Symbio Energy feedback

PixelPound

Mister_G wrote: »

I'm afraid that Green. are £70 a year more for me. Plus I've got a £25 exit fee from Symbio.

Think I'll stick with them for now.

Did you not get the email about how they were using summer consolidation figures as it stated they would waive the fee if you wanted to leave.

tk47

24 hours on, and not a word of a response from Symbio to me yet.

I was hoping my individual Account Manager would have contacted me by now to discuss the issues and propose a resolution, but no. :cool:

However, I do see the supplier has found the time to post on numerous other social media & review sites, in an attempt to defend the indefensible.

They even admit that "Due to high call volumes yesterday we have missed out on a lot of important calls from our valued customers." but that "we will have one of our executives call you back within 1-2 business days and help you with all your queries"

What's happened to my individual Account Manager? :huh:

Perhjaps if they put as much time & effort into addressing the individual queries of their 'valued customers', they would make more progress?

Anyway 1-2 business days is a reduction in the 72-96 hours they were quoting yesterday.

Now if they can sort out reduction in the amount they intend to collect on Thursday by about the same percentage, I'll be happy.

Or maybe I will be sorting it out at 9am with my local bank manager?
I wonder how long it will take Symbio then to contact me, realising that 50% of something is always better than 100% of nothing.

Steve_xx

nic_c wrote: »

Did you not get the email about how they were using summer consolidation figures as it stated they would waive the fee if you wanted to leave.

Well spotted. I received this email on 1 December 2019. The relevant section of the email is as follows:

"In the event we have disappointed you too much, we are happy to waive our exit fee (if applicable) and will assist you in moving to another supplier.

Once again, thank you for your support and we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Kind regards,
The Symbio Energy Quality Assurance Team"

Steve_xx

tk47 wrote: »

24 hours on, and not a word of a response from Symbio to me yet.

I was hoping my individual Account Manager would have contacted me by now to discuss the issues and propose a resolution, but no. :cool:

However, I do see the supplier has found the time to post on numerous other social media & review sites, in an attempt to defend the indefensible.

They even admit that "Due to high call volumes yesterday we have missed out on a lot of important calls from our valued customers." but that "we will have one of our executives call you back within 1-2 business days and help you with all your queries"

What's happened to my individual Account Manager? :huh:

Perhjaps if they put as much time & effort into addressing the individual queries of their 'valued customers', they would make more progress?

Anyway 1-2 business days is a reduction in the 72-96 hours they were quoting yesterday.

Now if they can sort out reduction in the amount they intend to collect on Thursday by about the same percentage, I'll be happy.

Or maybe I will be sorting it out at 9am with my local bank manager?
I wonder how long it will take Symbio then to contact me, realising that 50% of something is always better than 100% of nothing.

I think the problem with response times will in part be due to the huge amount of negative publicity received on forums such as this. I am sure that they will have received an immense amount of messages from customers regarding the revision of the bills. I think it will take them some time to respond to customers based on this increased volume.

I think it would serve Symbio well to post a message on their website to inform customers that they are aware that there is some issue with the billing.

griffb

tk47 wrote: »

However, I do see the supplier has found the time to post on numerous other social media & review sites, in an attempt to defend the indefensible.

They have been copy/pasting the same feeble excuse onto all the negative reviews on Trustpilot, basically saying the problem won't occur if you give regular meter readings on the last day of each month to establish actual usage. I have pointed out in my review that this simply isn't true.

Mister_G

nic_c wrote: »

Did you not get the email about how they were using summer consolidation figures as it stated they would waive the fee if you wanted to leave.

I did. In fact, the amount that they have billed me to date (September to end December 2019) is more or less exactly what I have used - so no complaints there. It's just the January estimate that seems wildly out, despite me submitting regular monthly meter reads.

tk47

griffb wrote: »

They have been copy/pasting the same feeble excuse onto all the negative reviews on Trustpilot, basically saying the problem won't occur if you give regular meter readings on the last day of each month to establish actual usage. I have pointed out in my review that this simply isn't true.

I agree, it almost certainly is not true.

Symbio have had a meter reading from me on the last day of every month they have supplied me. i.e since last Summer.

I also had the email at the beginning of December from their Quality Assurance department.

That at least warned me prior to receiving December's bill that an increase was likely, and indeed their estimated bill was about 33% higher than most previous months.

But what I don't understand is why they now think I will use about 70% more electricity in January than they assumed I would use in December, if there was any truth in what they were suggesting.

Of course, if I actually had a bill for January, that might explain things better but I doubt it; all I have is the Direct Debit notice.

Talldave

A cynic might say this was a blatant cash grab but bearing in mind they can neither spell nor do simple maths, I don't think they have the intelligence to have thought the idea up. In addition, they only have the cash for a month before they have to effectively give it back through lower payments next month.

Any shareholders in their company would surely be aghast if they were aware of the broken estimation algorithm that gives away free electricity.

molerat

I want to know how their billing system is going to reconcile the "underpayments" from the estimated bill these reset DD amounts will cause. The bills only seem to be able to reconcile under & over use from the estimated figure.

couriervanman

molerat wrote: »

I want to know how their billing system is going to reconcile the "underpayments" from the estimated bill these reset DD amounts will cause. The bills only seem to be able to reconcile under & over use from the estimated figure.

Well if it cant i'll cancel my DD in February and pay what i owe on my own accurate readings