Tonik

snehuliak

I must post a dire warning about Tonik energy. It is impossible to overstate how bad they are. Since the end of last year, they have owed me hundreds of pounds in overpayments. I have been calling them by phone constantly, and emailing on many occasions too. Each time I get to speak to someone, they agree they owe me a huge refund, and will process it for me, I  even have an email from them on the 8th May, stating they have processed a refund of £800, and it will reach my bank account in 3-5 days. Over a month later, not one penny has been refunded. I have repeatedly told them I am disabled with epilepsy and a heart condition, and the stress of them withholding such a large sum of money has caused so much anxiety, it has affected my health. They simply won’t pay back the money that they acknowledge they owe me, I can’t afford to let them keep it. I implore anyone reading this to look at trustpilot forum regarding Tonik, there are countless victims of Tonik’s foul play. Under no circumstances consider using Tonik.

Gerry1

Welcome to the forum.

Why stay with Tonik?  Ofgem regulations mean that they must send the final bill within six weeks (compo if not) and then send the refund within a further two weeks (compo if not).

Do a wider market search starting with Citizens Advice and 'Switch with Which?'.  Just compare annual costs based on your annual usage from actual meter readings, and ignore all projections and claims of savings.  Remember that separate suppliers can be cheaper.

Alternatively you could submit a formal complaint (preferably via Royal Mail with a certificate of posting) and then go to the Ombudsman upon receipt of a deadlock letter or after eight weeks.  This might be worthwhile if there are exit fees, but obviously it will take longer.

You may also wish to choose a supplier who lets you pay with Variable Direct Debit.  No silly amounts of credit building up, but obviously bills will be higher in winter.

Talldave

Why did you let such a large balance build up???

inspectorperez

snehuliak said:

I must post a dire warning about Tonik energy. It is impossible to overstate how bad they are. Since the end of last year, they have owed me hundreds of pounds in overpayments. I have been calling them by phone constantly, and emailing on many occasions too. Each time I get to speak to someone, they agree they owe me a huge refund, and will process it for me, I  even have an email from them on the 8th May, stating they have processed a refund of £800, and it will reach my bank account in 3-5 days. Over a month later, not one penny has been refunded. I have repeatedly told them I am disabled with epilepsy and a heart condition, and the stress of them withholding such a large sum of money has caused so much anxiety, it has affected my health. They simply won’t pay back the money that they acknowledge they owe me, I can’t afford to let them keep it. I implore anyone reading this to look at trustpilot forum regarding Tonik, there are countless victims of Tonik’s foul play. Under no circumstances consider using Tonik.

This appears to be your first post, so I'm not sure how you ended up here.

Your post describes a tale which has been repeated many times by many other current and former Tonik customers on a variety of forums including this one, Trustpilot, Facebook and Twitter.

The anecdotes of which there are hundreds paint a picture of a totally dysfunctional company. And yet, up till circa December 2019, it was delivering a first class service it seems, with good customer service, competitive tariffs, and an intuitive website which was very user friendly.

Since then, it has become a disaster, causing much stress and anxiety for many honest and diligent customers who have struggled with absence of requests for meter readings, monthly statements, refunds when due, communication failures, you name it ......

The company would have us believe that it is all down to a migration of computer platforms and everything will be alright shortly - or those famous words "oops there must have been an error" appearing when customers log in or words to that effect.

The truth is, and as recorded in the public domain - two out of four senior directors resigned in November 2019 and February 2020 and have not been replaced. The company is totally insolvent and the auditors expressed the view that it may not survive the next 12 months without further funding. They acknowledge that their main key performance indicator is positive reviews on Trustpilot, which is flooded from time to time with the most amazing 5 star reviews you have ever seen, but more often than not, from contributors who seem to have difficulty with spelling and probably their first Trustpilot review ever.

But, is it all bad news? Well I wonder?

Retig Limited, the company which owns Tonik has very recently lodged a new Memorandum and Articles of Association at Companies House, together with details of an Ordinary Resolution giving share rights to the tune of £10M to BP Gas marketing Limited if my interpretation is correct

Maybe this is the cavalry coming to the rescue. I really hope so and I do hope that OFGEM are in the loop about what is going on.

I fully understand the need for commercial sensitivities when deals are being structured, but Tonik really have given their loyal customers a seriously hard time and could have been much more transparent.

