Symbio Energy feedback

Pizzato

Re 30th June meter read, did anyone have trouble sending a reading ? I could not get the portal to accept my reading just kept saying error please phone ! Now have and estimated invoice for close to 150%. Any thoughts?

niktheguru

devondiver said:

Reed_Richards said:

 This is the relevant part:

We have postponed the proposed changes to the new billing until further notice to respond to the feedback from customers and the regulator. We anticipate that the changes we make will be beneficial and equitable to the majority of people. In the meantime, please keep in mind that we will bill at the beginning of each month as usual. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience.

Is anyone really surprised? As a total shower of incompetent crooks Symbio couldn't now organise a whatsname in a brewery.

I repeat: do not believe a word they say.

They are in a total mess of their own money-grabbing making. They are going down. (Yes, I know, we've been saying it for ages. But it has to happen, doesn't it? However inexorably.)

All we can do is try to warn off those poor souls who are still signing up (if that is still possible) that they are entering a world of pain from which escape may be slow and costly.

Yes you obviously don’t hate them. You know the point I was making but you just decide to interpret it literally just for fun. I appreciate most of your very constructive comments about symbio.

Though I suspect you are right there are some people unwittingly joining symbio without knowing what is ahead for them, I’d suspect a large number from these forums at least now fully know what they are getting into.

Good to see pfp are a viable alternative, though now their prices aren’t the most attractive unlike before.

gt94sss2

Given Symbio's unwillingness to switch existing customers to their cheaper tariffs, has anyone considered leaving them and rejoining?

I presume a week or so with a new supplier should be sufficient..

UnclaimedEnergy

There's normally a 14 day cooling off period between putting in a switch and being accepted which you'd need to take into account.

There's also no guarantee that the tariff you wanted to join will still be there after that 2 weeks.

farmingisnt

they wouldn't let me rejoin to get a lower tariff, and they wouldn't let me have a lower tariff listed as an existing customer. That was the conversation I had with them in June, whereas now I realise that they are scamming hundreds if not thousands of customers by holding them over a barrel with credit in their accounts. The Really Big Issue here is that Symbio are NOT disclosing the credit balance on the accounts, as I am sure if that isn't illegal it is certainly misleading and causing people to overpay to match the inflated estimate on their bill if they want to switch without Symbio objecting. I found the facebook page for Symbio created by disgruntled customers which has a link to Ofgem fining Symbio £100,000 as they have failed to pay a £1m charge for their licence to provide. Pages and pages of guff from Symbio suggesting they are being singled out unfairly. I can only suggest there's certainly some unfairness in all of this, but it isn't Symbio that should be getting the sympathy.

LessImpecunious

gt94sss2 said:

Given Symbio's unwillingness to switch existing customers to their cheaper tariffs, has anyone considered leaving them and rejoining?

I presume a week or so with a new supplier should be sufficient..

No need to actually leave, unless they've closed the loophole (update posted on 25th June):

LessImpecunious said:

... thought I'd try signing up for a fixed deal this morning as if a new customer - expecting to get booted out of the process at some point... However, I was able to go through it all, and had a confirmation email of a new fixed deal tariff (10p/day; 12.something unit rate) to start on 21st June...

Update now available - checked into my Customer Portal today and I have been switched to the fixed tariff I applied for on the 7th June, as of 23rd June, with a tariff end date of 30 June 2022...

They accepted my application as if I was a new customer and I set up a new DD, switch was seamless...

CRISPIANNE3

Pizzato said:

Re 30th June meter read, did anyone have trouble sending a reading ? I could not get the portal to accept my reading just kept saying error please phone ! Now have and estimated invoice for close to 150%. Any thoughts?

The issue I had when trying to send picture and read via my Smart phone was every time I pressed the submit button I kept getting logged out.  However eventually managed to send meter read through their website. I checked it was recorded on the account but it has not stopped them by increasing my estimate from the previous month by 218% over my actual usage.  Also my bill is usually produced on the 1st of each month but for unknown reason it was not produced this month until 7th July.

jbuchanangb

There are plenty of places on this Energy board where forumites explain that the money paid on a monthly direct debit is just money into a kitty out of which in due course the amounts are taken to pay for energy used. Symbio just have a very esoteric way of deciding what amounts to put into the kitty, and how to calculate the energy used. At the moment the amounts I am putting into the kitty are 80% of 1/12th the cost of my estimated annual consumption, while the amounts I have been charged for my first 5 weeks of usage, 563kWh, is about 33% higher than the amount I would estimate.

The money on loan to Symbio at 0% interest would otherwise be in my current account at 0% interest, so I can't really get excited about it. I have been tracking my energy costs in a spreadsheet since 1983 so I think I will be able to keep track of them.

devondiver

niktheguru said:

devondiver said:

Reed_Richards said:

 This is the relevant part:

We have postponed the proposed changes to the new billing until further notice to respond to the feedback from customers and the regulator. We anticipate that the changes we make will be beneficial and equitable to the majority of people. In the meantime, please keep in mind that we will bill at the beginning of each month as usual. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience.

Is anyone really surprised? As a total shower of incompetent crooks Symbio couldn't now organise a whatsname in a brewery.

I repeat: do not believe a word they say.

They are in a total mess of their own money-grabbing making. They are going down. (Yes, I know, we've been saying it for ages. But it has to happen, doesn't it? However inexorably.)

All we can do is try to warn off those poor souls who are still signing up (if that is still possible) that they are entering a world of pain from which escape may be slow and costly.

Yes you obviously don’t hate them. You know the point I was making but you just decide to interpret it literally just for fun. I appreciate most of your very constructive comments about symbio.

Though I suspect you are right there are some people unwittingly joining symbio without knowing what is ahead for them, I’d suspect a large number from these forums at least now fully know what they are getting into.

Good to see pfp are a viable alternative, though now their prices aren’t the most attractive unlike before.

Q.E.D.   

farmingisnt

jbuchanangb said:

There are plenty of places on this Energy board where forumites explain that the money paid on a monthly direct debit is just money into a kitty out of which in due course the amounts are taken to pay for energy used. Symbio just have a very esoteric way of deciding what amounts to put into the kitty, and how to calculate the energy used. At the moment the amounts I am putting into the kitty are 80% of 1/12th the cost of my estimated annual consumption, while the amounts I have been charged for my first 5 weeks of usage, 563kWh, is about 33% higher than the amount I would estimate.

The money on loan to Symbio at 0% interest would otherwise be in my current account at 0% interest, so I can't really get excited about it. I have been tracking my energy costs in a spreadsheet since 1983 so I think I will be able to keep track of them.

the difference is that the money in your own bank account is available immediately to you, whereas the money in Symbio's account could potentially never be returned if they go bust, and I think there's a very real possiblity of that if their Ponzi scheme is investigated by Ofgem.