Octopus Energy reviews: Give your feedback

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

I go along with that and give more weight to TP reports that are negative or middle of the road, accepting that there are also report writers that have a chip on their shoulders and go to the other extreme. Which is why I looked into Neon R in particular. Thus far the plus point for Octopus for me is that they have gone along with my maintaining a monthly +/- zero balance. I suspect that perhaps the majority of suppliers would baulk at this.

Octopus gives more control over DD payments than I've experienced anywhere else, so this is a plus. However, needs to be weighed up against what income you could generate from the money vs making a saving on your energy costs. Even turning down a modest 10% reduction in prices would be very difficult to justify in economic terms just because you have to maintain say 1 month of credit on account.

Coming back to Neon Reef and feedback, there are quite a number of long standing forum members who hold them in high regard, which I find infinitely more important than a bunch of impersonal TrustPilot reviews. Almost nobody writes a review on TrustPilot without a hidden agenda. Generally people use it to leave negative reviews out of spite, a subset of these will have genuine grievances, while the rest are just being unreasonable. When there are a lot of positive reviews it often just means the company is encouraging and incentivising customers to leave them, and has paid TrustPilot for services that allow them to manage their reviews and invitations. If you want to get a useful idea of how companies stack up against one another, you'd need to ignore all the positive reviews and look at the total number of negative reviews over a period of time vs the total number of customers a company has.

Telegraph_Sam

I'd be very keen to take on board other MSE members' views / experience of Neon Reef..  But is this allowable in this particular thread?? 

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

I'd be very keen to take on board other MSE members' views / experience of Neon Reef..  But is this allowable in this particular thread?? 

This thread isn't sponsored by Octopus Energy. Sure, this line of discussion takes it off-topic, but it wouldn't be for the first time. I think the original purpose of the thread was to collect reviews that could be used to contribute to a rating for Cheap Energy Club. I don't know if anyone from MSE Towers is reviewing these posts now, or if they ever did. The thread is 5 years old.

Gerry1

Telegraph_Sam said:

I'd be very keen to take on board other MSE members' views / experience of Neon Reef..  But is this allowable in this particular thread?? 

As I suggested, why not read the real thing?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6164185/neon-reef-any-views

Telegraph_Sam

Interesting. It is not uncommon when the discussion focuses on a particularly attractive (cheap) deal for someone in the MSE Forum to comment on the financial background of the co in question to put things in perspective.  I can't remember who this was but it would be interesting to hear his informed comments on Neon Reef!

Gerry1

Telegraph_Sam said:

Interesting. It is not uncommon when the discussion focuses on a particularly attractive (cheap) deal for someone in the MSE Forum to comment on the financial background of the co in question to put things in perspective.  I can't remember who this was but it would be interesting to hear his informed comments on Neon Reef!

Well, you'd better not think about joining Bulb's expensive deal.

For the year ending March 2020, Bulb made operating losses of £59 million !

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

Interesting. It is not uncommon when the discussion focuses on a particularly attractive (cheap) deal for someone in the MSE Forum to comment on the financial background of the co in question to put things in perspective.  I can't remember who this was but it would be interesting to hear his informed comments on Neon Reef!

Personally, I don't have a problem with being a customer of a loss making firm. I recently switched to a supplier that, according to it's most recent accounts, made a net loss of £47 million in the year to 30 Apr 2020 (up from a £30 million loss the year before), and is has net liabilities of £90 million (up from £43 million the year before). Any guesses which supplier that is?

Neon Reef isn't big enough to post full accounts, but it can be assumed that it is not making a profit yet.

[Deleted User]

Octopus Energy’s operating loss is explained here:

https://www.current-news.co.uk/news/octopus-energy-sees-160-jump-in-revenue-but-still-records-loss-due-to-relentless-investment

bristolleedsfan

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/octopus-energy-losses-plunge-to-61m-during-expansion-0vl8m8jm9

"Greg Jackson, chief executive, said costs included £41 million on customer acquisition and marketing, paying referral fees for customer sign-ups and commission to price comparison sites"

niktheguru

Telegraph_Sam said:

Neon looks "interesting" but the reviews provoked mixed feelings. My impression is that it is relatively easy to find positive reports on TP - from people who have just joined a scheme or have been customers for a short period of time.  The acid test is to read the TP experience of those who have subsequently decided to switch out, only to encounter all the obstacles you read about. I would agree that Octopus used to score highly on this - until a few months ago when it seemed that they had closed down their email service altogether, not in favour of phoning but to twittering. In a sense this "locks you in" for fear of having to contend with two separate co's involved in any switch. I would be prepared to pay a modest "premium" to avoid the likes of Symbio as reported, but doing so does not guarantee 4.5* service regrettably - unless you know something that I don't

I can also vouch that neon reef are decent. I have my parents on it for their electricity. As long as you are happy to deal with customer services via email or live chat (as they do not have easily accessible phone support), their prices are good and service are decent.  As gerry has also mentioned they allow people with economy 7 type meters to go on their standard rate too. (my parents have an old EDF eco20:20 meter) They also do not appear to be interested in smart meters at present.

Sam, as we've been telling you for sometime, octopus are only really "competitive" on their smart tariffs. Their standard and fixed tariffs are no longer that great in terms of cost. Tracker has potential but I feel that it wont come close to the cheapest in the market. I appreciate you value customer service, so wouldn't recommend symbio to you (though i personally had an ok experience with them, bar a couple of issues) If you are still very smart meter averse, then a company like neon reef would be a good fit. I wouldn't read too much into trust pilot.... always a very skewed opinion, only a tiny fraction of happy customers bother to submit a review (unless encouraged or incentivised!)