Symbio Energy feedback

niktheguru

devondiver said:

niktheguru said:

- but as long as you keep records of meter readings, submit readings regularly, you shouldnt be out of pocket at the end of the day.

Shouldn't? I hope you're right. But what about peoples' time, energy and stress? Surely that has value?

You definitely wont be out of pocket, you know that. Of course peoples time, energy and stress has value. Thats why people have a choice. Albeit there is no guarantee if people go to more expensive providers they will have a great experience. Thats why these forums exist, why trustpilot and "customer feedback scores" exist, to give people the information to make a choice. Thats the whole point of mental capacity. Don't know how much time you spend taking meter readings and dealing with your energy. Can't say it takes that much time.

BW1990

This company have a complete disregard for their customer base. 

I have now left Symbio, but I'm fortunate that a. I am gave meter readings to this company every month - so I only ever had approx. one month's credit in my account at any one time and b. when I switched provider, they failed to send a bill/ take a direct debit out of my account in the preceding month to my switch. 

So, I think (now I've switched) I probably owe Symbio money, rather than them owing me money. Phew. 

The issue is that they haven't sent me a final bill. I left early February! I've emailed them several times explaining that not only were they required to provide me with a final bill within 6 weeks of my switch, that because they have failed to do so, they now owe me £30 (due to a failure to comply with their industry Regulations). No response after a few chasers and escalation to their quality assurance team. After 8 weeks have passed since my initial complaint, I will escalate to the Ombudsman. The lack of my £30 compensation doesn't bother me - it's the principle. They shouldn't be able to get away with such a lack of respect for their customers' time and financial situations. From my perspective, I just want my account settled and to move on. 

Looking through here and TrustPilot, they seem to be substantially delaying refunding departed customers' credit balances. I wonder why? Presumably they are either taking as much money out of the company as possible, and enjoying it, before they inevitably go bust; or they are in such dire straits financially as a business, that they can't even afford to pay back credit balances anymore. Whichever one it is, again, it's a complete lack of respect for their customers. 

There will also be customers that aren't as proactive as me that won't have even realised they haven't received final bills, such customers may not even realise they have credit/ debit balances due. What an appalling management of their customer base, and again, a lack of respect. 

I appreciate they're cheap, but customers should be able to expect a level of customer service and a level of respect. I think Symbio are fraudsters who are chancing their arm with departed customers' credit balances for as long as they possibly can get away with until the inevitable. If they don't go bust soon, I will be angry that clearly that CAN afford to pay back credit balances, they just choose not to. 

I don't have any real problems with the way Symbio charge - whilst I accept they charge grossly/ appallingly overinflated estimates for the month forward, if you keep up to date with your meter reading submissions, you're only ever a month in credit. What I do have a problem with, is that they will inevitably attract a pool of customers who use them simply because they have the cheapest unit rate on the market. This particular pool of people will not have the liquidity available to lend Symbio over estimated/ arbitrary figures of cash every single month - amounts that vary vastly month to month, it appears depending on how much money Symbio require in their account that month, rather than based on evidenced historic usage and proper annual consumption estimates. Again, their lack of empathy as a business and lack of customer service then make it impossible for this pool of customers to negotiate proper direct debit amounts and get their credit balances back. In the event these customers then have to stop their direct debits (probably because they get no response from customer service), they are threatened. That's also not fair.

This company deserve to be dragged through the mud by their Regulator. 

SPOWER

Hi.  I would agree 100% with what previous has said.  They want closing, end of.  I get the concept to saving money, Ive been with every supplier you can think of doing same.  This one is the exception.  They are rubbish.  If you telephone and the operator says your refund is with senior management waiting to be authrosied, then they tell Ombudsman we are actually changing banks, when they email me about a different customer complaint.  Me and about 30 other email addresses, including housing associations and other businesses, thye are crap.  And i am sorry I am sick fed up listening to they are not stealing, they are borrowing or EAC + 120%.   This community is encouraging bad service, because you stay with them, 10p, 13p, broken record.

niktheguru

Bw1990 - I agree with most of what you say. Tho I suspect much of what symbio do is due to a combination of incompetence and trying to survive. The fact that you said you have a negative balance and they still haven’t provided you a final bill suggests inefficient systems, poor work flow rather than them intentionally trying to keep money off customers, (as then in yours and my case they would be chasing us for any money’s owed however small by submitting our final bills early)


With regards to build up of credit balance this isn’t something exclusive to symbio, this is happening with many companies and is something that should be stopped. Hopefully with smart metering, companies will no longer have an excuse to do this.....but the anti smart meter brigade will prevent this.
ofgem should be better equipped and have a backbone to stop poor service......but they don’t really care.

devondiver - don’t think you get it mate, people are allowed to disagree with you. Although I agree that they are shambolic, I saved about £200 in the year I was with them compared to the next best alternative. This was definitely worth it for the mild inconvenience, and mostly easy ride for the year......maybe I am in the minority of people who knew how to handle them. The saving to me this year is much less so I left as not worth it considering the potential problems and the likely chance they’ll go under at some point. I’m not promoting for people to join symbio, far from it. But I’m just describing my experience, so people can make their own decision, no need to take it personally.

fewkeste

niktheguru :

......maybe I am in the minority of people who knew how to handle them.

