Utilities

If your energy's provided by one of the big six (British Gas, E.on, EDF, Npower, Scottish Power or SSE), this is a no-brainer moment for action. Most of them have cut prices, but only on a DON'T ASK, DON'T GET basis (though you can't usually ask the firms directly, it has to be via a comparison site).

The way British Gas customers with prepayment meters top up is changing from 1 January, as they'll no longer be able to use PayPoint at their usual newsagent or supermarket.

Mobile operator O2 is completely overhauling its range of pay-as-you-go deals, axing its 'Classic Pay As You Go' and 'International' Sims for new customers but improving the allowances of many of its Sim 'bundles'.

Hundreds of thousands of Plusnet customers will be hit by price hikes in December, as the firm increases a number of broadband, line rental and call costs. It comes as Vodafone also announced it will be raising broadband bills. 

Vodafone is set to hike its broadband prices by £30 a year in December, while some mobile call costs will also increase.

Toto Energy, a small energy supplier with about 134,000 domestic customers, has stopped trading, the regulator Ofgem has announced.

Gas and electricity suppliers could face checks on their customer service and finances under reforms unveiled by the energy watchdog, following a spate of recent failures.

Mobile network Three has said it won't automatically hand out compensation to customers affected by last week's data and signal outage. But if you were affected, you can try to claim – and some are already managing to get up to £20 credit as compensation.

Thousands of pay-as-you-go Virgin Mobile customers face paying £6 a day for sending a single text, making a single short call and using any data, when they're moved to a new tariff. If you're affected, switch and save now.

Mobile network Three has apologised for "technical difficulties" which left many customers unable to make calls, send texts or use data for hours.