GB Energy Goes Bust Customer Advice – What to do if you were a customer?

The past few days have seen the small energy supplier GB Energy go the way of the Dodo. Yep, they’ve gone bust. Now, with nearly 200,000 UK domestic customers, this could have a big impact on customer’s finances if they’re not ready to act.

What has happened, and why?

Wholesale market energy prices have been suggested as the reason behind GB Energy needing to pull the plug, excuse the pun. Hopefully this is not an indicator of similar small providers trying to keep prices down for customers but ultimately failing to protect themselves also. Customers of the bigger energy companies should feel more secure at the moment.

So what should customers do?

Firstly, this should act as a nudge for everyone to check their tariff. It’s good as a routine to check your finances are the best they can be on a regular basis. Remember there’s also no point being on a great energy tariff (like the ones GB energy offered) if your usage remains high and unchecked. This is something that many money saving experts can overlook or fail to address. Our readers should regularly be looking to replace light bulbs and cut energy bills by any means possible, see our Lighting Switch Challenge for more details.

That aside, the most important thing for GB Energy customers to realise is their power supply will NOT be cut off. There is a strict set of rules in place that the industry regulator has to follow to protect the UK energy customer. The main thing they’ll being doing at present is locating a new supplier to automatically move the displaced customers over to. Once the suggested new suppliers are announced the most important job for customers to do themselves is do a comparison for the supplier and tariff they get given compared to others available as this tariff may not be the best. In theory credit and debit balances should be refunded or transferred to the new supplier, although we’re not 100% sure is some debit balances may be issues as final statements.

GB Energy customer or not, what you should be doing now…

Again, we cannot reiterate this enough – do a comparison. The regulator will announce the new supplier to replace GB Energy and it is likely to not be a suitable tariff, so compare and switch to one suitable for your needs of preferences. The Energy Helpline has always be our go to place to look to compare energy suppliers like GB Energy. While there are other comparison sites, if you’re going to use only one The Energy Helpline is a good place to start when comparing both small and larger suppliers. GB Energy customers may wish to take a meter reading now, as they may need it for reference in the switch process. Even if you’re not a GB Energy customer this is still worth doing.

 Savvy Dad