Avro Energy reviews: Give your feedback

shoppingnoodles

I feel I have made a big mistake signing up with Avro. Previously I was with Eversmart and called them as my fixed tariff was ending in September. There was a balance owing which had not been covered by the direct debit, which I paid by debit card, bringing the account to zero and began the switch to the cheapest fix at the time - Avro.


The switch occurred in early October. A few days before, Eversmart took a DD payment and on opening the new Avro account, they also took a DD payment. 7 weeks have passed since the switch and Eversmart have taken another DD, plus another is due in a few days. I contacted them and they said they had not received the final readings from Avro so cannot close the account.


When I tried to access my Avro account online it came up with an error message. I emailed Avro who took 2 days to answer, saying that it could take up to 15 working days for "a third party data regulator" to pass on the reading. I pointed out that it was well over 20 working days since the switch and they sent a totally clap trap email back saying that the issue had been passed to their "third party data quality team", but they were unable to say how long resolution may take. Meanwhile I have paid out almost £600 since late September for energy as I am paying 2 companies.


Avro are awful. Honestly, I would not advise anyone to have dealings. If there is no resolution by the end of the week I feel that my only option is to contact Ofgem, unless a wise MSE person has any other advice?

Biggus_Dickus

shoppingnoodles wrote: »

I feel I have made a big mistake signing up with Avro. Previously I was with Eversmart and called them as my fixed tariff was ending in September. There was a balance owing which had not been covered by the direct debit, which I paid by debit card, bringing the account to zero and began the switch to the cheapest fix at the time - Avro.


The switch occurred in early October. A few days before, Eversmart took a DD payment and on opening the new Avro account, they also took a DD payment. 7 weeks have passed since the switch and Eversmart have taken another DD, plus another is due in a few days. I contacted them and they said they had not received the final readings from Avro so cannot close the account.


When I tried to access my Avro account online it came up with an error message. I emailed Avro who took 2 days to answer, saying that it could take up to 15 working days for "a third party data regulator" to pass on the reading. I pointed out that it was well over 20 working days since the switch and they sent a totally clap trap email back saying that the issue had been passed to their "third party data quality team", but they were unable to say how long resolution may take. Meanwhile I have paid out almost £600 since late September for energy as I am paying 2 companies.


Avro are awful. Honestly, I would not advise anyone to have dealings. If there is no resolution by the end of the week I feel that my only option is to contact Ofgem, unless a wise MSE person has any other advice?

When you submit your final gas/leccy meter readings to your new supplier they are sent to separate gas and leccy companies for ‘industry verification’.

This mandatory ‘industry verification’ process can take many weeks in some cases and until it’s completed Eversmart cannot produce your final bill and terminate your previous contract;...similarly Avro cannot fully embrace you as their new customer. It’s a bit of a twilight zone!

To be fair, the energy companies are completely at the mercy of the meter reading ‘industry verification’ process.

I switched from Avro to YorksEnergy recently and although the leccy reading was ‘industry verified’ within 4 days, my final gas meter reading took 7 weeks to be ‘industry verified’.

This 7 week delay was not attributable to either Avro or Yorkshire Energy;...it was introduced (for reasons unknown) by the gas ‘industry verification’ people,...whoever the hell they are!

Consumerist

shoppingnoodles wrote: »

. . . If there is no resolution by the end of the week I feel that my only option is to contact Ofgem, unless a wise MSE person has any other advice?

Well, my advice has always been that if your new supplier has confirmed that the switch is completed (for both fuels, where appropriate) and you are sure you have a credit balance on your old energy account then cancel the former supplier's DD at your bank and advise the supplier you have done so.

This has been my practice for many years.

Edit
You may be able to get your bank to reimburse you for DDs taken after the confirmed switch date under the Direct Debit Guarantee. See post #523 above.

wrongplanet

wrongplanet wrote: »

My reply just thanks them for their email and notes that they have not asked why I "claimed indemnity" on the payment.

They came back with "Please feel free to explain your reason for claiming indemnity with your November payment".

I replied that someone signing themselves as 'Avro Finance Team' will of course be fully aware of the Direct Debit Guarantee rules and should be able to figure out why I claimed indemnity with no further help from me.

Consumerist

wrongplanet wrote: »

They came back with "Please feel free to explain your reason for claiming indemnity with your November payment".
I replied that someone signing themselves as 'Avro Finance Team' will of course be fully aware of the Direct Debit Guarantee rules and should be able to figure out why I claimed indemnity with no further help from me.

