Symbio Energy feedback

Swipe

bubieyehyeh said:

Swipe said:

I wonder if Symbio will use the fact that a lot of households will be spending a long time at home over the next 3 months and over estimate accordingly? I certainly wouldn't put it past them.

I wondered the same, my complaint about the overestimating is still ongoing, but I think they may have finally understood that not everyone uses massively more electricity in winter. They've told me that the estimate on my next bill will be based upon my personal consumption - we will see.

Though the April prediction maybe based on "Summer", if so they maybe massively unestimating in April.

Considering they are really based half away around the globe, I'm not surprised they struggle with our seasons.

tk47

bubieyehyeh said:

Swipe said:

I wonder if Symbio will use the fact that a lot of households will be spending a long time at home over the next 3 months and over estimate accordingly? I certainly wouldn't put it past them.

I wondered the same, my complaint about the overestimating is still ongoing, but I think they may have finally understood that not everyone uses massively more electricity in winter.

Can I ask what you have experienced recently that brings you to that conclusion? Whenever I contract them, they keep to the script and tell me the bills are based on "energy industry estimates", but they are still unable, or unwilling, to disclose the source, nor the details, of the estimating process they alone seem to be using.

 They've told me that the estimate on my next bill will be based upon my personal consumption - we will see.

To be fair, I believe that all Symbio bills are and always have been based on personal consumption. It's just what unexplainable uplift they apply to the estimates that is the issue.

Though the April prediction maybe based on "Summer", if so they maybe massively unestimating in April.

They've conformed to me that April will be the start of their summer estimate billing. As such, they said April estimate will be less than that for March. (we'll see) But March over-estimate was huge and they were unable to confirm that April estimate would be less than February, January or December, each of which was an increasingly large over-estimate of the preceeding month.

Talldave

They are just brain numbingly incompetent. You either do EAC/12 for 12 months with occasional reviews against average use curves, or you do EAC/12 plus uplift for part of the year and lowered for the rest of the year (cf Pure Planet).
But for those of us providing monthly readings, massive deviations from EAC/12 are utterly pointless because they're consolidated out in the next bill. And so the whole silly cycle runs again. 
If Symbio don't ever go below EAC/12 then they will be proving their incompetence in not understanding what EAC fundamentally is!
If any comparison to Symbio's pathetic and inaccurate website were necessary,  I see Gulf provide a nice graph of the estimated usage curve for the year ahead. Symbio, take note.

bubieyehyeh

tk47 said:

bubieyehyeh said:

Swipe said:

I wonder if Symbio will use the fact that a lot of households will be spending a long time at home over the next 3 months and over estimate accordingly? I certainly wouldn't put it past them.

I wondered the same, my complaint about the overestimating is still ongoing, but I think they may have finally understood that not everyone uses massively more electricity in winter.

Can I ask what you have experienced recently that brings you to that conclusion? Whenever I contract them, they keep to the script and tell me the bills are based on "energy industry estimates", but they are still unable, or unwilling, to disclose the source, nor the details, of the estimating process they alone seem to be using.

Well there last email didn't repeat the "I'm sure you agree that winter usage is higher....." or something like that, which had been on all previous emails. So maybe being too optimistic.

It will be interesting to see if April estimate is less than EAC/12, since eventually it will need to be to balance out the january and march estimates. I suspect their estimating algorithm is EAC/12 + a percentage, where the percentage is calculated each month in order to manage their cash flow, rather than what they say.

bubieyehyeh

Talldave said:

They are just brain numbingly incompetent. You either do EAC/12 for 12 months with occasional reviews against average use curves, or you do EAC/12 plus uplift for part of the year and lowered for the rest of the year (cf Pure Planet).
But for those of us providing monthly readings, massive deviations from EAC/12 are utterly pointless because they're consolidated out in the next bill. And so the whole silly cycle runs again. 
If Symbio don't ever go below EAC/12 then they will be proving their incompetence in not understanding what EAC fundamentally is!
If any comparison to Symbio's pathetic and inaccurate website were necessary,  I see Gulf provide a nice graph of the estimated usage curve for the year ahead. Symbio, take note.

