Tonik Energy

Malchester

I wonder if there is any way we could all get together to make a complaint, of something else, somewhere to get Scottish Power to face scrutiny

Annieddiva

@Malchester I blame Ofgem more than anything, they should have an agreement in place for those affected by bust suppliers & timetable next steps, rather than excluding us from all their agreements. I did Twitter this to them, but they just don’t reply. I presume that SP were the cheapest quote which is why they chose them, despite their pants trustpilot review.  Their Twitter team has been the most helpful! A huge learning curve if I’m ever in the same boat again....

worrywart_3

Bark01 said:

funkyfin2000 said:

@Bark01
You'll have to let me know how you get on with PFP - that's the cheapest tariff closest to the Tonik energy for me too but the customer service comments put me off! Shell Energy was next..... all more expensive than the Tonik tariff I was on!

Bad CS doesn't bother me, complaining's dead easy. I take photos of my meter around the switch date so I have proof of what my reads were at the start of my contract and that's pretty much all I need to argue my case.

You may not be able to cashback from the smaller suppliers, but the ombudsman payments can make up for that. This SLOR issue is the only issue I've ever had that will leave me out of pocket (just talking about the 25% increase * 2 months), I'm not worried about getting my credit back, but will ask for a good will payment to cover some of the 25% * 2 months issue. 

Good will payment from who? Scottish power?

brewerdave

Annieddiva said:

@Malchester I blame Ofgem more than anything, they should have an agreement in place for those affected by bust suppliers & timetable next steps, rather than excluding us from all their agreements. I did Twitter this to them, but they just don’t reply. I presume that SP were the cheapest quote which is why they chose them, despite their pants trustpilot review.  Their Twitter team has been the most helpful! A huge learning curve if I’m ever in the same boat again....

As far as I'm aware, the SOLR process doesn't need a "willing volunteer" to take over affected accounts. If nobody is interested (and I suspect few Utility Cos. want the hassle nowadays) then OFGEM appoint a supplier ,whether they like it or not.
Hence the lack of interest shown by SP, assuming that they didn't "bid" for the business when Tonik went down.

RRH

I provided my meter and bank details online to SP weeks ago. Still waiting for a welcome pack. I tried to register on their website for an account but I need an account number to register with. Where does this come from? Is it in the welcome pack which I'm still waiting for? The Tonik account number obviously doesn't work, tried that.

Edit - just been told by SP that it will be another couple of weeks until my account is set up. Fuming.

funkyfin2000

Some little part of me thinks SP are taking ages to set accounts up so all the good new energy deals from shell etc and the like are all gone...... GRrrr boils my blood! I'm sure it's not that, tbh it's probably because as stated the Tonik accounts are in such a mess it needs hand cranking and individual checking through every single one of them to make sense.... but.... you know how it can make you feel!

Annieddiva

brewerdave said:

As far as I'm aware, the SOLR process doesn't need a "willing volunteer" to take over affected accounts. If nobody is interested (and I suspect few Utility Cos. want the hassle nowadays) then OFGEM appoint a supplier ,whether they like it or not.
Hence the lack of interest shown by SP, assuming that they didn't "bid" for the business when Tonik went down.

In light of this - it sounds like Ofgem should even more so then have a timetable for affected customers in place for any new energy provider - so they're not dragging their feet over such things... considering we are on deemed contract, which means your supplier can't stop you switching (timescale in which you're allowed to do this could make a big difference if Ofgem said as soon as you're updated on national database) - instead of having to wait a further 28 days? 

funkyfin2000

Guys I checked if my Gas showed as Scottish Power on the link provided a few pages back, but the electric one shows some weird company like CADENT or something...... is there a better link to check if the electric is moved on the national database at all?

Annieddiva

@RRH - is it worth trying via @ScottishPowerhelp on twitter - as I found them far more helpful than Tonik dedicated team who only know manana?!
@funkyfin2000 - well welcome pack or no welcome pack - I'm looking to switch on Monday 16th based on LondonPower conversation re 17 day minimum switch which would have me going live on 3rd, hopefully I can do this online with whoever is top then, so can't be verbally told call back on 3rd by a different provider.   Does this help you at all re Shell?  ScottishPants won't let us switch any earlier....

Bark01

worrywart_3 said:

Good will payment from who? Scottish power?

Yes - in order to resolve my complaint ASAP and get it removed from their complaints reporting.

In other news I got my email from SP today (11th Nov just after 5pm) confirming my account has been set up.

Having worked with a supplier whose been appointed the SLOR I don't think SP are actively trying to be slow, the process is a complete mess. The smaller suppliers data handling processes are atrocious and the blame usually lies there. However bad the data handling was during BAU operations, you can bet it gets a lot worse once the company folds and then you have to factor in the people who have any knowledge of how it all works have probably left. A lot of them use a combination of off the shelf IT systems that work in isolation from each other and don't have any checks to make sure say the billing engine is aligned with their customer service portal. Cheap to set up but they are cheap for a reason...

My complaint with SP is the tariff being offered and the DD not matching it.  

My latest personal projection from Tonik was £1356
My new PP from Scottish power using the same consumption is £1524

Its a 12% increase so not as bad as I'd feared, but my DD is set to £95 so would leave me in £400 worth of debt after 12 months. The SP letter make reference to them reviewing the DD but not when they will do this.
If you follow a link on the email it mentions that the DD is set to match the one I had a tonic not what they would make it.

Please note this may not equal your current Direct Debit amount multiplied by 12 months. This is because we’ve agreed to keep your Direct Debit amount the same as it was when you were with Tonik Energy. Don’t worry, we’ll review your payments regularly to make sure you’re paying the right amount for the energy you use. We’ll let you know of any changes to your payments in advance

To a certain extent I can see why they have done this. If they had uplifted my DD by the £30 extra it need to be raised by and only given me 2 weeks notice there's a chance this might prove difficult for some people to pay.

Lets just hope my switch goes through painlessly