Take or Pay Clauses in Energy Contracts. Have you been hit?

[Mr Overheads]

We are collecting stories from companies that have been charged for over or under consumption of Energy (this is more prevalent with Gas contracts).

Have you been hit with an unexpected charge?
What did you do about it?
Did you successfully get it reduced? If so by how much?
Were you aware that the contract you agreed had a minimum and maximum usage clause? (typically 80/120% of 90/110% of estimated annual usage)?

We have some stories from our own clients already (they weren't clients when they got hit!) but would like more, as we sit on the UIA Council (Utilities Intermediaries Association) which lobbies various government departments for better regulation etc etc.

There is also a journalist interested.....

[fizz876]

Mr Overheads said:

We are collecting stories from companies that have been charged for over or under consumption of Energy (this is more prevalent with Gas contracts).

Have you been hit with an unexpected charge?
What did you do about it?
Did you successfully get it reduced? If so by how much?
Were you aware that the contract you agreed had a minimum and maximum usage clause? (typically 80/120% of 90/110% of estimated annual usage)?

We have some stories from our own clients already (they weren't clients when they got hit!) but would like more, as we sit on the UIA Council (Utilities Intermediaries Association) which lobbies various government departments for better regulation etc etc.

There is also a journalist interested.....

The company I work for had one of these agreements for our Gas supply. In our contract we had an agreement that if our consumption was below 90% then we would be liable for additional costs. For the period we only used 73% of our Estimated consumption.

The gas company wrote to us stating we were liable and had to pay an additional cost so please make arrangement. What they didnt tell us is that they would take the money anyway and 5 days later after the initial letter they promptly withdrew £502,777.65 as a direct debit out of our A/C.

We all went balistic and got onto the Gas people and said return our money immediately and in fairness they did within 2 days. Currentley our company is in negotiations with them to come to an agreement.


Apologies as I cant give more details, company names etc.