Symbio Energy - check your bills vs direct debits

Streaky_Bacon

I have recently left Symbio Energy and am awaiting my final bill.

I decided to calculate what my final bill should be (based upon my closing reading) but also verify my billed usage against the direct debits that have been taken.

To my surprise, the total direct debits taken up to an including my October bill, seem to be around £50 more than the total kWh and standing charge amounts should be.

To be clear, I have used the following method:

Symbio's estimated Oct 31st reading (which they use to calculate the Oct bill) MINUS the actual validated opening reading MULTIPLIED BY the p/kWh (including VAT).

The total number of days from the start of the contract to Oct 31st MULTIPLIED BY the standing charge (including VAT)

That should be the total unit charge and standing charge up to and including the October bill, and so should match the direct debits taken up to and including the October bill.

There is a £50 difference, as far as I can tell.

I have checked the actual DDs taken from my bank, and also the DDs amounts stated in each bill. These seem to tally, so they do not seem to have taken an extra DD by mistake, and if a mistake does exist, it must therefore exist somewhere in the billed amounts.

I am going to wait until the final bill, and will then re-run the number again, because there is always the chance that I have made a mistake, or that Symbio rectify any mistake in the final bill.

However, I would suggest that other customers may wish to consider running the same numbers on their accounts, just to check that everything is OK, and to certainly do so when leaving Symbio.

Symbio's bills are notoriously difficult to read, so a quick sanity check of the actual reads and direct debits isn't a bad idea.

EDIT: Most people should now be able to use their bill with the Nov 30th estimated reading, and their DDs up to and including November one. As I have switched, my latest bill is currently the one with the Oct 31st estimated reading and my most recent DD is the one taken in Oct.

The_Fat_Controller

NEVER use estimated readings !

Robin9

@Streaky_Bacon That word ESTIMATED again - rerun your calculations with todays actual readings and you will get a better indication of any refund (or additional payment) due.

What annual consumption figures have you used in your switch ?

EDIT To add what readings have you given your new supplier.

bradders1983

Fixed payment direct debit resulting in a credit or debit balance at the end of the term shocker. Move on, nothing to see here.

Streaky_Bacon

Thanks for all the comments, but this is not simply a fixed payment direct debit not matching an estimated reading.

I have not misunderstood the billing. That is not the way that Symbio Energy billing works.

At the beginning of October, they estimate your energy to Oct 31st, and then create a bill based upon that estimated reading.

The Direct Debit is taken on the basis of that reading.

Regardless of the fact that the reading is estimated, the bill and the DD is based upon that reading (some people have opted for fixed DDs, but I, and most have not).

Therefore the DD should match the, admittedly estimated, reading.

From my calculations, my DDs do not match the total kWh + standing charge that they have estimated and billed for.

The total kWh and standing charge that they have calculated from opening up to the end of Oct, should match the DDs they have taken. It does not.

If you read my post again, you will see I have used my actual reading (although I am waiting for the validation) to see what my final bill should be. The point is that it has become apparent that the DDs so far do not match the energy + standing charge that they billed for.

This would, admittedly, be clearer for those that are with Symbio Energy, and it is those people that I was advising to run a check.

niktheguru

The main problem is Symbio has overcomplicated its billing process and has made its bill too complex with all the "estimated" readings on top of the actual readings that most of us give every month.
Surely the easiest way to work out how much you should have paid is to just use the opening reading you gave when joining symbio, and the closing reading you gave when switching away and working out the true energy usage and multiply that by the unit rate, then work out your standing charge exactly by calculating the number of days you were with them and multiplying that by the daily standing charge. The sum of this is how much you should have paid. Then compare that with the amount that youi've actually paid (on bills and looking at your direct debit amounts) If there is a discrepancy and it isn't matched by the final bill, then they will have to correct it.

From what you are saying it appears that your direct debits from the bank are different to what the "direct debit amount" is on each bill. If that is the case you should definitely contact symbio and complain. No doubt they will ask for documentary evidence of every bill. 
I had a disaster with them when i originally switched as they put my annual usage at 10x what it actually was, so i was paying a direct debit of a years worth of my usage in a month. It took many calls and email to get my money back. They simple didn't believe me and kept asking for more and more previous bills, meter readings etc, just trying to buy their time. Eventually they just said it would even out over the year, which i refused to accept. I had to get angry for them to finally refund me the difference.

