Martin Lewis has been helping millions of households through the energy crisis by sharing the latest updates on projected increases to come later in the year and realistic ways to manage increasing gas and electricity costs.
Earlier this week, the financial guru shared on social media that the price of wholesale gas is at its lowest level since October 2021, but warned that it is still nearly three times the old, typical run-rate.
This could mean Ofgem’s next price cap review in October may be less of a rise than the 30 per cent currently being predicted by energy analysts.
While that’s not exactly what energy customers want to hear, it’s less of a bleak outlook than we’ve been facing since the April 54% price cap was announced in February.
However, Martin is still concerned about energy customers who have seen their monthly direct debit payments increase by more than the 54% price cap and has answered several questions on the topic on his many TV appearances.
He recently explained on This Morning three reasons why energy direct debits may be higher for some people.
Martin explained: “Number one is if you were on a fix and that fix ended, because that would have been cheaper than the price cap - but that doesn’t apply in this case.
“Number two, you have moved to a fixed rate and not to a price cap rate - just double check that hasn’t happened because some energy companies have been pushing it hard and you might not have realised that the offer they gave you was an offer as opposed to a compulsory thing that you had to do.
“Check if you’ve moved to a fixed rate tariff as opposed to a variable rate tariff as they are far more expensive.”
But the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com explained that the third reason, and the most common reason, for your energy bill being much higher than the price cap, is because your estimate has increased.
And now he has issued an important request to everyone paying their bills by direct debit in the hopes of ensuring fairness among all energy suppliers.
Whether your direct debit has remained the same or gone up, Martin is urging everyone to complete a survey on the MoneySavingExpert.com website so that the results can be submitted to Parliament and Ofgem to see if “energy firms are unfairly hiking DDs [direct debits]”.
In a post on Twitter, he wrote: “Important: Unfair Energy Direct Debit hikes
“We're collecting data to submit to parliament/Ofgem to see if energy firms are unfairly hiking DDs. Whether you think yours is unfair or not, pls take 5mins to fill in our survey.”
He followed this up with another tweet after some people replied to say their payments were fair.
He said: “Some saying ‘actually my firm has been really fair’.
“Great please fill in the survey - we're looking at patterns both across the market and across firms.
“PS we're obv aware that more people who feel hard done by will fill it in.”
You can fill in the five-minute survey on MoneySavingExpert.com here.
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