Symbio Energy feedback

Gerry1

Sillychuckie said:

Does anyone know - is it *always* allowed/possible, to sign up to a single rate tariff, with an E7 meter, or was this something Symbio in particular allowed?

Some companies offer this, some don't, it wasn't unique to Symbio.  The break point can sometimes be as low a about 15-20% night usage; I just have single rate or two rate depending which is cheaper when switching.

devondiver

niktheguru said:

CRISPIANNE3 said:

I am about £35.00 in credit. I should be sorry they have gone bust but in some respects I am pleased. They were really a pain in the buttocks. The people I really feel sorry for are the administrators have to sort out their billing system.

Really? Is better customer service worth paying double for?
Symbio never helped themselves with their poor customer service but the prices were unreal and I’m all for the cheapest anyday!
im sure the administrators will keep it simple and just look at opening and closing readings, calculate usage and compare it to amount paid in account.

Sorry to jump in here but people seem to talk about Symbio as the one and only cheapest supplier ever. As noted previously on here - I had no trouble when I jumped ship 10 months ago in finding a better deal (with PFP) and have slept easy for the duration enjoying their perfectly 'normal' customer service. Even when they folded they did so gracefully and without the 'death of a thousand cuts' shenanigans which Symbio have inflicted on their customers over the past several months. And I suspect there must have been other suppliers offering unsustainably good deals but with good CS to boot. The plain fact is that now, due to the prevailing 'perfect storm' market conditions all of these cheap suppliers find themselves in deep do-do and power prices are rising across the board, with or without decent customer service.

Tafrock

I joined symbio near the beginning and left as soon as they started the disgraceful practice of deliberate overcharging. Yes they took the overpayment off your next bill but immediately lumped on another overpayment. Not an honourable way to run a company.  I went to green. Yes they've gone bust too but as a company it was as different as night and day. Of course the culling of these small companies is bad news for us All. Its going to Be a winter of discontent for all us who shopped around

niktheguru

devondiver said:

niktheguru said:

CRISPIANNE3 said:

I am about £35.00 in credit. I should be sorry they have gone bust but in some respects I am pleased. They were really a pain in the buttocks. The people I really feel sorry for are the administrators have to sort out their billing system.

Really? Is better customer service worth paying double for?
Symbio never helped themselves with their poor customer service but the prices were unreal and I’m all for the cheapest anyday!
im sure the administrators will keep it simple and just look at opening and closing readings, calculate usage and compare it to amount paid in account.

Sorry to jump in here but people seem to talk about Symbio as the one and only cheapest supplier ever. As noted previously on here - I had no trouble when I jumped ship 10 months ago in finding a better deal (with PFP) and have slept easy for the duration enjoying their perfectly 'normal' customer service. Even when they folded they did so gracefully and without the 'death of a thousand cuts' shenanigans which Symbio have inflicted on their customers over the past several months. And I suspect there must have been other suppliers offering unsustainably good deals but with good CS to boot. The plain fact is that now, due to the prevailing 'perfect storm' market conditions all of these cheap suppliers find themselves in deep do-do and power prices are rising across the board, with or without decent customer service.

Symbio were far from perfect and did have dodgy practices, but they were very cheap, and for some time were the cheapest around. For a short period pfp were on par after symbio increased their prices but the cheapest companies on the whole had their quirks. Didn’t pfp also keep a few months of your credit? So horses for courses, though granted prob not as bad as symbio.

like others on the forum I tend to just go for the cheapest and make sure I don’t get robbed in the process. I left when I found octopus worked out cheaper for me, so am not blindly loyal to symbio, but it was definitely worth it while it lasted.

elucidate

Well at least no I won't rue the fact that I deliberately chose to leave the 18m fixed contract that was meant to take me to August 2022, and moved to variable... 

CRISPIANNE3

Well it was quite an emotional moment this morning as I entered my final meter reading. Also to mark the occasion I even sent them a picture of the meter read.  I was there from when they first started and now witnessing the end.

Interesting to see if I get an inflated bill for October for energy yet to be used. 

spot1034

I don't see the point in sending them a reading now. I suppose their automated systems might still be running and will produce a bill in the next few days, but if they go mad and make some wild estimate this will be cancelled as soon as the administrators move in and send a final bill based on an actual reading which we'll presumably be asked for when the SOLR is appointed.

Inigo_Montoya

spot1034 said:

I don't see the point in sending them a reading now. I suppose their automated systems might still be running and will produce a bill in the next few days, but if they go mad and make some wild estimate this will be cancelled as soon as the administrators move in and send a final bill based on an actual reading which we'll presumably be asked for when the SOLR is appointed.

if I am being cynical then generating an estimated bill for (the whole of) October allows them to take one final DD from each customer 

unlike other suppliers their bill generation appears directly tied to the (variable) direct debit i.e. without a bill being generated they cannot continue to take a monthly direct debit (is this variable DD only ?) - this is different from, say, utility point who can quite happily keep on taking the monthly DD without any further bills being generated 

however I don't see how they could legally charge for the estimated usage for the whole of October when they know for certain the SoLR will take over the supply in the first week of October

their billing system appears to works in the customers favour in this particular instance since no further bills will be generated after the one for October so by association there will be no further DDs charged

jaynewcastle

As I haven't been able to get a meter reading since Symbio replaced my meter with a Smart meter  (with no display) in June 2021 & sent a display unit that has never worked, I assume my usage would have to be estimated by the Administrators, based on the fortnightly readings I have taken over the previous 12 months ?

Unless the Smart meter actually saves the usage details and these can be retrieved ?  (Symbio obviously never used this information when calculating my last few bills during the summer after the Smart meter was installed)

matelodave

jaynewcastle said:

As I haven't been able to get a meter reading since Symbio replaced my meter with a Smart meter  (with no display) in June 2021 & sent a display unit that has never worked, I assume my usage would have to be estimated by the Administrators, based on the fortnightly readings I have taken over the previous 12 months ?

Unless the Smart meter actually saves the usage details and these can be retrieved ?  (Symbio obviously never used this information when calculating my last few bills during the summer after the Smart meter was installed)

Smart meters store data internally for up to 13 months - my IHD allows me to interrogate my meter and check my hourly consumption for up to 24 hours, daily consumption for a the past week,  weekly consumption for the past five weeks and my monthly consumption for the past 13 months and it been doing that since it was installed in 2017.

It hasn't been sending any data back or displaying costs to any of the five suppliers I've been with since  I changed suppliers from SEE who installed it in in 2017.

It suddenly started sending info to Symbio on 14th September and displaying cost data on the IHD.

So even though its seems to be working I've still taken a photo and sent in a reading