Symbio Energy feedback

molerat

Gerry1 wrote: »

Not necessarily. The better ones will generate a bill immediately upon receipt of a meter reading. This really should be standard practice, it's hardly rocket science.

Define better

Some have billing periods and will only generate a bill to that date by estimating if necessary and others will generate a bill on supply of a reading. EDF for instance will only generate a regular bill every 3 months but will also generate a bill when a reading is supplied at not less than 28days from the previous.

matelodave

Eversmart were pretty good, I gave them a reading on the billing day (in my case 6th of the month) and the resulting bill two or three days later was spot on. I've got a full set of monthly bills and they are all OK except the last one, because I left them on 2nd Sept but they billed up to 6th.

The bill has readings for the 2nd (which is the same as the start reading that I gave Symbio on the same date) and their guess for some usage up to 6th.
Unfortunately they went belly up on 11th so I'm waiting for an accurate final bill from whoever is tasked to produce it.

I wait with keen anticipation to see how the strange Symbio system pans out but I shall be on their case if it goes awry.

Gerry1

EnergyTwist wrote: »

So the bill they then issue with that meter reading on will not be up to the same date as you provided the meter reading???

And you call them the better ones???

I guess it will all depend on how one defines 'better', but it doesn't match my definition.

I sent Yorkshire a meter reading soon after midnight on 20 September. A few minutes later I received an email saying 'Please read your meter within the next five days'. Just to make sure, I sent another reading on 23 September.

Within a few minutes a statement arrived dated 23 September. It could hardly have been clearer: it showed 29 days from 22 Aug to 19 Sep and then 4 days from 20 Sep to 23 Sep. All readings were shown and were accurate, it was logically laid out starting with the previous balance (clearly shown as 'Credit', not a confusing minus sign, ditto with the E7 readings shown as Day (DY) and Night (NT)).

It really doesn't get much better than that: it's the gold standard to which Symbio and all the others should aspire.

fewkeste

Gerry1 wrote: »

It really doesn't get much better than that: it's the gold standard to which Symbio and all the others should aspire.

I quite agree - I'm with Yorkshire Energy as well. Simple clear billing, straightforward website with nothing fancy.

I submit one reading a month on the 23rd and a short while later (probably less than an hour) a bill is available to view online and download as a PDF.

That's the way to do it (as Mr Punch says!)

Talldave

I've just received my second bill from Symbio and I have to admit I've never seen such a convoluted and over-complicated bill in my life.


First problem - they're delinquent with 3 errors in one sentence:


"Cosumption calclulation based on customer submited reads"


so sloppy and unprofessional, but at least they've used the readings I supplied.


Then they have a section where they do their estimating gymnastics:


"Cosumption Calclulation Based Upon Estimated Billed Reads Til Date"


Second problem, or issue, if not a problem - they then proceed to use their own estimate for the 5 Oct, despite having my actual reading for that date 5 lines above. This means that they're keeping their own set of readings in some estimated parallel universe which they're not correcting with readings from my real universe. What's the point of this, other than creating an estimation algorithm that's guaranteed to never self-correct?


On the next page, there's a section called "Electricity used", which is not actually anything to do with Electricity used, it's a guess of what I might use in the 27 days after my last reading. A section in which "Previous Reading" uses one of my customer readings, but flags it as "Type E", despite having used the exact same reading as "Type C" on the previous page.


I haven't yet got my head around their "Variance Consumption" figures - I'm beginning to think the less readings I give them (per month) the simpler the bill will become. Maybe I need to buy a new Calclulator?!


On a positive note, I'm paying 11.4p/kWhr, so maybe that makes up for the unintelligible bill.

BoxerfanUK

I have to agree Talldave. My first bill received today and was thinking exactly the same, what a convoluted way to go about things!

I switched to them on 20th August and submitted my first reading on 30/9. All figures submitted by me are correct so no probs there, although they 'estimated' my bill for the period 30/9 to 1/10

Their billing cycle runs from 1st of each month to 2nd of following month so next time I'll submit on the 1st.

As you say though, excellent tariff rate so I will just go with their peculiar billing system. No regrets so far.

matelodave

I too am slightly confused - does anyone know if they just keep taking the fixed DD or will it be a random figure every month based on their convoluted guess calculations.

Talldave

matelodave wrote: »

I too am slightly confused - does anyone know if they just keep taking the fixed DD or will it be a random figure every month based on their convoluted guess calculations.

As far as I can tell it varies each month based on what's going on in their parallel universe and what's going on in yours.


They seem to use estimates for the month ahead from their parallel universe, then subtract a variance figure calculated from the previous month's actual usage and their estimates.


But the main problem I can see is that they're working off their own estimated figures and are not correcting those with the actual readings. So as time goes on, surely the deviation between estimation and reality will grow?


Add in all the spelling errors and the fact that my own reading is apparently both a "C" customer reading and an "E" estimate, and it's a bit of a mess.

griffb

matelodave wrote: »

I too am slightly confused - does anyone know if they just keep taking the fixed DD or will it be a random figure every month based on their convoluted guess calculations.

The d/d/ should be for the estimated usage for the coming month +/- an adjustment for over/under usage up to the billing date.


I've just got my 3rd bill. They have correctly used my actual reading on 1st October to calculate the under-usage for September, and as the opening figure for the October usage estimate, which is an exact pro-rata 31/365 of the annual estimate I provided when signing up.


Use of English apart, all is well so far.

Tafrock

I have no problem with their bills though it is a strange way of doing it. Symbio accept readings up to 5th of the month for your bills. What they do is estimate your usage for the month according to the usage you supplied when you signed up

Then the next month any overbill is returned to you ie the variance calculation. What they do is work out how much you were overbilled by on your previous bill as a result of them using estimated readings. To do this they use your actual readings. The difference between the estimate and actual reading is called a variance figure

They deduct this figure from your actual bill

It's a weird way of doing it but it works. Your never in credit or debit with them. Works for me