I received a call from a marketer for the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) this week, wondering if I’d like to re-start my lapsed membership. I’d been a member when I had my issue with a rogue third party broker and my energy supply 4 years ago. My problem was that I signed a contract with a third party broker whilst still in a contract with my existing electricity supplier which I was later unable to extricate myself from. I contacted the third party broker to say that I’d changed my mind and that I was perfectly entitled to do this as I was within my cooling off period. The Third Party Broker told me with glee that I was a fool because there was no cooling off period for small businesses and that I owed them £2,500. Humiliated and embarrassed I’d emailed and rung the FSB a lot at the time to seek their advice and spoke to their in House lawyer whose ultimate advice had been to just pay up. Dissatisfied with their advice I went to Radio 4’s Moneybox where despite sympathising with my predicament - legally there was nothing I could do. I even got my MP Theresa Villiers involved and she kindly wrote to the third party brokers on my behalf but to no avail. With all avenues exhausted and with the amazing support of my cousin Olivia’s husband, Michael we managed to prolong payment for over 12 months batting emails back and forth but eventually I had to pay up. I gave this potted history to the unsuspecting FSB marketer who promised to find out more for me. I received an email 2 days later from her and the FSB has made progress. They’d actually got the remit of the Ombudsman expanded to include small businesses and OFGEM have implemented a requirement that suppliers only work with third party intermediaries who are members of a broker redress scheme. On top of this the FSB is also lobbying for a 14 day cooling off period to mirror domestic contracts. I was so happy to think that my naivety might have had a tiny part to play in Government altering procedures. Needless to say I will re-join FSB and see if I can be impactful somewhere else. It’s Passover tomorrow night and for those that celebrate Chag Sameach. The photograph is of my Blue Peter’esque style containers which I made for some customers Passover tables. Have a great week. Ursula