I hope this is shortly coming to an end.

I also hope that this is in some way helpful to OP to provide some ray of light at the end of the tunnel

snehuliak

thank you inspectorperez. This is my first post, I’m new to this kind of thing, the only forum I have written on before is trustpilot, again to warn people of the fate that awaits those who join tonik. I consider it a duty to warn as many people as possible to stay well away. I am grateful for your comments because it gives me hope that someone reads these threads and hopefully together we can help decent, honest people avoid being robbed.

snehuliak

Gerry1 said:

Welcome to the forum.

Why stay with Tonik?  Ofgem regulations mean that they must send the final bill within six weeks (compo if not) and then send the refund within a further two weeks (compo if not).

Do a wider market search starting with Citizens Advice and 'Switch with Which?'.  Just compare annual costs based on your annual usage from actual meter readings, and ignore all projections and claims of savings.  Remember that separate suppliers can be cheaper.

Alternatively you could submit a formal complaint (preferably via Royal Mail with a certificate of posting) and then go to the Ombudsman upon receipt of a deadlock letter or after eight weeks.  This might be worthwhile if there are exit fees, but obviously it will take longer.

You may also wish to choose a supplier who lets you pay with Variable Direct Debit.  No silly amounts of credit building up, but obviously bills will be higher in winter.

Hi Gerry, thanks for your reply. I am switching to Octopus, hopefully complete on Friday. I have referred my issue to the ombudsman, but I had made the mistake of simultaneously starting a claim with MCOL, which I did on the advice of a solicitor. The ombudsman won’t handle cases that are already subject to court proceedings, so they closed my case. I can’t help feeling that I should have waited with the MCOL claim until after the ombudsman had tried.

snehuliak

Talldave said:

Why did you let such a large balance build up???

Hi Dave, unfortunately, the previous residents Of my house had used tonik and when I moved in, I agreed to the same monthly charge as they had and was fixed in for 12 months. I soon realised the monthly fee was far too high and so for the last six months I have been trying to get them to reduce the monthly direct debit and refund the large sum of money that had built up. Each time I speak to them, they agree that they owe me the money, say they will process a refund there and then, but then never actually do it. I even have it in an email, that they ‘have processed’ a refund of £800 and that I would receive it in my bank account in 3-5 days. That was 38 days ago. I have asked, pleaded and demanded my money back. I can’t believe these crooks are allowed to trade like this.

nmkpidelta

hi snehuliak, I am in same situation with Tonik, I am £200+ in credit with them, with no response to my emails, phone calls. Please post if you get any resolution with them.  

flash-heart

I moved to Tonik in April. 
Electricity was transferred from my previous supplier but  gas has not despite me sending meter readings. 
No contact from Tonik and it is impossible to contact them via phone, email or text.
I have now set up a complaint via Resolver and this will be forwarded to Ombudsman in 2 months if it is not resolved.
I am now paying 2 energy suppliers so instead of saving money I am paying more. Should have read the reviews of this company before I decided to switch. ( billing and switching issues seemed to be a general problem)
Anyway sent another email to Tonik with all meter readings and photo of meters. Dont expect any response though.
Cant now wait until contract ends so I can move to a decent supplier. Check reviews first!

Frein

We are in a similar situation. We switched to Tonik in August last year with a monthly direct debit set up. They have never sent a bill. They have never been able to process our smart meter, apparently, and they have asked for meter readings which they have not acted on. Each phone call has resulted in a promise to look into it and get back to us within 48 hours, then nothing. After calculating that we had build up a credit of several hundred pounds we cancelled the direct debit a couple of months ago in the hope it would spur them into action. It hasn't. We are hoping to switch again now and will then look at how to claim back any overpayment - if only we could be sure how much it is!

Catslovelycats

I've had no problem with Tonik and have been with them for a few years.
Then I got a new boiler installed in January and it all went kaput.
Since then, they cancelled my direct debit, stopped sending me meter reading requests, changed my latest meter reading from 8844 to an estimated 2466 and then 4789 and then said I'd used 4606 kw of gas in 3 months. I've been trying to get this sorted since start of March and nobody seems to understand the problem. They have corrected my meter readings but are still charging me the wrong amount. I've actually only used 146 kw gas since my January statement and can prove it with a photo of my meter but they are still insisting that they are right.
At the moment it's impossible to actually speak to anyone.