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they will go bust and take any credit balance you have with them.
Just for anyone worried about this, my provider (Tonik) stopped trading recently - not sure if they went bust or not but I assume so.
It seems the process is that Ofgem steps in and appoints a new provider, with your credit balance intact.
Not that it improves the ethics of running at a big loss to acquire customers and jack up prices later.
abr-
It seems the process is that Ofgem steps in and appoints a new provider, with your credit balance intact.
Yes, it's completely seamless. It's happened to me twice. You get some letters saying you don't need to do anything and that it's going to switch to new company's xxx tariff and your bill just changes one month. Your credit carries over.
In fact, I just got a string of emails that I assumed were phishing, saying that I was owed £2.38 by Shell. Just ignored them. Then I got a physical cheque in the post. I don't know how this works but, presumably, Shell now owns one of those company's accounts and has found I overpaid or wasn't refunded £2.38 and for whatever legal reason has tracked me down and is refunding it.
Jonny69
Got a mate who works for Ovo. He says bulb and most other providers are basically a ponzi scheme, priced cheap to get new customers in but unsustainable so eventually will have to jack your prices up otherwise when they stop growing they will go bust and take any credit balance you have with them.
He says Ovo are by no means the cheapest but won't rip you off the longer you stay with them.
Also says you will always get a better deal by shopping around every year no matter who you are with. He says the only other supplier he would recommend is Octopus and says they are good.
(For transparency I'm with bulb. Girlfriend signed us up to it when we moved in a couple of months back, before it even crossed my mind).