Add your feedback on energy supplier Tonik

Telegraph_Sam

I can more or less echo Preston_B's comments word for word.  In the process of transferring to Octopus the only person at Tonik that I got any sense out of was their Lee Taplin, and to be fair he was helpful in their difficult and frustrating circumstances.  He offered and agreed in the end to write off what was probably a debit balance on my account and draw a line under past happenings. That said, I got an email chaser only a few days later for the outstanding amount - which I could not verify due to the login block. The conclusion has to be to avoid Tonik for the present whilst they press the reset button on their IT and accounting systems, but not to rule out revisiting them at some future date when their Customer Services are again fit for purpose. In the meantime use the Citizens Advice Bureau complaints team to assist in recovering outstanding credits.  

ColinB

From some of the comments on here you'd think Tonik were responsible for the Armageddon, so Preston_B's comments to put the other side of it are helpful. Yes, they did a systems upgrade that took longer than maybe some folks would have liked, but TBH it was better for them to take it slowly rather than rush it and really screw things up (TSB, anyone?). Before they'd finished that they were hit by the Covid-19 disruption so they had to finish the upgrade and switch their systems to facilitate mass working from home and that can't have been easy. Most of the staff were trying to do the right things, so berating them isn't helpful. For anyone trying to join or leave I can understand how frustrating it's all been, but now it's all back to normal, meter reading prompts are being sent, statements are being produced, the website's working, credits are being repaid, and the prices are still good. 

uk2009

To whom it may concern: 
Initially I was most pleased when I switched to Tonik approx 2 years ago with a competitive tariff for gas and electricity. The account ran smoothly until the end of last year. Then, despite providing monthly readings, regular billing ceased. To cut it short, I lodged a complaint. A bill was finally provided ONE DAY before I was taking it to the Ombudsman. They knew they had 2 months to sort it all out and they took full advantage of that. 
Staff are polite and courteous which is the only saving grace left for this company. The tariff I'm on is no longer the most competitive but I was ill advised to switch whilst all this was going on so I have effectively been overpaying for about the last 6 months. I will never forgive them for this nor for the stress and anxiety they caused me. 
Incidentally, if anyone is interested, go have a look at their financial results & reports. Its free on the government website Companies House. 

Mabel2012

inspectorperez said:

Good to hear something positive about this company - maybe they are turning the corner?

They still get dire 1 star reviews on Trustpilot, so maybe there is some way to go yet!

Tonik Energy had very good customer service until the end of 2019, a year after I moved to them.  Then they upgraded their billing system and it turned into a fiasco. I didn't receive a statement until April 2020.  No company would voluntarily operate without a billing system for that length of time. They must have had the worst IT company doing the job. This has cost them many customers and the goodwill of those who stayed with them for whatever reasons, not to mention their reputation. I hope they recover.

Telegraph_Sam

It is worth going back to the very early posts on this long extended thread to refresh memories.  I can remember being "encouraged" to build up and not reduce an increasingly large credit balance long before the end of 2019

inspectorperez

Mabel2012 said:

inspectorperez said:

Good to hear something positive about this company - maybe they are turning the corner?

They still get dire 1 star reviews on Trustpilot, so maybe there is some way to go yet!

Tonik Energy had very good customer service until the end of 2019, a year after I moved to them.  Then they upgraded their billing system and it turned into a fiasco. I didn't receive a statement until April 2020.  No company would voluntarily operate without a billing system for that length of time. They must have had the worst IT company doing the job. This has cost them many customers and the goodwill of those who stayed with them for whatever reasons, not to mention their reputation. I hope they recover.

I agree entirely with your comments and had a similar experience myself.

There is no escaping the fact however that they are according to their latest published accounts, totally insolvent and have lost two out of four directors who have not been replaced.

The one star Trustpilot reviews are still being posted every day and there is just no getting away from the utter stress and inconvenience they have caused to many innocent customers.

Unfortunately insolvency is not something which OFGEM will involve themselves with until some form of administration/winding up process has been instigated. I believe this forum also makes no official comment on the financial status of companies which may feature in their "recommendations"!!

Preston_B

I agree with inspectorperez and telegraph sams comments,

One thing all these comments show is what a mess the energy industry really is. Its hard to believe the time you have to invest in just finding a company you can trust. Why should we have to spend hours investigating a prospective energy supplier, by checking Twitter/Trustpilot/MSE/Which etc etc and even going to the lengths of checking companies accounts? Hell, I even considered once going to look at the state of someones head office. I didn't....but maybe I should of cause they went bust!

Government really needs to be brave enough to sort the energy industry out.

UnclaimedEnergy

I mean... if you wanna look at financials of energy companies, pretty much all of them are running at a loss.

The companies which are still around and are priced below average just have investors with bigger pockets than the others.

rowanremote

We switched to Tonik duel fuel last December, lured by a cashback offer that we never received and supposedly cheaper rates. After checking the rates and finding them to be higher than others, this year we switched to British Gas and that all went through in May. Before we switched, we spoke to check with Tonik: there were no switching charges, and we were in credit and would be refunded after the completion of the switch. On 4 June, I received a notification from my bank that a DD would be taken from my account that exceeded the balance. The DD bounced (thankfully) and to my surprise it was nearly £360 payment to Tonik. I called Tonik to say I was expecting a refund not a huge bill! They said that we only appeared to be in credit because they hadn't been updating the account balance due to a system change. The customer service rep volunteered to raise a complaint on my behalf, request that my final bill was checked and I might get compensation - this all seemed well-rehearsed to placate disgruntled customers. I thought this all seemed a little strange so I checked Trust Pilot to find there were one star ratings coming in almost hourly, with the odd 5-star rating from 'invited' reviewers (hmmm). People were claiming that they had been overcharged and couldn't get their money back. Incidentally, Tonik didn't send us a final bill, or give us 10 days notice of the change to the DD. I did my own calculations to check the bill, which I can assure you isn't easy to do but it looked that they were overcharging by about £250. I expect Tonik to provide a final bill showing the workings so that I can check it against my own calculations. I spoke to my bank about my concerns and cancelled the DD. Still no final bill, no contact other than a late SMS to say the payment hadn't been made (we know! we spoke to you about it!). If we owe them money then I'm happy to pay, but I'm not going to over-pay and go through the long-winded fight to get it back and run the risk that they go into administration in the meantime. I would not recommend Tonik Energy to anyone. 

David_J_Edge

They are no longer answering the phone or replying to email. They have £280 of mine that I don't suppose I'll see again.