Times when people annoy me #176234

[andrewducker]

I can't remember the name of the company, but I think it was one of the natural gas providers - they'd had a profit announcement, and it was around £100million. And they'd just put prices up, because petrol/gas prices have been rising worldwide, so they have to pay more to buy it in the first place. So, of course, there was cries of outrage from all over, that they were making 'obscene profits' _and_ putting their prices up.

Then, further down the page, there was the number of customers.

Twenty million.

So they made £5 off of each customer in a year.

Well, yes. _That_ sounds completely unreasonable.

I'm not willing to pay £5 to the people who supply me with a service for a whole year.

No, not at all.

Comments

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

These last few days at work, I've been compiling the report that shows how much profit we make from what we do with our investment funds. Not how much the funds themselves make... just how much the company makes from the work my team does. It's tied in to the financial markets, so if they all do badly, the profit level is down, of course.. but it's weird to see your job have an actual profit value... not just some manager-assigned value of "you are important so your job is worth THIS".

[andrewducker]

I feel much the same - I know exactly how many seconds I've shaved off of which processes, how many people carry out those processes, and have a pretty good idea how much those people are paid.

I'm tempted to work out how much money it works out to on Monday :->

[perceval.livejournal.com]

it was british gas methinks, they of the read our lips no price hikes tv ads

Not an economist, or a business guru, but ...

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

They are in a competitive business involving large numbers of customers with a choice of providers largely driven by price per unit volume.

£5 profit per customer may not sound like much, but if the corporation down the road gets by on £4.95 then I think that give the customer reasonable grounds to grumble.

You're not paying £5 to the people who supply you with gas all year. Or if you are, it's the smallest bill ever. :-) Aren't you paying £5 plus your share of the cost of providing the service?

Re: Not an economist, or a business guru, but ...

[andrewducker]

I'm paying £5 extra for them on top of their costs, to encourage them to provide the service. If they weren't making any money off of it, why would they provide it?

And if the corporation down the road makes 5p less, then don't grumble - sign up with them!

Re: Not an economist, or a business guru, but ...

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

I think grumbling is an essential part of being a consumer. Especially the utilities game, which has always involved a fair degree of grumbling, both pre and post-provatisation. Buying gas would be pretty dull without it. (In fact, they could probably charge extra for giving us the opportunity to have a good whinge ...)

Bennite alert but..

[azalemeth.livejournal.com]

I understand how people prefer privatisation of things, on the grounds that increased financial competition MUST equal lower costs, and therefore be better for the consumer. However, I do think that for most services it is far, far better to have them state run (within reason...let me type), mainly as the single reason a company was drawn out of the ether is to make money. I understand that successive idiotic governments have raised $SERVICE costs as a stealth-tax, but, if a mutual-company-esque branch of government were set up independently, with the sole aim of providing best value-for-money to the consumer at the end, and aiming towards a 0% profit margin, wherever possible, then you might find that the reams of elderly people who freeze to death in the winter aren't so. I know that when BT was still *B*T, our exchange and cabling was put in. I have it on good authority that if we hadn't got it before, the only way we would have a phone line would be if we paid for it - at a nice sum of about £50k - and I can't help but imagine that the other services are doing the same.


And our heating bills are about £2220 annually....we don't get mainline gas, so it's all fuel oil fired for our boiler.