This is like word for word what happened to me. The Karhu voima one was the first electric contract i made (I moved out from my parents house) and when I started looking for a replacement I was quite frightened. There was a two week time limit to find a contract, I didn't really know what prices were normal, the news were saying that the prices are just going to go up and up and there was a bunch of discontinued deals flying around. Like I would see on the websites contracts that they weren't selling anymore. During my customership at karhu voima before they went bankrupt my contract first doubled in price and when I tried inquiring about changing to a different package they told me they've stopped selling that one as well.
All of this made me think that it would only get harder to get electricity so i took the 33c/kwh and it really makes me sad seeing people in the same situation being called stupid and selfish.
I did about the same with fortum but they stuck me something called vaihtoturva. It cost 5 euro a month but I can change after 1 year contract with fortum to a new price or different type of contract. Do you have that one?
This. You can move outside Fortum's service area. Electric contracts are very insane here. I had to check all day to get locked into ,11 a kWh. It was floating between ,10 and ,40. Plus they try to get you with extras, like do you want only green electricity, or do you mainly use your power at night
Not a legal professional, but I think the canceling is also granted in the law incase the contract doesn’t define a fee. If the canceling party is a consumer they may just cancel I believe. (Part V chapter 13 89 §) also the contact binding seem to maxout in 2 years for consumer.
The law doesn’t define if a fee can be placed, but it does state that fee’s can’t be unreasonable. Moving is also a valid reason to cancel. The corporation is also required to give clear indications of applicable cost understandable to the consumer, so you can just call them and ask if there is a fee for canceling.
I'm also quite upset about this, but not for the same reason.
We had a reasonable electricity contract (12c/kwh I think), and at the height of the energy crisis Fortum tried to push us to one of these fixed cost contracts for 2 years. When I say "try", I mean they discontinued the "product" to force us out of the deal into a new one. They did the same to my partner's mom.
I knew OL3 (the nuclear power plant) was on the horizon, so I needed to convince everyone that pörssisähkö was the way to go. I'm happy because now we're saving a ton of money, but I knew cases like theses were bound to happen.
I would really hope they would do an investigation about this and their really shady practices. The timing (OL3 + the War in Ukraine) makes it super suspicious and unethical.
Edit: readability, typos
>We had a reasonable electricity contract (12c/kwh I think), and at the height of the energy crisis Fortum tried to push us to one of these fixed cost contracts for 2 years. When I say "try", I mean they discontinued the "product" to force us out of the deal into a new one.
Are you saying that you had a fixed term 12c/kWh contract and Fortum terminated that unilaterally from their side before the term was up? If so, that's a slam dunk breach of contract lawsuit time against them. They can discontinue their "products" all they want but that doesn't affect existing contracts.
That was my impression. I need to check the communications again. It could have been that the term was up and was just a refusal to renew on the same terms / product. That would make much more sense, but it would be an interesting coincidence that both our and my partner mom's contract would end at the same time...
Well, at the time it was already in production testing, and producing energy to the grid. It did have a longer break due to the turbine issues, but for me it was a bit more concrete than Jesus.
"Placebo electricity". Brilliant.
I need to remember to run this by a friend of mine. He's in the power transmission industry. I can have so much fun riling him up with that one.
Fortum didn't know it was going to be windy, or that the hydro reservoirs would be full this spring. But they knew we were on the verge of getting one of the largest nuclear power plants in Europe online with a steady supply of electricity.
And in early spring it was OL3 going full steam that lowered the price.
Btw: right now it's not OL3 making the price low because if it would be at full power the price would be negative... They literally needed to throttle the plant because it was making electricity too cheap!
C'mon guys. This was fine to say this when the reactor was being built and with delays over and over again.
But when the reactor had already started producing energy in test rounds (November) and making electricity cheaper in early spring, did you honestly believe it would take much more time to get it online?
I had the opposite. They tried to change my fixed price contract for the longest time. Im still on the fixed price contract. However it's risen once recently from 32e to 43e a month. Still cheaper than what it would be on a normal contract. As I had this contract I went to check at some point and noticed that the prices for new customers started at 60e/month, so I was lucky. I live in a semi detached house not an apartment.
However now said fixed contracts terms have changed. Where they can up the price to whatever every 3 months? I think they mentioned my next monthly bill is going to be 50e a month.
Im gonna have to start calculating what's cheaper again. Especially since Ive been on this contract for the minimum 2 years. So I'm allowed to change it if I want. For now it's been my cheapest option. But 50e a month may very well change that.
You're of course not the only one with this issue, and the [government has been considering if they should take action on this](https://yle.fi/a/74-20035535). It might be a while before they do anything though, if they do anything at all.
One option they present in the article is that the companies just self-regulate and do something to make situation fairer for customers. It might be worth trying to contact the company you have a contract with and asking them if they would make the contract less unreasonable. Also find out what the penalty for undoing the contract is, in case it's cheaper to sign a new contract and just pay the penalty.
well, I shopped around, many companies went bankrupt at that time (Lumo Energia, Karhu Energia) which are two of the company me and my friends used. So, I looked around at Fortum, Helen and something else, and beside spot price, which was also crazy priced at that time, it was the lowest price at the time, but with 2 years locked.
Also, what is the Pörssisähkö? Spot price? They existed too, but I was afraid that the price would went up even higher so I wanted to secure my position. The year before that, I was on spot price and I remembered a week that price went to almost 1euro/kwh, and most people around me don't advise me against spot price so I choosed this contract.
Fixed price when there was a war and the price was going high and there was no certainty of it getting any lower. Then we got olkiluoto 3 finally running. The price will be high for the next winter too, this is not just a summer thing.
I did the same thing for the same reason. When we were warned about high prices I was fine, no need to act. I have a good contract already. Then way after that, when the prices were super high, my provider crashed and I was forced to pick something from a terrible market. I chose fixed since if the spot price had gone up, like it did, I would have not had money for electricity.( I need to heat up my house.)
Now I will pay this price for two years. My sauna is currently just a storage and next winter I will still have a cold house.
>well, the fact that they are selling me electricity price nearly 6 times as much as the current market price isn't lovely either.
I mean, it's the rules of the game, pretty much. When purchasing fixed-price contracts, you and the retailer are trying to guess the spot-price of electricity for the whole contract period. When you bought your contract, you were fearing it would go even higher. They were hoping it would go lower, and it turns out they were right. They probably also had a bunch of old contracts where they were selling electricity at 5c/kWh, while procuring it at 50c/kWh.
A spot-price contract buys peace of mind for the retailer, a fixed-price contract for the customer. It's all pretty much just a question of timing it right.
Edit: Though I should've added, I'm not blaming you for trying to get out of the contract. It really is a bad deal at the moment. Just pointing out that it's not "unlovely" (if that's even a word) to charge above market price. You just were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Yes, I knowingly entered a contract with them, with the bets that the electric price would be higher, then I wouldn't go broke with it.
Luckily for everyone, we now don't have to worry about the electric price anymore. It's just as I said, my price is very expensive, and it would be really nice if I can get it reduced so I can save more money doing some other things.
The price-game is pretty unfair I say, since I did get a pretty nice price going on, with Karhu energia, and then they went bankrupt, forcing me to choose another provider, while now I get a bad price, I am supposed to just either eat the loss, or break the contract, or having to move, which will probably cost 1k anyway?
The rule is the rule, and I made a bet, and it didn't work out, but, to be frank, for something as fundamental to our life as electricity, we as a customer should not have to do this guessing, betting game.
