The agency opens an information file in light of delays for customers who want to leave the free market in the face of price increases
The National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) has opened an information file on the difficulties and delays experienced by Spanish consumers in changing their gas contracts from the free market to the regulated tariff.
This was indicated on Tuesday by Secretary of State for Energy, Sara Aegesen, during an interview on RNE, in which she explained that these change requests for the so-called TUR, where energy companies without any kind of penalty, have skyrocketed in recent weeks, coinciding with the proximity of the heating. and which has prevented customer service channels from meeting all demand.
While the details of the file opened by Competition are unknown, there are four reference gas marketing companies: Gas Power Regulated Marketer (Naturgy), the one with the largest number of customers in this modality; Curenergía (Iberdrola), Energía XXI (Endesa) and Baser (Total).
Overall, the TUR rate — which represents a meager benefit to the marketer since it’s regulated — maintained a 19% market share, according to the latest available data from Competition, with a total of 1.5 million customers.
Since November last year, increases in the TUR have been limited to about 5% in each quarter, despite the rise in the gas price in some of the worst moments of the energy and price crisis.
The college has now agreed to extend that limit on the regulated gas tariff while also enabling a new modality (TUR 4) that can be used by communities of residents with a community boiler, a group that could not rent it because they had a high gas consumption.
Against this background, Competition has recently heightened the vigilance of the energy giants in the face of possible bad consumer practices. Last week, the body commanded by Cani Fernández fined several marketers of the Audax Group of 9.2 million euros for misrepresentation and deception to encourage customers who had contracts with rival marketers to join from January 2018 developing its electricity and gas portfolio. until October 2021.
Source: La Verdad
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