Personally, I'd be inclined to tell them what the problem is and then get on with resolving it. Playing cat and mouse with energy suppliers is not my idea of fun when they hold most of the cards.

r6owned

Did you switch go smoothly? From SO Energy to Avro, no problems, switch happened in July this year.
Have you had problems since? none
Is it easy to contact? not had to contact them... yet

seriously, I've had no issues with the switch and none since

Consumerist

r6owned wrote: »

Did you switch go smoothly? From SO Energy to Avro, no problems, switch happened in July this year.
Have you had problems since? none
Is it easy to contact? not had to contact them... yet
seriously, I've had no issues with the switch and none since

Broadly, that's been my experience too.

It seems likely, however, that it may take a while to get any credit balance refunded at the end of the contract.

Thanks for sharing.

wrongplanet

r6owned wrote: »

Did you switch go smoothly? From SO Energy to Avro, no problems...

My switch was from BG to Avro and it went as smoothly as all the others I've done.

When September's MSE switch came around it was a toss up for me between switching to GNE or switching tariff with Avro, who were a fiver a year cheaper. I'm now regretting staying with them.

timbald

I did the MSE Big Switch to AVRO on the basis they had relatively good feedback score, but sadly my experience has been somewhat negative and this is down to the fact our previous supplier fitted smart meters for free only about 6 months ago but the moment we moved to AVRO it became a nightmare. AVRO cannot read the smart meters. As a result they didn't get opening meter readings which I presumed they'd get automatically from the old company as its a smart meter. Therefore they had to estimate the opening readings. I'm still trying to get to the bottom of what readings the old company used to close off the account so that AVRO could start the charging process. I did an updated meter read manually at their request (what a nightmare reading smart meters - you press 9 and you are inundated with numbers one after the other) and sent them in. now they are saying these do not correlate with the "opening meter readings" they have. WHAT?? THEY ARE SMART METERS! Why am I having to interpret numbers and send them in again? The whole point of accepting the smart meters was to move away from these shenanigans. I never had any issue with any of this on non smart meters.
MSE - I think you need to include in the Cheap Energy Club comparisons detail on "which companies can read smart meters at the point of handover and beyond" because this has been a disaster as a result of having smart meters and I am seriously thinking of moving away from AVRO early, solely because of this.

System

timbald wrote: »

I did the MSE Big Switch to AVRO on the basis they had relatively good feedback score, but sadly my experience has been somewhat negative and this is down to the fact our previous supplier fitted smart meters for free only about 6 months ago but the moment we moved to AVRO it became a nightmare. AVRO cannot read the smart meters. As a result they didn't get opening meter readings which I presumed they'd get automatically from the old company as its a smart meter. Therefore they had to estimate the opening readings. I'm still trying to get to the bottom of what readings the old company used to close off the account so that AVRO could start the charging process. I did an updated meter read manually at their request (what a nightmare reading smart meters - you press 9 and you are inundated with numbers one after the other) and sent them in. now they are saying these do not correlate with the "opening meter readings" they have. WHAT?? THEY ARE SMART METERS! Why am I having to interpret numbers and send them in again? The whole point of accepting the smart meters was to move away from these shenanigans. I never had any issue with any of this on non smart meters.
MSE - I think you need to include in the Cheap Energy Club comparisons detail on "which companies can read smart meters at the point of handover and beyond" because this has been a disaster as a result of having smart meters and I am seriously thinking of moving away from AVRO early, solely because of this.

Welcome to the forum. Given that individual suppliers have rolled out smart meters from a number of manufacturers, what you are hoping for is just not going to happen. If a foundation stage or SMETS1 meter continues to work on a transfer of supply, then this should be seen as a bonus. There are plans - much delayed - to adopt meters such as yours on to the new Data Communications Company infrastructure. You should have been advised as part of the smart meter fitting process that your meters could go dumb after a transfer of supply.

As far as your opening/closing readings are concerned, I suggest that you read this blog:

https://octopus.energy/blog/secret-life-opening-meter-reading/

The meter readings that you have provided will now be validated by an independent industry partner. As the Blog indicates, the data collector will have validated historical data for your property to draw on so it is not a 'stab in the dark': the validated readings have to be used to open and close your accounts. These MAY not be the same as the ones that you provided.