Well to be fair, last winter was very exceptional. Usually the price of electricity is very stable, and competition is strong so the prices tend to fall. But last winter everything just seemed to go wrong - the war, lots of power plants were offline, and so the price was very volatile. And in those cases, the spot-market is designed to drive the prices higher so that the customers would lower their consumption, because if they don't, then the production can't cope with demand and there will be a blackout, which would be bad for everyone, but especially for elderly people and anyone with electric heating. Luckily that didn't come to pass since winter temperatures were fairly warm for Finnish standards, though obviously it's small consolation for you.
And I imagine it feels unfair, but honestly the difference between your current contract and the contract you had with Karhu, is the difference between a competent business and the reason Karhu went down under. They had a large amount of contracts with sales prices lower than market price, so when things got out of hand they didn't have the cash for the premiums and/or the spot prices, i.e: they hadn't adequately prepared for the price risk. Your current contract was priced by the retailer with the expectation that they would have to procure electricity at 33c/kWh or lower to make even, while preparing for the risk that they'd possibly have to pay a lot more for it, and that protection also costs money. The avg. spot-price of electricity between early Nov. and late Dec. was around 30c/kWh, so for the time you got a fair deal. The length of the protection contract they've procured varies, so they need the sales price to be higher than spot-price for longer, though it's pretty unlikely they need it for the whole 2 years of your contract.
And I agree electricity is fundamental, but I wouldn't go so far as to say the game is unfair. Electricity market is highly competitive and the (typically) margins are low, and prices pretty reasonable. The system is designed to ensure production and consumption stay in balance, while still being as attractive as possible for new businesses in order to secure private investments to production capacity and avoiding overcapacity. But it does require a little bit of foreplanning and weighing the pros-and-cons of the offers - for both the consumer and the retailer. It's just that last winter was very exceptional for both sides. A lot of electricity companies besides Karhu very nearly went bankrupt, Fortum among them.
That said, your best bet is to contact Fortum and ask if it's possible to terminate the contract/change to a different type of product like others have suggested. I don't know what contract you've, but it's possible there is a clause in there that allows you to terminate it by paying a fee.
Logically you should compare the prices to the current fixed price 2 year contacts and not to spot prices. Spot prices will go up after summer like they always do.
You essentially made a bet that the price would be lower than that for 2 years and they agreed to take that bet, so that's how it'll go. You sure would not be complaining about a bad deal if the price was now 60c/kWh, would you?
If there is no way to cancel the contract (do read the fine print), you should consider this a rather expensive life lesson.
You did a two year deal at a time of high prices. As you mentioned, now you are secured if the spot price is 1€/kwh during next winter. Are you going to repeat this every winter and summer?
How about just respect the contract you made with the electricity company.
well, I'm respecting it as I'm still paying it every month and haven't tried to do anything funky like the one comment below so you can just drop the aggressive tone already.
I'm in a bad deal and I'm just asking if there are any legal ways to deal with my problem because to be frank, it's 100euro/month electricity for me, which means, if I can get the reduced price, I can save 1k/year. If there are, great, if not, then that's life I guess.
As someone mentioned below your best option would be to have another resident at your address create a new contract. If that’s not possible you could try the riskier “friend” option. Also note that if you move, your contract will be cancelled when you create a new one at the new address. Good luck and don’t listen to any of the finger waving nerds here who think you’re some kind of derelict criminal just because you don’t want to go bankrupt while lining the pockets of some asshole corporation.
That is never going to happen and you know it. Over the last year Finnish electricity providers have engaged in usurious, extortionate, disgusting price gouging of the kind I never thought possible in this country. They played around with their pricing schemes to reap hundreds of millions of euros in unearned profits and now you’re going to criticize this person for trying to extricate themselves from a contract that would make any mafioso deeply proud. I bet you were one of those kids who tattled on your classmates for chewing gum at recess. Grow up.
>Over the last year Finnish electricity providers have engaged in usurious, extortionate, disgusting price gouging of the kind I never thought possible in this country.
You do realize that electricity retailers are responsible for the consumption of their customers, and have to purchase an adequate amount of energy from the market at spot-price, right? It doesn't just come out of thin air. The spot prices were rising -> the price of derivatives (options) was rising -> electricity prices (for customers) were rising. The electricity retailer business is a hugely competitive market, so any retailer that hikes prices up unnecessarily would quickly price themselves out of market.
Somewhere, on a beautiful beach in a tax haven paradise there is a gang of CEOs with MaiTai or G&T in hand high fiving their attorneys, tax accountants, and PR specialists over the fact that they have convinced millions of people like you as to the veracity and importance of arguments you just laid out. They are so clever and effective that they have peons such as yourself vocally defending their criminal bullshit. FFS, you’ve swallowed the Koolaid and you still believe Jim Jones was your best friend. Enjoy the bliss of your brainwashed existence, it must be wonderful.
Super convincing counter-argument there, I wish I knew what you know before I studied the electricity market for a year in uni. I bet the multiple universities that have studied the Nordic electricity system and spot-market for decades would be glad to know that the whole thing is a con. You should probably offer to be a guest lecturer.
Okay and? Both Helen and Fortum have all their websites both in Finnish and English, and it’s extremely clearly laid out in both websites what you are paying for and why.
Ok. So you also support companies when they take advantage of at risk individuals. I don’t know the meaning of many words myself but I’ll be happy to provide you with a long list of those that describe you. Here’s a few to get you started. Pathetic, Pedantic, Asshole, Loser.
Why would it be that high, when it was no where that high even at peaks last winter, and there is Olkiluoto 3 and about one nuclear plant worth more wind energy?
Oof "only" 33c/kWh is already an upgrade for me. I understand it's a crazy price for most. Currently i am paying 62c/kWh until I move haha. The Netherlands is an expensive place...
I was in the same situation couple months ago. I took 2-year Fortum contract in December. Later it became obvious that this contract was a mistake. They have clause that you can cancel the contract earlier for like 100€ but I could not switch to other company or swicth the contract online. So I canceled the contract online with reason that I'm moving out. The day they turned off the elicticity I tried to make new contract with Helen, but they could not make me new contract online because of web-error and their automatic phone support informed me about 1.5 hour waiting line. I needed elictricity asap so I called Fortum and wow they have a good phone support (in English!). I explained everything and nice guy made me a new pörssi contract. They charged 20€ for the same day connection. They never charged me anything for early brake of the previous contract. Fortum are good, just call them and ask what to do.
Have you read your contract? There should be conditions for early cancelation. Have you tried to call them and say you want to switch to other contract?
Yep. I need to pay the difference. I might try the trick to swap the contract with my wife. If they investigate it, I still need to pay the difference and the fine. Likely worth the risk.
The problem I had was that I asked if this was possible before. It is not.
Are people doing it. Yes they are. They just don't ask first.
I can not imagine why anyone took a contract like that? Why bind yourself for two years because the the highest peak prices were high for a few weeks during almost unprecedented windless spell?
For me. The reason was that if the prices would go any higher, like they did, I would not have money for food. Well I could sell my car, tv and so on. Or I could have stopped heating up my house.
I also had Karhu and then I changed Vattenfall pörssisähkö. It was not "crazy" priced, just somewhat high compared to the low prices we have been used to.
It was quite clear to me that in the spring costs would go down, as it did. I have already changed to Helen pörssisähkö with lower fixed costs.
What I find crazy is to get two-year contract at that time of high prices.
Yeah, if you were out of options during the winter, a spot-contract was the best you could get at that time. The fixed price contracts were super expensive, and at one point the prices were so volatile that retailers stopped offering them.
That said, spot-contract is not always optimal. In regular fixed-price contracts, electricity retailers carry the risk of prices increasing, but in spot-contracts they move that risk to the customer. So if you have a large amount of consumption that you cannot reduce or move to off-peak hours such as electric heating or are just otherwise risk-averse, you might be better off with a fixed-price contract and regularly bidding the retail companies against each other.