Although symbio is cheap, their customer service isn't the best as we all know, and we all have to be on our toes eh!

Streaky_Bacon

niktheguru said:

From what you are saying it appears that your direct debits from the bank are different to what the "direct debit amount" is on each bill. If that is the case you should definitely contact symbio and complain. No doubt they will ask for documentary evidence of every bill. 

Thanks Nik.

The problem is that the direct debits on the bills do match the direct debits that have been taken.

So, the problem seems to be the somewhere, something has fallen through the gaps. As you have said, their billing is a nightmare, and I don't really want to take the time to figure out what they have done wrong.

I would be the first to admit that my calculations might be wrong, but I really don't think they are, total kWh billed x unit rate + total days billed x standing charge, is pretty straightforward, so I strongly suspect that the error is with them.

I'm not going to do anything about it until I get the final bill but it is clear that I will be in credit, and it is also clear that they will think I am in debit (my closing read is more than the estimated Oct 31st read that they billed for).

I just think its a good idea for other Symbio customers to run the numbers.

Talldave

Symbio billing works on a monthly cycle of:
(1) estimate
(2) charge
(3) get actual reading, calculate credit/debit due, add on estimate for coming month
(4) charge, repeat from step (3)

If all your direct debits match the bill amounts and your meter readings have been used in the consolidation step, then all is OK. There's no carry forward of estimation beyond one month when paying the variable billing amounts. The most you can be out (with them owing you) is the difference between their over-estimation and your actual consumption for the month you're in.

Many months ago there was a poster who was convinced he was being ripped off by Symbio. I put his figures into my Symbio checking Excel spreadsheet and proved he wasn't.  I think you might have missed out the monthly consolidation process?

Streaky_Bacon

Talldave said:

Many months ago there was a poster who was convinced he was being ripped off by Symbio. I put his figures into my Symbio checking Excel spreadsheet and proved he wasn't.  I think you might have missed out the monthly consolidation process?

@Talldave

No, this isn't a consolidation issue.

Would you agree that, if I:

1) Take Symbio's estimated Oct 31st reading from the October bill, subtract the validated opening reading and then multiple that by the unit price

2) Take the number of days from the first day of the contract until Oct 31st, and multiple that by the standing charge

3) Add up all of the DD payments that have been taken, up to and including the payment taken at the start of Oct

then 1) + 2) should equal 3)

?

In my case they don't. They are out by about £50.

matelodave

here are my calculations which come to a differnt conclusion to Symbio

I decided that the most accurate way was to work out what I'd used - initial meter read from final meter read, work out the number of days (note I got shoved onto a different tariff for the last month so I've taken the different s/c and kwh rate into account). Do the sums to work out how much it should have cost overall (without faffing around with all the random bills and estimates etc) and then subtract it from what they actually took in DD's

Symbio reckon I am only £20 in credit whereas my calculations make it £30.95. However I've made a complaint and threatened them with the Ombudsman and they threw £20 at me in short order. 

from	to	no days	s/c per day	cost	kwh	cost/kwh	cost total
02/09/19	01/09/20	365	0.14286	52.1439	7197	0.11429	822.54513
01/09/20	01/10/20	30	0.18095	5.4285	289	0.11328	32.73792
Sub totals				57.5724			855.28305
5% VAT				2.87862			42.7641525
Total cost				60.45102			898.0472025
Overall cost								958.50
Total paid								989.45
Balance
								30.95

Streaky_Bacon

matelodave said:I decided that the most accurate way was to work out what I'd used - initial meter read from final meter read, work out the number of days (note I got shoved onto a different tariff for the last month so I've taken the different s/c and kwh rate into account). Do the sums to work out how much it should have cost overall (without faffing around with all the random bills and estimates etc) and then subtract it from what they actually took in DD's

That's it. Cutting through all the billing gymnastics, by deducting the opening from the closing and figuring out how much should have been billed and how much should have been taken.

It's something that we should all do, now and again. To pick up any discrepancies.

It's clearer when there is a closing reading, but can be done before as long as you have a kWh figure that has actually been used to calculate your most recent bill.