Symbio Energy feedback

fewkeste

@Tafrock - interesting article but it does say for switches starting 1st May. Nevertheless useful info for future switches.

Treewood

Symbio have pulled the stunt of changing my:

"Symbio 1 Year Fixed February 2019 v2"

contact from being pay on receipt of bill, to one requiring an advance payment, which means I have to pay two bills in one month (One the normal bill - the other the advance payment). They say I can either accept it in return for a £5.00 credit plus a 2 month contract extension or leave. A contract extension is of course worthless if they cease trading, and I do wonder if they are using this trick to improve their cashflow.

They argue this is necessary to contain their costs. However one reason for chosing this tariff is that I do not want to pay upfront and then experience hassle getting overpayment returned when I leave. Furthermore I had hoped by entering a 12 month contract I would not be immediately trying to change supplier again.

This (and other comments on the forum) makes me wonder how long Symbio will last.

brewerdave

Treewood wrote: »

This (and other comments on the forum) makes me wonder how long Symbio will last.

Still not sure how they are offering such low rates.......EDIT Just tried to check their current offering for my (SWALEC) region........no results for Symbio...so have they stopped taking new customers??:(

Tafrock

How did they contact you about this tree wood and when. I'm not converting to a pay in advance tariff.

Treewood

Information received in an email yesterday evening.

Tafrock

I haven't had such an email yet. Thanks for the warning. Ill switch away at earliest opportunity if they go down that route. How long have you been a customer. Have they taken your direct debits on time. I've not had an initial bill yet or had any direct debit taken but I wasn't expecting one for a couple of weeks yet

Tafrock

Brewerdave tariffs still available for comparisons on uswitch. Symbio have never appeared on mse. But they were on energyhelpline. They vanished from there yesterday. What comparison service were you using

Tafrock

Symbios website still offering the Symbio 12M Fixed DD Monthly Plan Apr 19.

I just got a quote. Don't see how they can justify attempting to swap customers tariffs if they still offer the original fixed direct debit plans

Treewood

I have been a customer since mid March. The first bill at begining of April for the second half of March was on time and the direct debit collected correctly. I have not received the expected request for a meter reading at the beginning of this month.


In the email they also said an "advantage" of their new scheme was that a meter reading would only be required every 3 months - instead of monthly. The unstated implication was that most monthly bills would be estimated rather than based on actual readings. In other words this is much closer to fixed amount monthly direct debits, rather than for the pay for what I use as originally signed up for.


One issue with leaving of course is practically all of the other options are much more expensive - but then you can argue you may pay for the service you get....

Tafrock

Cheapest comparable tariff for me (no exit charge, fixed tariff) is Yorkshire energy Green bunny at £32 more expensive. I'd probably opt for that myself though a short term transfer to a variable tariff such as the cheapest from outfox would only cost myself an extra 6 pounds per year . Looks like fewkeste may have had the right idea going with Yorkshire all along. I'll let the forum know if they attempt to get me to swap onto this prepay nonsense