JSHarris
Super Pro Member
Energy companies seem to be able to manage OK without notice periods, so presumably businesses can operate profitably without them.
Someone's perspective on this is probably heavily influenced by their own approach towards buying services though. I've always tried hard to avoid getting tied up into fixed term deals for anything, never ever had a bank loan or finance, never paid for anything in installments, never leased anything, always paid outright for stuff or gone without if I've not had the money to pay for it upfront.
Two reasons for this, one was my parents drumming into me that borrowing and hire purchase was a mugs game (and my grandmother was fond of quoting Polonius' advice to his son Laertes to ram this point home). The other was that my job was always subject to being moved from one end of the country to the other with 6 weeks notice, so it was inherently risky to have any sort of longer term agreement that might impose a financial penalty for early termination.
As a consequence, the only service agreement I've ever had that has a notice period is the fairly recent one with our current ISP, and that's only because there's no longer any real choice - all the broadband suppliers are intent on making customers haggle to get a normal price by close to doubling the price if you don't agree to being stitched up by them with a fixed term deal.
For at least 50 years or so I've managed to not encounter this 30 day notice thing, and I cannot believe that all the various service providers I've used over the decades have been losing money by not imposing a notice period. Seems to be a recent thing to me, probably only become relatively widespread over the past decade perhaps.
Someone's perspective on this is probably heavily influenced by their own approach towards buying services though. I've always tried hard to avoid getting tied up into fixed term deals for anything, never ever had a bank loan or finance, never paid for anything in installments, never leased anything, always paid outright for stuff or gone without if I've not had the money to pay for it upfront.
Two reasons for this, one was my parents drumming into me that borrowing and hire purchase was a mugs game (and my grandmother was fond of quoting Polonius' advice to his son Laertes to ram this point home). The other was that my job was always subject to being moved from one end of the country to the other with 6 weeks notice, so it was inherently risky to have any sort of longer term agreement that might impose a financial penalty for early termination.
As a consequence, the only service agreement I've ever had that has a notice period is the fairly recent one with our current ISP, and that's only because there's no longer any real choice - all the broadband suppliers are intent on making customers haggle to get a normal price by close to doubling the price if you don't agree to being stitched up by them with a fixed term deal.
For at least 50 years or so I've managed to not encounter this 30 day notice thing, and I cannot believe that all the various service providers I've used over the decades have been losing money by not imposing a notice period. Seems to be a recent thing to me, probably only become relatively widespread over the past decade perhaps.