How about giving a short bullet point list of what to do/not do to 'handle' Symbio for optimum results. I'd love to be paying the rates they offer I just don't know if life is too short to subject myself to their antics!

I mean Scottish Power is bad enough (and expensive) and right now it irks me that every time I do price comparisons, Symbio are at or near the top with £250 ish plus savings compared to the tariff I got put on with Scottish Power when I got transferred over from Yorkshire Energy.

Incidentally (sorry for off topic) but why on earth did OFGEM allow Scottish Power to take the Yorkshire Energy customers when SP have such an appalling CS rating? (Which survey.)

UnclaimedEnergy

The fact that you need to 'know how to handle' an energy supplier is just ridiculous.

Energy Supply is a need for pretty much everyone. People who go for the cheapest offer available to them shouldn't need to know how to handle the system... it should just work for them easily.

At most, they need to submit a reading on a monthly basis to ensure accurate billing. They shouldn't need to keep spreadsheets of everything that's gone on in the account. Frankly... a lot of people don't even own a computer, yet alone know how to use Excel etc.

If you're one of those people who are well on top of everything and have the time to squeeze every penny out of every company you deal with... good for you... stick with Symbio while you can.

If you prefer to not have to cancel a second DD payment every month and actually pay for what you use etc... maybe stay away and join Neon Reef for now.

BW1990

There's a review that's just gone up on TrustPilot where someone has advised that they are suicidal because they can't leave Symbio due to having a 'balance' on their account (in reality this 'balance' is just Symbio's exaggerated reading). Symbio now want a further £90 from this customer before they will allow this person to switch. If this customer obliges, this will then give Symbio an even bigger credit balance on this customer's account, and who knows when it will be paid back to them. 

As I said, this company is a nightmare for that pool of the market that has very little cash liquidity. Some people are reporting that following month estimates are 4 or 5 times what their actual usage is - taking that amount of money from people (who may not even have it) and then making them wait months and months to have it back will put a huge amount of people into financial/ mental health difficulties. 

It's shameful practice... and unless people really do their research before becoming a customer of this organisation, it's not clear that they a. grossly over estimate usage every month; b. use estimated readings to block a switch rather than actual readings c. hold customers to ransom to enable them to switch and d. do not pay credit balances back in a timely manner. 

I know credit balances are an issue with largely all energy companies, but at least with most you have a 'set' direct debit coming out of your account every single month - easy to budget for. I also have no doubt that if I were in a large amount of credit with any of the other energy providers they would adjust my direct debit accordingly and/ or pay back a credit balance on request and in a timely manner.

With Symbio it's the lack of control customers have over their bank accounts and autonomy - it's the combination of disingenuous estimated meter readings causing huge and varying direct debits; further ransom amounts when trying to switch; and the inability to get money back off them/ negotiate on the meter reading/ direct debit issue. All this from a company that will by definition attract people who have little cash liquidity - who may be time poor and not 'savvy'. 

thelight

BW1990 said:

The issue is that they haven't sent me a final bill. I left early February! I've emailed them several times explaining that not only were they required to provide me with a final bill within 6 weeks of my switch, that because they have failed to do so, they now owe me £30 (due to a failure to comply with their industry Regulations). No response after a few chasers and escalation to their quality assurance team. After 8 weeks have passed since my initial complaint, I will escalate to the Ombudsman. The lack of my £30 compensation doesn't bother me - it's the principle. They shouldn't be able to get away with such a lack of respect for their customers' time and financial situations. From my perspective, I just want my account settled and to move on. 

I think they will actually owe you £60 compensation? As they should pay an extra £30 for not paying your initial compensation within 10 working days.

niktheguru

Fewkeste, I'd actually agree with unclaimedenergy that the best bet would probably be to go with neon reef, if you're a new customer. The cost price between them is so small and their customer service is definitely better.

It seems so pot luck the experience you get with symbio. There is a minority of us that haven't had a bad experience overall, but have had a few challenges, but you can't ignore the majority who have told their horror stories.
I can't imagine they're going to be in business past the next 12 months with all that is going on.

niktheguru

BW1990 said:

There's a review that's just gone up on TrustPilot where someone has advised that they are suicidal because they can't leave Symbio due to having a 'balance' on their account (in reality this 'balance' is just Symbio's exaggerated reading). Symbio now want a further £90 from this customer before they will allow this person to switch. If this customer obliges, this will then give Symbio an even bigger credit balance on this customer's account, and who knows when it will be paid back to them. 

As I said, this company is a nightmare for that pool of the market that has very little cash liquidity. 

They tried this with me too, though my "balance" according to them was 20quid, when in fact I was 40 quid in credit, so I told them to jog on and refused to pay what they wanted and told them to unblock the switch as they don't have authority to block it.....they obliged. Took 1 phonecall. Unfortunately you need to have a good understanding of your usage, time your direct debits go in and balance to be able to stand your ground which I admit the majority of the general public or at risk groups probably won't have a grasp of.....and agree they shouldn't have to fight about this to get a switch.

We shouldnt have to do this, but ofgem/ombudsmen are too toothless to do anything about it despite the complaints they must be getting. They fined symbio 100k for late payments into the green energy scheme, where did that money go? Surely instead of lining their coffers should go to helping some of these customers who have been struggling.