If you have ever used an energy broker to find you the best deal for your business, they may not have acted in your best interests when recommending a new provider or tariff.

Typically, you will receive a cold call from a company advising that they can save your business money by switching your current Energy provider. They will run a comparison on your behalf and then advise you to switch to another provider to save you money.

Sales practices used by Brokers to induce businesses into switching providers included making misleading statements about how they are paid, why they were recommending certain providers and switching to deals which would see the Broker receive a greater commission. Advice may be focused more on the benefit the Broker would receive as opposed to that of the client.

If your Broker failed to tell you how much they received in payment for arranging your energy switch, you may have a claim. Most brokers received their commission directly from the supplier they place you with, which could in some circumstances impact on the advice they provided.

Even if the Broker did save you money, you could have had a much cheaper price that they didn’t tell you about.

As the broker always gets the best price from the supplier it can then include commissions, meaning it’s relatively easy for them to beat other prices you’ve been offered by suppliers. The Broker will also save you money against your renewal price, which is something that would have been higher than a price you could have negotiated yourself.