A pre-payment energy provider has been given a £560,000 penalty from regulator Ofgem after it wrongly prevented it's customers from switching to other suppliers. Utilita were established in 2003 and have been suppling customers with pre-payed gas and electricity since.
Ofgem found that the company had blocked as many as 4,000 of it's customers from switching supplier when they requested. Included in the fine, £110,000 worth of refunds will be issued to the customers affected, reimbursing those who lost out financially as a direct result of not being given permission to switch their supplier.