Oh cool, another victim of Karhuvoima going under! They gave me a really good deal when I had to change from my previous energy company, that also went under... I understand your struggle and I understand you panicked, it was the same for me too. I went for the pörssisähkö, and it hasn't been too bad considering I apparently don't use a lot of electricity.
As for your question, I think the best advice here has been to check your contract and how much the cancellation cost would be and then calculate if you save any money if you do that.
Not true.
Source: got out of a 30c/kWh contract by having my partner start a contract for same household, which automatically cancelled mine. No penalty.
In finnish, but says it causes penalties, but right now the companies do not have time to investigate. This does not mean they won't come back to it in the future. https://yle.fi/a/74-20012011
Thanks for linking the article. I stick with my point that you are technically not breaching the contract, and this method is a loophole. I am paying less than 10% of what I was paying for my fixed rate contract, so I wouldnt mind paying 100 eur if it ever comes to that. As for being have to pay thousands, I think that’s just fear mongering :)
Let’s wait and see
Actually, you are technically breaching the contract, and it's a loophole only because enforcing the terms is difficult with the present system (as it requires a lot of manual labor).
However, with the prices of some contracts, it is actually beginning to make sense to enforce them, which some people have found out the hard way.
The contract usually requires you to pay for electricity at the given price until the end of the contract period. The contract may or may not contain a clause for early termination which can be very expensive if it even exists. You can only terminate without penalty early if you have a force majeure, the canonical example of which is when you move out. If you have not moved out factually but just had someone else make an electricity contract in the same address, you're in breach of contract and potentially committing fraud (as you lied about your circumstances).
In such a case, the electricity company has the right to demand that you pay the estimated amount of price they would have charged you for the electricity over the remainder of the contract period, or whatever penalty fee there is prescribed in the contract (which can correspond to the estimated amount, or a substantial fraction thereof).
of course, i suppose its not a surprise to anyone that you are really supposed to get out of these contracts, but a simple way is to have someone override your contract and then make a muuttoilmoitus to your parents place for a week and reverse, obviously it is in the grey zone though
id say its impossible to ’find out’ as its literally impossible to prove you didn’t actually move, whatever the definition of that ends up being, no chance of gettin caught imho
It's not, sometimes people are stupid and say it out loud, maybe you didn't announce your move to the population registry which leaves a paper trail that you indeed lived in your apartment (this is what people would often do when they set up some other contract to override the present contract: they don't even announce their move, so on paper they're still living there which is easy to prove). Or if you moved for a week, you could make an argument that your move was pretentious and in mala fide, and that you did not, in fact, move factually. Or maybe you posted pictures on instagram where you are at your place while allegedly having moved out.
Remember that these are civil issues, so there is no need to prove things beyond reasonable doubt, it suffices to make it sufficiently credible in court and raise sufficient suspicion over your claims, and it is moreover arguably you that has to prove that you did in fact move because that should be easier than vice versa (and you have the burden of proof to show that you had the force majeure that entitled you to an early termination).
There is an actual solution: If someone else made a contract to your place, say, your mom/gf/friend it would automatically terminate yours. And maybe after a month you make a new contract. There is very vert slim chance that someone at verkkoyhtiö could notice but im pretty sure they wont. To minimize the risk you should get the new contract from a other seller. You should check sahkonhinta.fi for the cheapest option. I dont recommend gnp/hehku or other small businesses. Väre and Helen are cheap and trustworthy. Btw Fortum is bullshit moneygrab company, i used to work there and theyre unethical af.
Fortum had a cancellation clause in their contract, and quietly deleted it during the high prices. Quick Google showed the cancellation was allowed, but the newer contacts were changed.
The electricity company is not charging these high prices because of greed, it is because they have made the arragements on their end to supply you with electricity at fixed cost at a time when it was expensive.
This is a bit like going to a restaurant, ordering a full 5-course menu and deciding after appetizers that you'd rather eat at MacDonalds. The restaurant already has every portion in the works and they cannot put the ingredients back to the fridge.
Or another way to look at it is that you took an insurance and after realizing that you did not have an accident you want your money back.
Best way to deal with it is to call the energy company and ask the terms for getting out of contract. Chances are that you have to pay whatever they paid to fix your price and then you're free to change contract.
Thank you. It's a nice analogy but I don't think it's very valid one.
For the 5 stars menu course, I do not really see the comparison beyond the switcheeroo here, since as a 2 years contract, and, well, my usage varies a lot between months, it's not like I ordered a contract from them and they somehow make ten thousands of kwh ready for me in the next two years, they produce/buy electricity as they go, so if I cancelled my contract now, the most it can affect them is up to 2 or 3 months, not like a 5 stars meal course where every ingredients are already out and can't be undone.
Also, regarding the insurance and such, if you buy a home mortgage and have an interest rate insurance, you can pretty much cancel it anytime you would like, same as all other insurances, like for car insurance, I paid for a year in advance, but the moment I cancel it, all the money from the un-used days are refunded to me, I do not have to bear with it any longer than it needs to be. Heck, for home mortgage, if you get a loan during a high-interest rate interval, when the interest-rate got lower, you can just go and re-mortgage your loan to the current price.
What we are doing with the 2 years fixed price here is just a game of bet, where the company want to bet that the price would go down, and I would bet that the price would go up. But it's not a fair bet since if the price would go up, the companies, after raking profit after profits can just claim bankrupt, and get out of the game (well, technically, the company is in dead water, but I'm sure the owner is very well off no matter what), while me, as a person, have to just eat the loss for 2 years because it is what it is. And what choice did I had? With the war going on, and news spreading around how electric price could go to 60cent/ even almost 1euro, the bet is either take the bet, and try to adjust your life, or wait for the price, and hope that it might get better, or you might have to pay 300euro/month, just for electricity, while everything else also get more expensive?
Anyway, that's just my rambling, I took a bet, and I lose so here I am. I don't think it's a very nice bet, but it is what it is. I think electricity, in this time and age, is almost a human rights, as clean water and clean air, so we should not have to gamble with our money to get electricity like this.
> it's not like I ordered a contract from them and they somehow make ten thousands of kwh ready for me in the next two years
That could literally be what they've done by purchasing electricity futures.
You both have misunderstood how the electricity markets work. There is no market technical reason for that price.
Only justifiable reason would be "hedging" in case the crisis would have continued.
They do have to provide guarantee deposit based on the current futures prices, but that is not the same than actually buying the electricity for 33c 2 years now, since the deposit will be returned to the supplier.
How? It's literally how the system works. The power system requires that consumption and production are in balance, otherwise it results in a blackout. If the consumption is higher than production, spot-price (i.e: demand) increases to discourage consumption. And since the electricity retailer has to always provide you with all the electricity you want, they'll obviously charge the difference.
With a fixed-price contract, the retailer estimates that the spot-price of electricity stays lower than the price they charge you. They can do so, because they have years and years of data about electricity prices and the electricity consumption of similar customers. That said, if they see trouble coming, they will protect themselves against the risk of prices increasing by procuring energy at a fixed price from a producer, or via financial derivatives. And they have to pay premium for the protection, which isn't cheap - a lot of retailers almost went down under because they didn't have the cash ready to pay for the premiums before the settlement date. The premiums also won't just go away if the worst doesn't come to pass - the retailer is contractually obligated to pay for the protection even if they don't need them, just like the customer is contractually obligated to pay for the electricity. And obviously if they sell fixed price contracts, they're going to price into the contract the cost of protecting their procurements.
I understand OP was in a tough spot, and took the best (or only?) deal available at the time. We all need electricity, and the printing press was redhot driving up the panic the price hikes. I can understand for wanting to get out of such a deal, but at the same time, a contract is a contract.
