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Re: Energy bills: How spanked will YOU get?

Posted: Mon 27 Sep, 2021 14.48
by Martin Phillp
Avro customers are being moved to Octopus.

Re: Energy bills: How spanked will YOU get?

Posted: Mon 27 Sep, 2021 15.56
by scottishtv
This is an excerpt from a longer piece in last week's Times about Avro Energy:
Jake Brown, a 27-year-old former non-league footballer, founded Avro Energy in 2014 while studying law at Birmingham University. His father Andrew, 57, joined the business in 2017.

The pair do not appear to have invested any of their own money in the company, which has been financed by the advance fees paid by customers.

Jake and his father each own half the shares in Avro Group, the holding company for a string of businesses. Accounts for [these] associated companies show that Avro Energy provided a £830,000 unsecured, interest-free loan to Berkeley Swiss Limited, a construction company controlled by Brown and his father.

Avro Energy also records £2.25 million in management charges for an advertising agency called Sendito Marketing, owned by the Browns. A further £163,656 of loans to the pair are recorded in the most recent accounts.

One expert said that Avro Energy appeared to have funded its losses by “stretching” the advance payments made by customers. “This creates a perverse incentive whereby energy companies are incentivised to sell at increasingly negative margins,” the expert said.

Avro Energy was awarded the uSwitch best value for money award in 2019 and recorded a 144 per cent rise in customer numbers. Its accounts state that it ran a hedging strategy to cope with changes in energy prices. Jake Brown did not respond to requests for comment.

Re: Energy bills: How spanked will YOU get?

Posted: Wed 29 Sep, 2021 15.17
by Martin Phillp
Enstroga, Igloo Energy and Symbio Energy have gone bust.

Re: Energy bills: How spanked will YOU get?

Posted: Sat 02 Oct, 2021 20.03
by Pete
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/ ... f-up-to-80

Bulb engaging in some significant spanking of their remaining customers it would seem

Re: Energy bills: How spanked will YOU get?

Posted: Fri 29 Oct, 2021 16.41
by Martin Phillp
Pete wrote: Sat 02 Oct, 2021 20.03 https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/ ... f-up-to-80

Bulb engaging in some significant spanking of their remaining customers it would seem
And with that news earlier this month, Bulb is set to go into administration.


Re: Energy bills: How spanked will YOU get?

Posted: Fri 29 Oct, 2021 17.18
by gottago
Richard Herring will be gutted. He'd push their free recommendation credit on his podcast all the time netting him £50 of credit each time someone signed up (I think I did this through him). I went on a date with someone who worked at Bulb HQ and said that Richard had about £30k in account credit.

Re: Energy bills: How spanked will YOU get?

Posted: Fri 29 Oct, 2021 20.22
by Alan de Robson
I'm getting well and truly spanked.

I signed up to Outfox the Market at just over £100 a month about a year ago.

Seems like every other month they revise the direct debit upwards and it's now £205 a month.

With that and potential interest rate rises, I could be in a bit of a hole in 6 months' time.

Re: Energy bills: How spanked will YOU get?

Posted: Sun 31 Oct, 2021 20.05
by WillPS
gottago wrote: Fri 29 Oct, 2021 17.18 Richard Herring will be gutted. He'd push their free recommendation credit on his podcast all the time netting him £50 of credit each time someone signed up (I think I did this through him). I went on a date with someone who worked at Bulb HQ and said that Richard had about £30k in account credit.
His account credit is protected whatever happens to Bulb. In the event of SoLR (unlikely) the cost of covering the 'in credit' balance is mutualised over all suppliers, so indirectly that £30k credit will paid for by anybody paying an energy bill. In the more likely event that they enter 'special administration'... well I don't know how it's covered but I presume it amounts to being every fucker who ends up absorbing it.

Suppliers incentivising referrals with account credits are likely to be one of the things which are outlawed once the dust settles (correctly, IMV).

Re: Energy bills: How spanked will YOU get?

Posted: Sun 31 Oct, 2021 20.26
by bilky asko
Going by Richard Herring's tweets on the matter, the Bulb credit is withdrawable, and he may well have already done so.

Re: Energy bills: How spanked will YOU get?

Posted: Tue 02 Nov, 2021 16.02
by Martin Phillp
Omni Energy, MA Energy and Zebra Power are the latest small scale utility companies to close.

Re: Energy bills: How spanked will YOU get?

Posted: Mon 22 Nov, 2021 12.34
by Martin Phillp