Symbio Energy feedback

devondiver

jbuchanangb said:

. . . The money on loan to Symbio at 0% interest would otherwise be in my current account at 0% interest . . . 

Or, for those that can least afford it, would be costing them up to 50%pa in overdraft interest! 😱

So - if their "0% loan" from you is, say, a rolling £200, this could be costing you up to £100 over the year.

BUFF

out of interest (my electricity deal with another firm is approaching end of contract & Symbio are by far the cheapest coming up) are those complaining about Symbio overestimating usage & therefore increasing DD all on the seasonal direct debit or are any on the monthly fixed dd where every month should be 1/12th of estimated annual usage?
Debating whether the potential hassle is worth the saving?

farmingisnt

BUFF said:

out of interest (my electricity deal with another firm is approaching end of contract & Symbio are by far the cheapest coming up) are those complaining about Symbio overestimating usage & therefore increasing DD all on the seasonal direct debit or are any on the monthly fixed dd where every month should be 1/12th of estimated annual usage?
Debating whether the potential hassle is worth the saving?

Depends on whether you are prepared to accept the risk of becoming part of a giant Ponzi scheme where there's only one winner and that isn't you. Symbio are hiding credit balances from their customers (they still can't confirm mine) and taking months to pay people back, while having a £100000 fine for not paying their £1.1m fee to the Goverment to trade selling electric to the public.. How many more lines would you like to read between  

niktheguru

farmingisnt said:

BUFF said:

out of interest (my electricity deal with another firm is approaching end of contract & Symbio are by far the cheapest coming up) are those complaining about Symbio overestimating usage & therefore increasing DD all on the seasonal direct debit or are any on the monthly fixed dd where every month should be 1/12th of estimated annual usage?
Debating whether the potential hassle is worth the saving?

Depends on whether you are prepared to accept the risk of becoming part of a giant Ponzi scheme where there's only one winner and that isn't you. Symbio are hiding credit balances from their customers (they still can't confirm mine) and taking months to pay people back, while having a £100000 fine for not paying their £1.1m fee to the Goverment to trade selling electric to the public.. How many more lines would you like to read between  

I don’t quite understand how they’re hiding your credit balance? Isn’t there a page on their online account with all the direct debits you’ve made? And you’re getting bills monthly right?

niktheguru

There was some mention from some users that they’ve stopped doing fixed direct debits and only doing seasonal or variable dd. (Don’t choose variable at any cost, choose fixed or seasonal fixed) then when putting you eac, reduce it by 10% and your eac estimations from symbio will be more realistic.

Inigo_Montoya

niktheguru said:

There was some mention from some users that they’ve stopped doing fixed direct debits and only doing seasonal or variable dd. (Don’t choose variable at any cost, choose fixed or seasonal fixed) then when putting you eac, reduce it by 10% and your eac estimations from symbio will be more realistic.

I applied to join Symbio for electric only about a week ago

As I went through the process of applying there was a page where the default option was seasonal fixed DD BUT there was still an option you could manually choose of standard fixed DD - it is hidden away though & would be very easy to miss

Similiarly there is also an option where you can enter your own yearly KwH usage figure but again its very easy to miss & I actually initially did miss it but luckily realised before I completed the application as the default figure being chosen was way too high

The default for a "low" user was 1800 kwH - I only actually use around 800 Kwh as its a property thats unoccupied quite a lot - having read about how Symbio over estimates usage I put in the very lowest figure the system would accept which was 500 KwH

I will be interested to see how much they over estimate based on the 500 kwH figure I gave them - I will only start paying too much once their estimate is over 60% more than 500 KwH yearly

spot1034

farmingisnt said:

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. 

That's an interesting point you raise. Surely customers' credit balances are protected under the standard rules which apply to all suppliers? I suspect there would be quite a big row if Ofgem decided that this would not apply in the case of one individual supplier. 

However as I have suggested before, I suspect this is one of the reasons they have not been able to go ahead with their new billing system whilst they deal with matters raised by 'the regulator' as well as customers. I have a feeling that Ofgem is worried about the possibility of excessive credit balances having to be covered by other parties in the event of the company going under.  

farmingisnt

The main issue with Symbio is that they won't actually give you your real balance, that has to be calculated by them and they suggest they would charge £10 to reconcile your account to provide it. They then state they can only give you the credit balance once you've given a final reading that has to be confirmed by them. All obsfucation, smokescreen. From someone else's posting they thought that the credit balance was shown to the customer services staff (it's not compllicated to calculate it) but they won't give it to you, I've tried several times to ask over the phone, and request by email. NiktheGuru has suggested that you telll them what your balance is, which I have done, by email, by phone and by sending a spreadsheet but they won't confirm it.. It's a leap of faith I am not prepared to take with Symbio as I don't trust them a bit, especially not after reading their excuses given to Companies House in their year end report, and the rubbbish they spouted in their defence over th £10000 fine from Ofgem ie. 'we are being singled out unfairly', It's because they are utter crooks, and getting away with it temporarily util the Ponzi collapses and everything goes along with it. The real crime is that Ofgem haven't gone the final mile and still allow new customers to sign up

devondiver

spot1034 said:

farmingisnt said:

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. 

That's an interesting point you raise. Surely customers' credit balances are protected under the standard rules which apply to all suppliers? I suspect there would be quite a big row if Ofgem decided that this would not apply in the case of one individual supplier. 

However as I have suggested before, I suspect this is one of the reasons they have not been able to go ahead with their new billing system whilst they deal with matters raised by 'the regulator' as well as customers. I have a feeling that Ofgem is worried about the possibility of excessive credit balances having to be covered by other parties in the event of the company going under.  

Re. your first point: True (AFAIAA). But . . . as with many stories of customers caving in to Symbio's pecuniary demands simply to be permitted to switch away from them, perhaps when Symbio does fold, its complex and error-prone (to put it politely) "accounting systems" will mean that unravelling individual accounts will be such a mammoth task that many customers will judge that the effort and time involved in chasing repayment of balances (no compensation payments I'm afraid once the company folds) will not be warranted.

Re. your second point: Again, probably true. And Ofgem's concerns are probably compounded by acknowledgment of the foregoing i.e. the time and resources required to do the unravelling - let alone finding a power company prepared to take over the messed-up customer account book.

niktheguru

farmingisnt said:

The main issue with Symbio is that they won't actually give you your real balance, that has to be calculated by them and they suggest they would charge £10 to reconcile your account to provide it. They then state they can only give you the credit balance once you've given a final reading that has to be confirmed by them. All obsfucation, smokescreen. From someone else's posting they thought that the credit balance was shown to the customer services staff (it's not compllicated to calculate it) but they won't give it to you, I've tried several times to ask over the phone, and request by email. NiktheGuru has suggested that you telll them what your balance is, which I have done, by email, by phone and by sending a spreadsheet but they won't confirm it.. It's a leap of faith I am not prepared to take with Symbio as I don't trust them a bit, especially not after reading their excuses given to Companies House in their year end report, and the rubbbish they spouted in their defence over th £10000 fine from Ofgem ie. 'we are being singled out unfairly', It's because they are utter crooks, and getting away with it temporarily util the Ponzi collapses and everything goes along with it. The real crime is that Ofgem haven't gone the final mile and still allow new customers to sign up

I’d hate to think how long it would take whoever got the fun task of being the SOLR if/when symbio fold. Given that most existing solr processes have taken months I’d imagine the symbio one would take ages!

their excuses about being singled out and cyber bullying etc are indeed shameful and desperate.