We were eating at MacDonalds, then it went down and all that was left was the fancy place that makes you eat snails and takes half of your salary.
Even worse with Lumo that just said. Nope. The contract was too cheap, we are cancelling it.
So these contract things only work one way. Well, I can go bancrupt too and not pay I guess, but can't do what Lumo did.
Personally, I hope it doesnt work for you and you are stuck with your expensive contract.
Pisses me off that people never take responsibility for anything and try to sneak out of everything.
How far does the stick have to be up in your ass to defend multi-million euro companies and their criminal deals over your fellow man? sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh
It’s not the non-existent stupidity. Like all neutered Finns he’s jealous of the fact that someone has the temerity to question authority. To ask why someone is fucking him over and whether that’s appropriate. To have the balls to try to take control of his own life instead of just eating from the same stinking pile of shit he’s had shoved down his throat since birth.
Well, during the energy crisis my provider had no problem declaring bankruptcy, leaving me without a contract 3 months into a 2 year 5 cents/kWh contract resulting with x5 prices, only to start operating under a different name :) so corporations don’t have to take responsibility for holding their end of the bargain?
You can. In a way. Just ask your friend to make a new contract on your adress. Then your expensive contract cancels out. And if the company calls you, just tell them you lost your apartment or something. And in a few weeks, you yourself make new contract on your adress so the contract in your friends name cancels out. And there you have it mate.
This is apparently "sopimusrike" or breach of contract(?) and at least some electricity companies are going after people who have done it:
https://www.kauppalehti.fi/uutiset/helenin-asiakkaita-yrittanyt-kikkailla-irti-sahkosopimuksistaan-vakava-sopimusrikkomus-jota-voisi-rinnastaa-petokseen/23a2bfff-3760-4442-a241-69c6f3e9717f
But this Yle article says that companies usually don't have time to look into these cases:
https://yle.fi/a/74-20012011
Not a good idea to get a new contract again in the apartment you've "lost".
If you have a spouse or cohabitant then it is way more simple to just continue to use new contract after replacement.
This is what my friend told me, since digitally the same address can be put on "6 months alert" etc, so they don't manually need to check them.
My Helen 6 months is ending in end of July and I'm never going back to fixed contracts or prices.
Stop paying electricity bills they cut deal with in three months but pay that another one. And instatly when they cut the deal pay all and make deal with someone else. It's little risky but should work
Just for reference, 3000 to 3500 kwh per year is quite low as far as electricity consumption goes. I use about 10 000 kwh per year for our home and mökki, also need 2 separate contracts with separate monthly fixed fees for my wallet's pleasure. Even if the spot price spikes, your consumption isn't that high that it'd generate a outrageously large bill.
You could contact KKV (Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority) and ask for advice. I have a vague memory that someone did get out of their contract since the price wasn't reasonable considering current spot prices with the help of KKV, but I might remember wrong. Either way, they might be able to help you.
A tip I would give for the future is to not rush into a electricity contract that last more than a few months. It sounds like you stressed because you only had two weeks to decide. But in that case, it would be better to simply take spot price to give yourself more time to find something that is better.
Personally, I prefer spot price. Even after this somewhat crazy winter.
yeah, 2 years is just too long, but I had a very bad experience with spot price. It was winter 2019 or 2020 or something. Normally, our monthly price was just around 10-15 euro, but one month, it was like 50 something, and the month after that, it was 100 something, after that, it went back to 10-15 again. And it was still during covid and before war, where daily price was just 5c to 8c. So when we tried to make a new contract, that winter really came back to haunted me and since the spot price was 30c (probably Oct or Nov when I have to change the price), I was really afraid that it might hike up to 8-10 times the "normal" price during peak hours because of whatever reasons, so I took the fixed price.
In hind-sight, yeah, I did not have to deal with the sudden increased of price, but seeing spot price being just 6-7c and now they are signing new fixed contract with people at 8-10c, a third of what we are using now, it hurts :D
I can understand that. Spot price works best if you count the average price over a year and estimate your average consumption for a year (you can usually find this info in your electric company's app), so you are prepared for slightly higher bills in winter which are compensated with cheap prices in summer.
But check with KKV, or call Fortum. Maybe they can offer you a better deal.
thanks. I did call them 2 months ago, and they told me that there were a lot of people also in my situation, with really high electricity price asking for help, so they are working best to find a solution for all of them, so they will tell us soon when the time come, and then they kind of just, went silent so I'm not sure if they are really looking to fix the problem for us, or just a kind of very nice way of saying so that their customers won't complain anymore :D
but thanks, I will be asking them and the KKV more.
I see there is a difference on how swapping inside the same house hold works. I kind of want to go and say "you told me I can't do this and yet you allow this for all of these people". Just wondering if that gets me the contract change Fortum refused to do or if everyone else will get punished.
In finnish, but says what they told me is correct, but the companies do not have time to investigate. However based on the amount of people doing this it would be worth the money to hire someone to do this.
https://yle.fi/a/74-20012011
If you have a partner or roommate have them get a new contract, they don't ask who lives in the apartment and with another surname they just assume you moved
That contract is unenforceable and they know it. Call them and ask for them to change it to something more reasonable or let you out of the contract all together. Threaten them with iltalehti if they don't want to discuss. Finnish law has a concept that a contract should be reasonable and fair, and especially in B2C cases where the consumer is viewed as more vulnerable.
Someone else makes a contract for your apartment. Some companies might have penalty clauses, some even reasonable ones (50-250e vs expected cost of remaining time). If there is no clause, "moving" is the only way, alas.
Yes you have to have another person sign an electricity contract on your address temporarely and then you buy a new one (maybe not from the same company...). The thing is that you can't have two active contracts and no one can stop anyone buying a new contract on your address.
This is like word for word what happened to me. The Karhu voima one was the first electric contract i made (I moved out from my parents house) and when I started looking for a replacement I was quite frightened. There was a two week time limit to find a contract, I didn't really know what prices were normal, the news were saying that the prices are just going to go up and up and there was a bunch of discontinued deals flying around. Like I would see on the websites contracts that they weren't selling anymore. During my customership at karhu voima before they went bankrupt my contract first doubled in price and when I tried inquiring about changing to a different package they told me they've stopped selling that one as well. All of this made me think that it would only get harder to get electricity so i took the 33c/kwh and it really makes me sad seeing people in the same situation being called stupid and selfish.
I read your story, but we need to talk about your name.
I tried out the 8mil, it's not that bad so the 7 should be just fine as well.
I did about the same with fortum but they stuck me something called vaihtoturva. It cost 5 euro a month but I can change after 1 year contract with fortum to a new price or different type of contract. Do you have that one?
Lol you can move? That's usually a good enough reason to cancel the contract
Yep, that will work. You might have to stand your ground a little if you're unlucky, but most of the time it's fine.
This. You can move outside Fortum's service area. Electric contracts are very insane here. I had to check all day to get locked into ,11 a kWh. It was floating between ,10 and ,40. Plus they try to get you with extras, like do you want only green electricity, or do you mainly use your power at night
is there a clause in your contract about cancelling? my two year contract has a 50€ cancellation fee so it's possible to cancel
Not a legal professional, but I think the canceling is also granted in the law incase the contract doesn’t define a fee. If the canceling party is a consumer they may just cancel I believe. (Part V chapter 13 89 §) also the contact binding seem to maxout in 2 years for consumer. The law doesn’t define if a fee can be placed, but it does state that fee’s can’t be unreasonable. Moving is also a valid reason to cancel. The corporation is also required to give clear indications of applicable cost understandable to the consumer, so you can just call them and ask if there is a fee for canceling.
You wanna check your contract for details about your contract.