Totally agree, but the terms I agreed to when I signed up was EAC/12 with no uplift. Also it annoys me that the bills and the website graphs show estimate usage, but described it as "comsumed", very misleading.

Their spelling and grammar is poor, but their latest covid email is surely missing a "not"...." we have made the decision to have employees in our offices who can perform their jobs remotely. "

Talldave

bubieyehyeh said:

Talldave said:

They are just brain numbingly incompetent. You either do EAC/12 for 12 months with occasional reviews against average use curves, or you do EAC/12 plus uplift for part of the year and lowered for the rest of the year (cf Pure Planet).
But for those of us providing monthly readings, massive deviations from EAC/12 are utterly pointless because they're consolidated out in the next bill. And so the whole silly cycle runs again. 
If Symbio don't ever go below EAC/12 then they will be proving their incompetence in not understanding what EAC fundamentally is!
If any comparison to Symbio's pathetic and inaccurate website were necessary,  I see Gulf provide a nice graph of the estimated usage curve for the year ahead. Symbio, take note.

Totally agree, but the terms I agreed to when I signed up was EAC/12 with no uplift. Also it annoys me that the bills and the website graphs show estimate usage, but described it as "comsumed", very misleading.

Their spelling and grammar is poor, but their latest covid email is surely missing a "not"...." we have made the decision to have employees in our offices who can perform their jobs remotely. "

Indeed, their decision to move the goalposts to a winter/summer model totally ignored the many months of EAC/12 we already had under our belts.

The website is pathetic,  as you say showing "consumption" for March at the start of the month which is nothing but an estimate.  In fact all the graphs/costs are estimates making the entire website meaningless.  But it's in line with the incompetence that screws up everything they do. Not only can they not spell, but the mistakes come and go month by month which shows they have no version control over their billing template.

But the stupid over-estimates are consolidated every month and they are one of the cheapest; and that's before the free kWh they give away!

matelodave

Fortunately they are just taking my EAC/12 as DD's (I sorted that out early on) but the billing has all sorts of random figures - I'm not all that bothered as it'll sort itself out at the end of my 12 months and hopefully I'll owe them a few quid, not a lot but enough that I shouldn't have any arguments about refunds  .

However because we have a very mild winter we wont have used as much as I estimated so the equilibrium point is getting a bit earlier in the year so my careful calculations may not pan out as hoped

Tafrock

Just when I thought it was all over.... I contacted Green today as even though I can see my credit balance I've yet to receive a bill despite being with them 2 months
Guess what. They are waiting for my opening reading up be confirmed by symbio. They are now chasing it up for me but when I explained I have a final bill that is settled with symbio they did say if needs must they would accept a pdf emailing of that 

tk47

Tafrock said:

Just when I thought it was all over.... I contacted Green today as even though I can see my credit balance I've yet to receive a bill despite being with them 2 months
Guess what. They are waiting for my opening reading up be confirmed by symbio. They are now chasing it up for me but when I explained I have a final bill that is settled with symbio they did say if needs must they would accept a pdf emailing of that 

I can't believe I'm going to be defending Symbio Energy, but on this one I feel I must do.

It sounds like you may have jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire with your new choice of supplier.

When you switch supplier, you should provide the opening reading to that new supplier.
That then gets sent off to the independant meter reading agency for validation.
It's nothing to do with the old supplier, unless you failed to supply that opening meter reading.

As you have received your final bill from Symbio that presumably contained the final meter reading you supplied to the new supplier, then the system has worked.

That means any delay by your new supplier to bill you is entirely down to them, and they are unfortunately fobbing you off by attempting to blame others.

matelodave

Is the reading that Symbio used the same as the one you gave your new supplier? If so then who gave Symbio the reading. As said above the new supplier collects the opening reading, passes it for validation and old supplier uses the same reading for their final bill. If your final bill is correct then your new supplier is telling fibs.