John Penrose

To stop bloated utility bills we need to be able to shop around

Hardly a day goes by without some sort of complaint against utility companies being aired in the press. Everyone agrees that the problem is endemic; too many people feel ripped off when their energy or water bills arrive, and people who are happy with their bank are rarer than snow in summer.

The worst thing perhaps is that there’s a sense of inevitability about it. People know they’re being taken for a ride but they feel they can’t do anything about it. If we’re not happy with our local supermarket we can switch to a different chain, but if it’s a water firm we can’t. And even where it’s possible to switch, for example by choosing a different bank or gas company, very few of us do because switching is tricky, slow and we’re worried about being left in the lurch if something goes wrong halfway through. Worse still, when people eventually get frustrated enough to think about switching, they’re often discouraged because you’d need a PhD to pick the best deal out of all those competing tariffs and suppliers.

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