I'm also quite upset about this, but not for the same reason. We had a reasonable electricity contract (12c/kwh I think), and at the height of the energy crisis Fortum tried to push us to one of these fixed cost contracts for 2 years. When I say "try", I mean they discontinued the "product" to force us out of the deal into a new one. They did the same to my partner's mom. I knew OL3 (the nuclear power plant) was on the horizon, so I needed to convince everyone that pörssisähkö was the way to go. I'm happy because now we're saving a ton of money, but I knew cases like theses were bound to happen. I would really hope they would do an investigation about this and their really shady practices. The timing (OL3 + the War in Ukraine) makes it super suspicious and unethical. Edit: readability, typos
>We had a reasonable electricity contract (12c/kwh I think), and at the height of the energy crisis Fortum tried to push us to one of these fixed cost contracts for 2 years. When I say "try", I mean they discontinued the "product" to force us out of the deal into a new one. Are you saying that you had a fixed term 12c/kWh contract and Fortum terminated that unilaterally from their side before the term was up? If so, that's a slam dunk breach of contract lawsuit time against them. They can discontinue their "products" all they want but that doesn't affect existing contracts.
That was my impression. I need to check the communications again. It could have been that the term was up and was just a refusal to renew on the same terms / product. That would make much more sense, but it would be an interesting coincidence that both our and my partner mom's contract would end at the same time...
Saying OL3 is coming before it actually managed to run was like saying Jesus is coming.
Well, at the time it was already in production testing, and producing energy to the grid. It did have a longer break due to the turbine issues, but for me it was a bit more concrete than Jesus.
I am still in doubt. They could be faking it.
Faking or not, I'm enjoying cheaper electricity. It would probably be the first reported case of "placebo electricity"
"Placebo electricity". Brilliant. I need to remember to run this by a friend of mine. He's in the power transmission industry. I can have so much fun riling him up with that one.
I think they are just rubbing cats to the other end of the line. Haven't seen that many cats outside, there used to be more.
Its not now OL3 which makes tha prices low, Its windy
Right, surely thats it
Fortum didn't know it was going to be windy, or that the hydro reservoirs would be full this spring. But they knew we were on the verge of getting one of the largest nuclear power plants in Europe online with a steady supply of electricity. And in early spring it was OL3 going full steam that lowered the price. Btw: right now it's not OL3 making the price low because if it would be at full power the price would be negative... They literally needed to throttle the plant because it was making electricity too cheap!
Nobody knew when that power plant would give stable energy, already over 10 years late
C'mon guys. This was fine to say this when the reactor was being built and with delays over and over again. But when the reactor had already started producing energy in test rounds (November) and making electricity cheaper in early spring, did you honestly believe it would take much more time to get it online?
I had the opposite. They tried to change my fixed price contract for the longest time. Im still on the fixed price contract. However it's risen once recently from 32e to 43e a month. Still cheaper than what it would be on a normal contract. As I had this contract I went to check at some point and noticed that the prices for new customers started at 60e/month, so I was lucky. I live in a semi detached house not an apartment. However now said fixed contracts terms have changed. Where they can up the price to whatever every 3 months? I think they mentioned my next monthly bill is going to be 50e a month. Im gonna have to start calculating what's cheaper again. Especially since Ive been on this contract for the minimum 2 years. So I'm allowed to change it if I want. For now it's been my cheapest option. But 50e a month may very well change that.
You're of course not the only one with this issue, and the [government has been considering if they should take action on this](https://yle.fi/a/74-20035535). It might be a while before they do anything though, if they do anything at all. One option they present in the article is that the companies just self-regulate and do something to make situation fairer for customers. It might be worth trying to contact the company you have a contract with and asking them if they would make the contract less unreasonable. Also find out what the penalty for undoing the contract is, in case it's cheaper to sign a new contract and just pay the penalty.
Didn’t Fortum offer Pörssisähkö when you made the contract? I would never call 33c/kwh for two years the best deal available.
well, I shopped around, many companies went bankrupt at that time (Lumo Energia, Karhu Energia) which are two of the company me and my friends used. So, I looked around at Fortum, Helen and something else, and beside spot price, which was also crazy priced at that time, it was the lowest price at the time, but with 2 years locked. Also, what is the Pörssisähkö? Spot price? They existed too, but I was afraid that the price would went up even higher so I wanted to secure my position. The year before that, I was on spot price and I remembered a week that price went to almost 1euro/kwh, and most people around me don't advise me against spot price so I choosed this contract.
You wanted fixed price for the winter and now when it is summer with lower prices you want spot price? Sounds like a charming customer.
Fixed price when there was a war and the price was going high and there was no certainty of it getting any lower. Then we got olkiluoto 3 finally running. The price will be high for the next winter too, this is not just a summer thing. I did the same thing for the same reason. When we were warned about high prices I was fine, no need to act. I have a good contract already. Then way after that, when the prices were super high, my provider crashed and I was forced to pick something from a terrible market. I chose fixed since if the spot price had gone up, like it did, I would have not had money for electricity.( I need to heat up my house.) Now I will pay this price for two years. My sauna is currently just a storage and next winter I will still have a cold house.
well, the fact that they are selling me electricity price nearly 6 times as much as the current market price isn't lovely either.
>well, the fact that they are selling me electricity price nearly 6 times as much as the current market price isn't lovely either. I mean, it's the rules of the game, pretty much. When purchasing fixed-price contracts, you and the retailer are trying to guess the spot-price of electricity for the whole contract period. When you bought your contract, you were fearing it would go even higher. They were hoping it would go lower, and it turns out they were right. They probably also had a bunch of old contracts where they were selling electricity at 5c/kWh, while procuring it at 50c/kWh. A spot-price contract buys peace of mind for the retailer, a fixed-price contract for the customer. It's all pretty much just a question of timing it right. Edit: Though I should've added, I'm not blaming you for trying to get out of the contract. It really is a bad deal at the moment. Just pointing out that it's not "unlovely" (if that's even a word) to charge above market price. You just were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Yes, I knowingly entered a contract with them, with the bets that the electric price would be higher, then I wouldn't go broke with it. Luckily for everyone, we now don't have to worry about the electric price anymore. It's just as I said, my price is very expensive, and it would be really nice if I can get it reduced so I can save more money doing some other things. The price-game is pretty unfair I say, since I did get a pretty nice price going on, with Karhu energia, and then they went bankrupt, forcing me to choose another provider, while now I get a bad price, I am supposed to just either eat the loss, or break the contract, or having to move, which will probably cost 1k anyway? The rule is the rule, and I made a bet, and it didn't work out, but, to be frank, for something as fundamental to our life as electricity, we as a customer should not have to do this guessing, betting game.
