularly or your car will
stop working. Even so there are price gougers about - you have to be
pretty dumb or desperate to buy fuel at a motorway service station.

AA keeps an eye on it and reports monthly. Several geolocation apps will
find you the nearest petrol station with a good price.

do believe that Martin Brown is quite right " The idea is to offer so
much choice consumers can't see the wood for the trees."

They are limited to four tariffs per supplier these days. I think you
must have found an archive of every tariff that ever was or something.

Use one of the price comparison sites but double check the numbers again
on the actual suppliers site before you commit to anything.

The first ever switch from your historical geographic supplier to any
other makes the largest saving and then dual fuel will refine it.

Any of the fixed deals is better than the do nothing default.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown