Add your feedback on energy supplier Tonik

Telegraph_Sam

[These comments are out of sequence]
I switched to Tonik 6 months ago since they were for me one of the cheapest. No complaints. Just recently however they did their 6 month "review" following which I was told that my D/D would rise by 37%. Considering that my credit balance had been on a rising trend up to then and had reached £69 - £99 depending on what figure you took, I challenged this and asked for justification. In fairness the response was prompt and the rise in D/D reversed immediately. However my request for an explanation has so far remained unanswered. Which leads me to suspect that the business model of some / many of these suppliers relies on customers building up and maintaining substantial credit balances which of course provide the finance to run the show. I believe that they pay 3% on credit balances which is good compared with High Street savings accounts but cheap compared with what the banks must charge the company for loan capital.

Marnie_Asher

Can anyone give me some advice?
My husband signed up with iresa 18 months ago and left the property 17 months ago... I have had non stop problems with communication with the company, ( non existent ) I set up a DD with them which I did with a hand written letter! Every attempt I made to contact has ended with being 58 in the queue. That aside they have only ever taken one payment from me....
So I’m now in 17 months worth of energy debt. I have been contacted by octopus who have now been instructed to look after customers and I’ve received a huge bill for £1800. I know this is my debt but I have made every attempt to pay this monthly to avoid a large bill and that’s exactly what I’m now faced with...... any advice or experience with a similar situation would be gratefully received.
Thank you

System

Marnie_Asher wrote: »

Can anyone give me some advice?
My husband signed up with iresa 18 months ago and left the property 17 months ago... I have had non stop problems with communication with the company, ( non existent ) I set up a DD with them which I did with a hand written letter! Every attempt I made to contact has ended with being 58 in the queue. That aside they have only ever taken one payment from me....
So I’m now in 17 months worth of energy debt. I have been contacted by octopus who have now been instructed to look after customers and I’ve received a huge bill for £1800. I know this is my debt but I have made every attempt to pay this monthly to avoid a large bill and that’s exactly what I’m now faced with...... any advice or experience with a similar situation would be gratefully received.
Thank you

If you can show that you have made every effort to get a bill from Iresa, then ask Octopus to apply the Back Billing Code. If Octopus agrees, then you should only pay for the last 12 months of energy use.

Blondie83

I wouldn't recommend this company. If you have a problem their customer service is appalling, everyone tells you sometching different, they insist on emailing you but don't appear to read your responses. Didn't carry out a single review to check we were paying correct amount despite stating on every statement that they do this regularly, used wrong projections initially, set up too many payments and still haven't corrected. Worst energy company I've ever dealt with. One to avoid!

Moko

I have been with Tonik for one year and have checked out other energy supplier rates and although staying with Tonik is very slighty more expensive I feel it is worth the good customer service I have received. You can gain £20 for referring other people which is a plus, together with good interest rate if in credit and no exit fees.

ColinB

Following on from Telegraph Sam's post on 27/9:

"Just recently however they did their 6 month "review" following which I was told that my D/D would rise by 37%. Considering that my credit balance had been on a rising trend up to then and had reached £69 - £99 depending on what figure you took, I challenged this and asked for justification. In fairness the response was prompt and the rise in D/D reversed immediately. However my request for an explanation has so far remained unanswered."

I just had an interesting conversation with Tonik CS. I was querying a change to my DD payment, which seemed unexpectedly high. It turns out that their system is automatically recalculating DD payments without taking account of a customer's credit (or debit) balance. When you ask for a manual recalculation, the account balance is included so the new amount is different to the auto-generated amount. Whilst it's now been fixed, it's not clear how long this has been happening, the agent I spoke to said they're relying on customers contacting them to query it. So if your DD amount has recently changed, it's worth a call to get it checked.

Second thought: maybe it's worth over-paying by having a too-high DD, 3% interest on credit balances isn't bad ?

grumpycrab

My current credit is over 30% of my annual spend - I raised this issue a couple of months ago and CS gave me some waffle that sent me to sleep. I wasn't going to argue (cheapest tariff, interest on credit balance, gauranteed by the regulator etc.) However, my issue is not with Toniq, its that when my tariff ends 24th Jan and the price rises by over 20%. No cheap tariffs around at all. I should have switched sooner. Ah well, you win some and you lose some...

rolleston_reviewer

Moved to Tonik from TOTO. How refreshing- a website that is easy to navigate and a smooth ride so far.

grumpycrab

MIL is now on Tonik tariff "1 Year Green Fixed" Doesn't come up on MSE. Is this just MSE or do utility cos not publish all their tariffs?

fgen86

As a new forum member I just wanted to add my feedback about Tonik, who supplied my electricity from April 2017-March 2018 after which I switched to a cheaper tariff with another provider.

Switching to and from them was simple and straight-forward.
I like the company ethos and they were very quick and helpful to respond to the few queries I had (by phone).
I did have to watch for tariff updates - they started offering a cheaper alternative which I spotted and asked to be switched to - but you can expect this sort of thing when scrabbling around the cheaper end of the market.
The only issue I had was incorrect billing after a tariff change in October 2017. Again this was resolved quickly after a phone call but I might have missed it if I didn't cross-check the billing (they had somehow doubled the electricity consumption even though the meter readings were correct).

A great company to deal with, and with some big ideas to help promote renewable energy use. I hope they continue to be successful.