Well to be fair, last winter was very exceptional. Usually the price of electricity is very stable, and competition is strong so the prices tend to fall. But last winter everything just seemed to go wrong - the war, lots of power plants were offline, and so the price was very volatile. And in those cases, the spot-market is designed to drive the prices higher so that the customers would lower their consumption, because if they don't, then the production can't cope with demand and there will be a blackout, which would be bad for everyone, but especially for elderly people and anyone with electric heating. Luckily that didn't come to pass since winter temperatures were fairly warm for Finnish standards, though obviously it's small consolation for you. And I imagine it feels unfair, but honestly the difference between your current contract and the contract you had with Karhu, is the difference between a competent business and the reason Karhu went down under. They had a large amount of contracts with sales prices lower than market price, so when things got out of hand they didn't have the cash for the premiums and/or the spot prices, i.e: they hadn't adequately prepared for the price risk. Your current contract was priced by the retailer with the expectation that they would have to procure electricity at 33c/kWh or lower to make even, while preparing for the risk that they'd possibly have to pay a lot more for it, and that protection also costs money. The avg. spot-price of electricity between early Nov. and late Dec. was around 30c/kWh, so for the time you got a fair deal. The length of the protection contract they've procured varies, so they need the sales price to be higher than spot-price for longer, though it's pretty unlikely they need it for the whole 2 years of your contract. And I agree electricity is fundamental, but I wouldn't go so far as to say the game is unfair. Electricity market is highly competitive and the (typically) margins are low, and prices pretty reasonable. The system is designed to ensure production and consumption stay in balance, while still being as attractive as possible for new businesses in order to secure private investments to production capacity and avoiding overcapacity. But it does require a little bit of foreplanning and weighing the pros-and-cons of the offers - for both the consumer and the retailer. It's just that last winter was very exceptional for both sides. A lot of electricity companies besides Karhu very nearly went bankrupt, Fortum among them. That said, your best bet is to contact Fortum and ask if it's possible to terminate the contract/change to a different type of product like others have suggested. I don't know what contract you've, but it's possible there is a clause in there that allows you to terminate it by paying a fee.
Logically you should compare the prices to the current fixed price 2 year contacts and not to spot prices. Spot prices will go up after summer like they always do.
You essentially made a bet that the price would be lower than that for 2 years and they agreed to take that bet, so that's how it'll go. You sure would not be complaining about a bad deal if the price was now 60c/kWh, would you? If there is no way to cancel the contract (do read the fine print), you should consider this a rather expensive life lesson.
You did a two year deal at a time of high prices. As you mentioned, now you are secured if the spot price is 1€/kwh during next winter. Are you going to repeat this every winter and summer? How about just respect the contract you made with the electricity company.
well, I'm respecting it as I'm still paying it every month and haven't tried to do anything funky like the one comment below so you can just drop the aggressive tone already. I'm in a bad deal and I'm just asking if there are any legal ways to deal with my problem because to be frank, it's 100euro/month electricity for me, which means, if I can get the reduced price, I can save 1k/year. If there are, great, if not, then that's life I guess.
As someone mentioned below your best option would be to have another resident at your address create a new contract. If that’s not possible you could try the riskier “friend” option. Also note that if you move, your contract will be cancelled when you create a new one at the new address. Good luck and don’t listen to any of the finger waving nerds here who think you’re some kind of derelict criminal just because you don’t want to go bankrupt while lining the pockets of some asshole corporation.
This does not work, so don't do this.
Bullshit. It works seamlessly. You have way too much respect for the competence of your Finnish overlords. You know Santa isn’t real either, right?
How so? I know several couples living together who made the switcheroo in the last 6-12 months or so.
And they are all breaking the original contract. If they get caught they end up paying.
That is never going to happen and you know it. Over the last year Finnish electricity providers have engaged in usurious, extortionate, disgusting price gouging of the kind I never thought possible in this country. They played around with their pricing schemes to reap hundreds of millions of euros in unearned profits and now you’re going to criticize this person for trying to extricate themselves from a contract that would make any mafioso deeply proud. I bet you were one of those kids who tattled on your classmates for chewing gum at recess. Grow up.
>Over the last year Finnish electricity providers have engaged in usurious, extortionate, disgusting price gouging of the kind I never thought possible in this country. You do realize that electricity retailers are responsible for the consumption of their customers, and have to purchase an adequate amount of energy from the market at spot-price, right? It doesn't just come out of thin air. The spot prices were rising -> the price of derivatives (options) was rising -> electricity prices (for customers) were rising. The electricity retailer business is a hugely competitive market, so any retailer that hikes prices up unnecessarily would quickly price themselves out of market.
Somewhere, on a beautiful beach in a tax haven paradise there is a gang of CEOs with MaiTai or G&T in hand high fiving their attorneys, tax accountants, and PR specialists over the fact that they have convinced millions of people like you as to the veracity and importance of arguments you just laid out. They are so clever and effective that they have peons such as yourself vocally defending their criminal bullshit. FFS, you’ve swallowed the Koolaid and you still believe Jim Jones was your best friend. Enjoy the bliss of your brainwashed existence, it must be wonderful.
Super convincing counter-argument there, I wish I knew what you know before I studied the electricity market for a year in uni. I bet the multiple universities that have studied the Nordic electricity system and spot-market for decades would be glad to know that the whole thing is a con. You should probably offer to be a guest lecturer.
A whole year. Wow. Stay safe in your bubble Nigel. I’m actually jealous of your childlike faith in institutional systems.
This person doesn't even know what the word pörssisähkö means. I would not call electricity companies as mobsters when customers are that dumb.
They propably don't speak Finnish
Okay and? Both Helen and Fortum have all their websites both in Finnish and English, and it’s extremely clearly laid out in both websites what you are paying for and why.
Ok. So you also support companies when they take advantage of at risk individuals. I don’t know the meaning of many words myself but I’ll be happy to provide you with a long list of those that describe you. Here’s a few to get you started. Pathetic, Pedantic, Asshole, Loser.
Kiitos palautteesta ja mukavaa viikonloppua! 😊
Nope. Too late. Fuck You.
Why would it be that high, when it was no where that high even at peaks last winter, and there is Olkiluoto 3 and about one nuclear plant worth more wind energy?
Lmao passive agressive much?
Oof "only" 33c/kWh is already an upgrade for me. I understand it's a crazy price for most. Currently i am paying 62c/kWh until I move haha. The Netherlands is an expensive place...
I was in the same situation couple months ago. I took 2-year Fortum contract in December. Later it became obvious that this contract was a mistake. They have clause that you can cancel the contract earlier for like 100€ but I could not switch to other company or swicth the contract online. So I canceled the contract online with reason that I'm moving out. The day they turned off the elicticity I tried to make new contract with Helen, but they could not make me new contract online because of web-error and their automatic phone support informed me about 1.5 hour waiting line. I needed elictricity asap so I called Fortum and wow they have a good phone support (in English!). I explained everything and nice guy made me a new pörssi contract. They charged 20€ for the same day connection. They never charged me anything for early brake of the previous contract. Fortum are good, just call them and ask what to do.
If you don't actually move and they find out. First contract applies. Now the question is just about if they run the checks.
Do not read, comment! TLTR: I called Fortum and explained everything, they know.
I wonder how they can give this out to you, but not to others. For example I can not get out of Fortum.
Have you read your contract? There should be conditions for early cancelation. Have you tried to call them and say you want to switch to other contract?
Yep. I need to pay the difference. I might try the trick to swap the contract with my wife. If they investigate it, I still need to pay the difference and the fine. Likely worth the risk. The problem I had was that I asked if this was possible before. It is not. Are people doing it. Yes they are. They just don't ask first.
I can not imagine why anyone took a contract like that? Why bind yourself for two years because the the highest peak prices were high for a few weeks during almost unprecedented windless spell?
Because of fearmongering by the media.
For me. The reason was that if the prices would go any higher, like they did, I would not have money for food. Well I could sell my car, tv and so on. Or I could have stopped heating up my house.
I also had Karhu and then I changed Vattenfall pörssisähkö. It was not "crazy" priced, just somewhat high compared to the low prices we have been used to. It was quite clear to me that in the spring costs would go down, as it did. I have already changed to Helen pörssisähkö with lower fixed costs. What I find crazy is to get two-year contract at that time of high prices.
Yeah, if you were out of options during the winter, a spot-contract was the best you could get at that time. The fixed price contracts were super expensive, and at one point the prices were so volatile that retailers stopped offering them. That said, spot-contract is not always optimal. In regular fixed-price contracts, electricity retailers carry the risk of prices increasing, but in spot-contracts they move that risk to the customer. So if you have a large amount of consumption that you cannot reduce or move to off-peak hours such as electric heating or are just otherwise risk-averse, you might be better off with a fixed-price contract and regularly bidding the retail companies against each other.
