Energy

Energy firms will have to offer emergency credit to prepayment customers who are struggling to top up their meters under a package of new measures revealed by regulator Ofgem, designed to help vulnerable customers stay connected.

MoneySavingExpert.com is this week rolling out MSE Autoswitch – the first-ever free, full energy auto-compare-and-switch tool. This is the latest development for our free Cheap Energy Club, which already has 4.5 million members.

British Gas has paid £1.48 million in compensation after it failed to tell 100,000s of prepayment customers it was switching top-up providers.

Energy firm Utility Warehouse is to pay out £450,000 in refunds and compensation, after it overcharged potentially vulnerable customers last year.

Ovo Energy has agreed to pay £8.9 million after issuing inaccurate or incomplete information to 100,000s of customers, and for under and overcharging customers due to IT issues. 

The competition watchdog has approved the sale of big six energy supplier SSE's household energy business to Ovo Energy, meaning 3.5 million SSE customers are set to be moved over to Ovo after January 2020.

The competition watchdog has called for the prepayment price cap to stay in place after 2020 due to the slow roll-out of smart meters – but customers could pay more under the cap when calculation methods change. 

Gas and electricity supplier Green Star Energy has been ordered to pay £350,000 after it failed to update its records and issue welcome packs to 1,829 new tenants, meaning they were unable to move to cheaper tariffs or access their accounts.

Tens of thousands of energy customers lost vital protection from aggressive debt collection following the collapse of 11 firms, which also left a potential bill of £172 million across the industry, according to Citizens Advice.

Small energy firm Avro Energy has been banned from taking on new customers because it hasn't joined the national smart meter network.