More than 1600 consumers have complained to the consumer advice centers about the energy price brakes. Most of the time, the demands of the suppliers are too high. The industry association refers to individual cases.
The consumer centers conducted a survey on problems in the implementation of state electricity and gas price brakes and collected more than 1,600 complaints. In half of the cases, the customers reported excessive discount demands from the supplier, as reported by the Federal Consumer Association (vzbv).
The consumer advocates are therefore pushing for improvements in practice. “The energy price brakes are intended to relieve people unbureaucratically. In many cases the opposite has happened,” said the association’s board member, Ramona Pop, of the “Funke Mediengruppe”.
BDEW speaks of “considerable effort” and individual cases
Specifically, 53 percent of the dissatisfied customers complained that the energy suppliers were demanding discounts that were too high. Others are poorly informed or they “landed in hotline queues when they had questions,” added Pop. In a quarter of the cases reported to the vzbv, it was also about incorrectly calculated annual consumption forecasts. According to their own statements, some customers were not able to have this forecast adjusted.
The vzbv therefore called on the companies to correct incorrectly calculated advance payment plans at short notice and to refrain from increased advance payments. There were also problems when changing providers on March 1: According to vzbv, these customers did not receive any retrospective relief contributions for January and February.
The Federal Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW) emphasized that in view of the 40 million households affected, these are isolated cases. The suppliers then “implemented a state-imposed price brake for around 40 million households with considerable effort and in an extremely short time”. It is clear that such a mammoth task can lead to problems in individual cases. For the majority of customers, however, the implementation went smoothly.
consumer centers appeal to federal government
The consumer centers started the call at the end of February and asked what problems there were with the implementation of the relief packages for gas, electricity and heat. By June 1, she had received nearly 1,350 replies. However, because consumers were only asked about problems, the results do not say anything about how many people are generally satisfied or dissatisfied with the price controls.
In addition, from March to June, almost 300 more people reported problems with the energy price brake to the so-called early warning network of the consumer advice center. vzbv boss Pop deduces from this that the federal government must “improve the law and formulate it more clearly so that the desired relief reaches all consumers”.
The price brakes for gas, electricity and district heating have been in effect since March, retrospectively also for January and February. In this way, the state caps the price for 80 percent of consumption and pays the suppliers the difference to the market price for this share. In the meantime, however, suppliers are again offering contracts with tariffs below the upper limits of the price brakes. These are 40 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity and 12 cents per kilowatt hour for gas.