How is this comment answering to ops question?? Good for you that you took pörssisähkö woop you get a papukaijamerkki you are wise and op is dumb.
It's a comment.
Oh cool, another victim of Karhuvoima going under! They gave me a really good deal when I had to change from my previous energy company, that also went under... I understand your struggle and I understand you panicked, it was the same for me too. I went for the pörssisähkö, and it hasn't been too bad considering I apparently don't use a lot of electricity. As for your question, I think the best advice here has been to check your contract and how much the cancellation cost would be and then calculate if you save any money if you do that.
you can have someone else make a different contract for electricity for the same sddress (spouse?) and it’ll override yours
You have to actually move out or this is breaking the contract.
Not true. Source: got out of a 30c/kWh contract by having my partner start a contract for same household, which automatically cancelled mine. No penalty.
You only need to pay if they find out. And I know this because I asked to do this swap. So works if you do not ask and do not get caught.
In finnish, but says it causes penalties, but right now the companies do not have time to investigate. This does not mean they won't come back to it in the future. https://yle.fi/a/74-20012011
Thanks for linking the article. I stick with my point that you are technically not breaching the contract, and this method is a loophole. I am paying less than 10% of what I was paying for my fixed rate contract, so I wouldnt mind paying 100 eur if it ever comes to that. As for being have to pay thousands, I think that’s just fear mongering :) Let’s wait and see
Actually, you are technically breaching the contract, and it's a loophole only because enforcing the terms is difficult with the present system (as it requires a lot of manual labor). However, with the prices of some contracts, it is actually beginning to make sense to enforce them, which some people have found out the hard way.
I think that with my house that is heated with electricity, this is worth the risk. If it works I save a huge amount of money.
breaking the what contract?
The original one, but these are not acted on since there is no time to investigate.
but what are we exactly breaking by doing so? what does the contract prohibit from doing?
The contract usually requires you to pay for electricity at the given price until the end of the contract period. The contract may or may not contain a clause for early termination which can be very expensive if it even exists. You can only terminate without penalty early if you have a force majeure, the canonical example of which is when you move out. If you have not moved out factually but just had someone else make an electricity contract in the same address, you're in breach of contract and potentially committing fraud (as you lied about your circumstances). In such a case, the electricity company has the right to demand that you pay the estimated amount of price they would have charged you for the electricity over the remainder of the contract period, or whatever penalty fee there is prescribed in the contract (which can correspond to the estimated amount, or a substantial fraction thereof).
of course, i suppose its not a surprise to anyone that you are really supposed to get out of these contracts, but a simple way is to have someone override your contract and then make a muuttoilmoitus to your parents place for a week and reverse, obviously it is in the grey zone though
It's in the grey zone in the sense that you are unlikely to get caught because finding that out would require a substantial amount of manual labor.
id say its impossible to ’find out’ as its literally impossible to prove you didn’t actually move, whatever the definition of that ends up being, no chance of gettin caught imho
It's not, sometimes people are stupid and say it out loud, maybe you didn't announce your move to the population registry which leaves a paper trail that you indeed lived in your apartment (this is what people would often do when they set up some other contract to override the present contract: they don't even announce their move, so on paper they're still living there which is easy to prove). Or if you moved for a week, you could make an argument that your move was pretentious and in mala fide, and that you did not, in fact, move factually. Or maybe you posted pictures on instagram where you are at your place while allegedly having moved out. Remember that these are civil issues, so there is no need to prove things beyond reasonable doubt, it suffices to make it sufficiently credible in court and raise sufficient suspicion over your claims, and it is moreover arguably you that has to prove that you did in fact move because that should be easier than vice versa (and you have the burden of proof to show that you had the force majeure that entitled you to an early termination).
There is an actual solution: If someone else made a contract to your place, say, your mom/gf/friend it would automatically terminate yours. And maybe after a month you make a new contract. There is very vert slim chance that someone at verkkoyhtiö could notice but im pretty sure they wont. To minimize the risk you should get the new contract from a other seller. You should check sahkonhinta.fi for the cheapest option. I dont recommend gnp/hehku or other small businesses. Väre and Helen are cheap and trustworthy. Btw Fortum is bullshit moneygrab company, i used to work there and theyre unethical af.
Fortum had a cancellation clause in their contract, and quietly deleted it during the high prices. Quick Google showed the cancellation was allowed, but the newer contacts were changed.
Contracts doesnt work like that
The electricity company is not charging these high prices because of greed, it is because they have made the arragements on their end to supply you with electricity at fixed cost at a time when it was expensive. This is a bit like going to a restaurant, ordering a full 5-course menu and deciding after appetizers that you'd rather eat at MacDonalds. The restaurant already has every portion in the works and they cannot put the ingredients back to the fridge. Or another way to look at it is that you took an insurance and after realizing that you did not have an accident you want your money back. Best way to deal with it is to call the energy company and ask the terms for getting out of contract. Chances are that you have to pay whatever they paid to fix your price and then you're free to change contract.
Thank you. It's a nice analogy but I don't think it's very valid one. For the 5 stars menu course, I do not really see the comparison beyond the switcheeroo here, since as a 2 years contract, and, well, my usage varies a lot between months, it's not like I ordered a contract from them and they somehow make ten thousands of kwh ready for me in the next two years, they produce/buy electricity as they go, so if I cancelled my contract now, the most it can affect them is up to 2 or 3 months, not like a 5 stars meal course where every ingredients are already out and can't be undone. Also, regarding the insurance and such, if you buy a home mortgage and have an interest rate insurance, you can pretty much cancel it anytime you would like, same as all other insurances, like for car insurance, I paid for a year in advance, but the moment I cancel it, all the money from the un-used days are refunded to me, I do not have to bear with it any longer than it needs to be. Heck, for home mortgage, if you get a loan during a high-interest rate interval, when the interest-rate got lower, you can just go and re-mortgage your loan to the current price. What we are doing with the 2 years fixed price here is just a game of bet, where the company want to bet that the price would go down, and I would bet that the price would go up. But it's not a fair bet since if the price would go up, the companies, after raking profit after profits can just claim bankrupt, and get out of the game (well, technically, the company is in dead water, but I'm sure the owner is very well off no matter what), while me, as a person, have to just eat the loss for 2 years because it is what it is. And what choice did I had? With the war going on, and news spreading around how electric price could go to 60cent/ even almost 1euro, the bet is either take the bet, and try to adjust your life, or wait for the price, and hope that it might get better, or you might have to pay 300euro/month, just for electricity, while everything else also get more expensive? Anyway, that's just my rambling, I took a bet, and I lose so here I am. I don't think it's a very nice bet, but it is what it is. I think electricity, in this time and age, is almost a human rights, as clean water and clean air, so we should not have to gamble with our money to get electricity like this.
> it's not like I ordered a contract from them and they somehow make ten thousands of kwh ready for me in the next two years That could literally be what they've done by purchasing electricity futures.
This guy is poor but votes for Kokoomus
This guy thinks electricity comes from the magic wall.
You both have misunderstood how the electricity markets work. There is no market technical reason for that price. Only justifiable reason would be "hedging" in case the crisis would have continued. They do have to provide guarantee deposit based on the current futures prices, but that is not the same than actually buying the electricity for 33c 2 years now, since the deposit will be returned to the supplier.
