Avro Energy reviews: Give your feedback

reg091

Biggus_Dickus said:

I like the fact that they allow you to flip to a new tariff instantly and online;...I went from Simple&Supersave to Simple&Superflow to Simple&Superfixed within about 2 weeks or so,...successively cheaper tariffs all switched instantly online without penalty.

How?
I am looking at my account pages now and can't see anywhere to switch tariffs.

victor2

reg091 said:

Biggus_Dickus said:

I like the fact that they allow you to flip to a new tariff instantly and online;...I went from Simple&Supersave to Simple&Superflow to Simple&Superfixed within about 2 weeks or so,...successively cheaper tariffs all switched instantly online without penalty.

How?
I am looking at my account pages now and can't see anywhere to switch tariffs.

Their website is a bit weird for that...
Go to the site, DO NOT login, but click on Get A Quote. When you enter your address, it then detects you are already a customer and gives you a button to login. Do that and you can get a new quote. 
Defies logic, but it works!

BooJewels

reg091 said:

Nebulous2 said:

reg091 said:

Into my second year with them. They supply electricity and gas without any hitches, webasite is easy to use to submit readings. But, three observations:

1. I submit my readings punctually and have never missed one, yet the statements show E C E (estimated, customer, estimated) which makes no sense to me.
   

It depends when you submit your readings. My statement is on the 12th. I get an email reminding me to submit readings about the 10th. If I submit on the 10th I get an actual (C) reading for the 10th and an estimate (E) for the 12th. The estimate is very close to the actual. If I submit on the 12th I only get an actual, not an estimate.

Thanks Nebulous2. That makes sense. My billing date is the 23rd and I submit on the 21st (when I get the reminder). Looking at the statements they have my reading from the 21st and estimate to the 23rd. I suppose it all comes out in the wash but for neatness I guess I should submit readings on the billing date. 

This habit of theirs is driving me bonkers - I manage an Avro account for a family member in care (under an LPA which took many weeks to sort with them) and can only visit and take readings at odd times - but I do so regularly and submit most of them.  Therefore they always bill on estimates, not my actual submitted readings and the billing is getting further and further from reality.  They show the account balance with a debit of almost £150 yet I calculate - from fuel used versus payments made - to have a credit of around £40.  So that'll be another call to them. 

Other companies seem to pro-rata an estimate from the last submitted reading, Avro appear to ignore it totally if it's not the day they want it.  It'd actually be more accurate if I submitted my latest reading on the 19th (my billing date) than them just estimating anyway.  In fact, it would be more accurate still if I pro-rata my own reading and submit it.

onlyfoolsandparking

@BooJewels
That doesn't make any sense to me and having just moved to Avro a little concerning. So are you saying that unless you (or I) submit readings on the day Avro want them they use estimates BUT don't calculate usage based off your actual submitted readings? say on the next bill and if so then would that mean you (or I) will never get billed for actual usage, I'm not getting what your saying, When I was with Bulb I used to submit readings every month but if I missed one they billed me on an estimate BUT adjusted it on the next bill when I HAD submitted readings, I thought that's how it had to work,maybe someone whos been with Avro a while could enlighten me?

brewerdave

I've been with Avro for 7 months. I can confirm that they estimate if you put the readings in early - but on the two occasions I did ,the estimates were realistic. The following month I put the readings in on the required date and they used my readings.
The only time the estimates were out was when I was away ,and actually put the readings in a couple of days after, but again ,the following month corrected the issue.
I can only assume that in BooJewels case that the estimates are so different from actuals ,that the computer says "no"!!

victor2

brewerdave said:

I've been with Avro for 7 months. I can confirm that they estimate if you put the readings in early - but on the two occasions I did ,the estimates were realistic. The following month I put the readings in on the required date and they used my readings.
The only time the estimates were out was when I was away ,and actually put the readings in a couple of days after, but again ,the following month corrected the issue.
I can only assume that in BooJewels case that the estimates are so different from actuals ,that the computer says "no"!!

That has been my experience too, managing an account that is now in its third year with Avro. I often get the readings a day early and Avro estimate them for the day required, but the estimates have always been pretty close to what you would expect.

BooJewels

onlyfoolsandparking said:

@BooJewels
That doesn't make any sense to me and having just moved to Avro a little concerning. So are you saying that unless you (or I) submit readings on the day Avro want them they use estimates BUT don't calculate usage based off your actual submitted readings? say on the next bill and if so then would that mean you (or I) will never get billed for actual usage, I'm not getting what your saying, When I was with Bulb I used to submit readings every month but if I missed one they billed me on an estimate BUT adjusted it on the next bill when I HAD submitted readings, I thought that's how it had to work,maybe someone whos been with Avro a while could enlighten me?

It's one of my jobs to look at more carefully today, but many of the last few bills I looked at were all estimated readings, no customer ones used at all - although in November when they seemed to realise it had gone awry, as there was a customer reading in the middle that was much less than the previous estimate, so I got a negative number for the usage, just for electricity. 

All the bills also give an estimated annual use on them and this seems to be based on when the house was occupied last year and heating on high.  It's currently empty (heating on thermostat, but little cooking, lights on timers, electric shower not being used etc) and therefore using less - and this seems to be tripping up the estimation system as they want to err towards what was used last February, not actually used this Feb.  

In February, I should have sent a reading on the 19th, but sent one on the 9th (I got one yesterday, but haven't submitted it yet) and it shows an estimated number for both 19th January and 19th February, the customer reading in the middle isn't included.  On the December bill, I'd sent a reading on the 20th November, but they used an estimate for each the 19th of November and December, with my reading between them on the 20th November, which was lower than both of those readings, but ignored and they billed on the difference between the two estimates.   I need to try and get my head round what they've done and then ring them.

polymaff

I jumped ship from Avro a year or so ago when I thought that they were for the chop.  As sentiment on here is more positive of late, I've re-signed up with them, two days ago.  This included giving them my Kw/annum for each fuel.  That went OK, but when I log into my Avro website, I see:

"Based on our estimate we think your energy bills this year will be £708.92"

Which is five times the estimated monthly DD.

Oh, dear.  Deja vu all over again.... 

Incidentally, my current supplier, EdF, has a £70 exit fee.  When I signed up with them I guessed, based on past performance, that they'd makes such a mess of switching to them, the compensation would cover the £70.

And so it came to pass..

BooJewels

Obviously my haphazard way of sending readings in trips up their primitive computer system, but I can't help it when I'm over 50 miles from the meter.  They're well aware that it's an unoccupied property and the nature of the arrangement.

brewerdave

polymaff said:

I jumped ship from Avro a year or so ago when I thought that they were for the chop.  As sentiment on here is more positive of late, I've re-signed up with them, two days ago.  This included giving them my Kw/annum for each fuel.  That went OK, but when I log into my Avro website, I see:

"Based on our estimate we think your energy bills this year will be £708.92"

Which is five times the estimated monthly DD.

Oh, dear.  Deja vu all over again.... 

Had a similar problem when I first switched to Avro -somehow, they had picked up the electricity meter details from early 2016  before I had a new meter! They obviously wouldn't accept the changeover meter reading so hadn't calculated annual leccy usage thus the web site was showing ann. usage of ~ £480 which was gas only!
 Took about two weeks to sort out via email with photos; they claimed that the National database hadn't been updated but couldn't explain how the multiple suppliers I had since early 2016 had got the correct details!!