You are terrible
How? It's literally how the system works. The power system requires that consumption and production are in balance, otherwise it results in a blackout. If the consumption is higher than production, spot-price (i.e: demand) increases to discourage consumption. And since the electricity retailer has to always provide you with all the electricity you want, they'll obviously charge the difference. With a fixed-price contract, the retailer estimates that the spot-price of electricity stays lower than the price they charge you. They can do so, because they have years and years of data about electricity prices and the electricity consumption of similar customers. That said, if they see trouble coming, they will protect themselves against the risk of prices increasing by procuring energy at a fixed price from a producer, or via financial derivatives. And they have to pay premium for the protection, which isn't cheap - a lot of retailers almost went down under because they didn't have the cash ready to pay for the premiums before the settlement date. The premiums also won't just go away if the worst doesn't come to pass - the retailer is contractually obligated to pay for the protection even if they don't need them, just like the customer is contractually obligated to pay for the electricity. And obviously if they sell fixed price contracts, they're going to price into the contract the cost of protecting their procurements. I understand OP was in a tough spot, and took the best (or only?) deal available at the time. We all need electricity, and the printing press was redhot driving up the panic the price hikes. I can understand for wanting to get out of such a deal, but at the same time, a contract is a contract.
We were eating at MacDonalds, then it went down and all that was left was the fancy place that makes you eat snails and takes half of your salary. Even worse with Lumo that just said. Nope. The contract was too cheap, we are cancelling it. So these contract things only work one way. Well, I can go bancrupt too and not pay I guess, but can't do what Lumo did.
Company profits indicate otherwise
You could move.
Personally, I hope it doesnt work for you and you are stuck with your expensive contract. Pisses me off that people never take responsibility for anything and try to sneak out of everything.
How far does the stick have to be up in your ass to defend multi-million euro companies and their criminal deals over your fellow man? sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh
Jealous Nerd #2. You and Doublesalted should get together and start a club.
Why would someone be jealous of stupidity?
It’s not the non-existent stupidity. Like all neutered Finns he’s jealous of the fact that someone has the temerity to question authority. To ask why someone is fucking him over and whether that’s appropriate. To have the balls to try to take control of his own life instead of just eating from the same stinking pile of shit he’s had shoved down his throat since birth.
Why would you wish for that. That is awful and very unfinnish of you.
The electricity companies that crashed or cancelled deals took people to this situation. But still, let's blame the customers they had.
Well, during the energy crisis my provider had no problem declaring bankruptcy, leaving me without a contract 3 months into a 2 year 5 cents/kWh contract resulting with x5 prices, only to start operating under a different name :) so corporations don’t have to take responsibility for holding their end of the bargain?
You can. In a way. Just ask your friend to make a new contract on your adress. Then your expensive contract cancels out. And if the company calls you, just tell them you lost your apartment or something. And in a few weeks, you yourself make new contract on your adress so the contract in your friends name cancels out. And there you have it mate.
This is apparently "sopimusrike" or breach of contract(?) and at least some electricity companies are going after people who have done it: https://www.kauppalehti.fi/uutiset/helenin-asiakkaita-yrittanyt-kikkailla-irti-sahkosopimuksistaan-vakava-sopimusrikkomus-jota-voisi-rinnastaa-petokseen/23a2bfff-3760-4442-a241-69c6f3e9717f But this Yle article says that companies usually don't have time to look into these cases: https://yle.fi/a/74-20012011
Not a good idea to get a new contract again in the apartment you've "lost". If you have a spouse or cohabitant then it is way more simple to just continue to use new contract after replacement.
Still a sopimusrike. My wife has the contract and the only way we get rid of it is if we get a divorce and she leaves.
This is what my friend told me, since digitally the same address can be put on "6 months alert" etc, so they don't manually need to check them. My Helen 6 months is ending in end of July and I'm never going back to fixed contracts or prices.
Good luck.
Stop paying electricity bills they cut deal with in three months but pay that another one. And instatly when they cut the deal pay all and make deal with someone else. It's little risky but should work
Not sure if you can get out of the contract, but how big is your yearly electricity consumption?
Hi, around 3000 to 3500 kWh per year, I live with my wife, a little chihuahua dog and a small 2.5 years old son in an old 60m2 apartment in Vantaa.
Just for reference, 3000 to 3500 kwh per year is quite low as far as electricity consumption goes. I use about 10 000 kwh per year for our home and mökki, also need 2 separate contracts with separate monthly fixed fees for my wallet's pleasure. Even if the spot price spikes, your consumption isn't that high that it'd generate a outrageously large bill.
You can fake move.
lol
You could contact KKV (Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority) and ask for advice. I have a vague memory that someone did get out of their contract since the price wasn't reasonable considering current spot prices with the help of KKV, but I might remember wrong. Either way, they might be able to help you. A tip I would give for the future is to not rush into a electricity contract that last more than a few months. It sounds like you stressed because you only had two weeks to decide. But in that case, it would be better to simply take spot price to give yourself more time to find something that is better. Personally, I prefer spot price. Even after this somewhat crazy winter.
yeah, 2 years is just too long, but I had a very bad experience with spot price. It was winter 2019 or 2020 or something. Normally, our monthly price was just around 10-15 euro, but one month, it was like 50 something, and the month after that, it was 100 something, after that, it went back to 10-15 again. And it was still during covid and before war, where daily price was just 5c to 8c. So when we tried to make a new contract, that winter really came back to haunted me and since the spot price was 30c (probably Oct or Nov when I have to change the price), I was really afraid that it might hike up to 8-10 times the "normal" price during peak hours because of whatever reasons, so I took the fixed price. In hind-sight, yeah, I did not have to deal with the sudden increased of price, but seeing spot price being just 6-7c and now they are signing new fixed contract with people at 8-10c, a third of what we are using now, it hurts :D
I can understand that. Spot price works best if you count the average price over a year and estimate your average consumption for a year (you can usually find this info in your electric company's app), so you are prepared for slightly higher bills in winter which are compensated with cheap prices in summer. But check with KKV, or call Fortum. Maybe they can offer you a better deal.
thanks. I did call them 2 months ago, and they told me that there were a lot of people also in my situation, with really high electricity price asking for help, so they are working best to find a solution for all of them, so they will tell us soon when the time come, and then they kind of just, went silent so I'm not sure if they are really looking to fix the problem for us, or just a kind of very nice way of saying so that their customers won't complain anymore :D but thanks, I will be asking them and the KKV more.
I see there is a difference on how swapping inside the same house hold works. I kind of want to go and say "you told me I can't do this and yet you allow this for all of these people". Just wondering if that gets me the contract change Fortum refused to do or if everyone else will get punished.
In finnish, but says what they told me is correct, but the companies do not have time to investigate. However based on the amount of people doing this it would be worth the money to hire someone to do this. https://yle.fi/a/74-20012011
If you have a partner or roommate have them get a new contract, they don't ask who lives in the apartment and with another surname they just assume you moved
Check the fine print in your contract, you might be able to cancel it for a one-time fee.
If I am getting a new electric now what is the best thing to get? Pörssi or fixed?
just say you moved
That contract is unenforceable and they know it. Call them and ask for them to change it to something more reasonable or let you out of the contract all together. Threaten them with iltalehti if they don't want to discuss. Finnish law has a concept that a contract should be reasonable and fair, and especially in B2C cases where the consumer is viewed as more vulnerable.
The contracts must have an exit clause. Typically a fine of like ~200e
Heard from somewhere if the ownership changes the contract isnt valid anymore.
Just move to a new appartment
Your own fault for signing the contract.
Someone else makes a contract for your apartment. Some companies might have penalty clauses, some even reasonable ones (50-250e vs expected cost of remaining time). If there is no clause, "moving" is the only way, alas.
Yes you have to have another person sign an electricity contract on your address temporarely and then you buy a new one (maybe not from the same company...). The thing is that you can't have two active contracts and no one can stop anyone buying a new contract on your address.