Yorkshire energy ?

Phones4Chris

Just another update since my last one in the early hours of Friday, when the "Account Closed" banner was there, replacing the "switchover" progress bar etc. as my switch had completed. Within 24 hrs it got updated again, and the "switchover" progress bar was back

The "Latest Bill:" date isn't correct (that's the supply end date as noted above). The bill is to the 25th when I last gave a meter reading. No updates to the account since.

Today I got this email (after asking the Administrators about progress)
"Your final bill will be produced to the read of 12800, dated 5/12/20. This has been agreed with Scottish Power. Currently, the bills are in draft from, an yours stands at £31.07, which will take your credit balance to £46.79. We have completed a test batch of bills to ensure the systems are running correctly before we bill our entire customer base. This has been successful, so we are looking to do a second test batch in the coming days with a larger sample size. If this is successful, I expect the bills will be produced within the next couple of weeks, after which Scottish Power will be able to update your account with your remaining balance. 

Kind Regards,

The Yorkshire Energy team"

So folks it looks like a couple more weeks before most of our SP accounts are updated with any credits/balances.

MovingForwards

Seems to be working now, it's only taken nearly 12 hours to get logged in.

masonic

Phones4Chris said:

Today I got this email (after asking the Administrators about progress)
"Your final bill will be produced to the read of 12800, dated 5/12/20. This has been agreed with Scottish Power. Currently, the bills are in draft from, an yours stands at £31.07, which will take your credit balance to £46.79. We have completed a test batch of bills to ensure the systems are running correctly before we bill our entire customer base. This has been successful, so we are looking to do a second test batch in the coming days with a larger sample size. If this is successful, I expect the bills will be produced within the next couple of weeks, after which Scottish Power will be able to update your account with your remaining balance. 

Kind Regards,

The Yorkshire Energy team"

So folks it looks like a couple more weeks before most of our SP accounts are updated with any credits/balances.

This is very good news. If all goes to plan then the credit will be there by the time SP issues most of our final bills, which will avoid the need for us to chase them separately for the YE credit.

I've calculated that my final credit from YE minus final bill from SP should leave my account in debt by approx 1 month's direct debit, which is perfect given SP have collected nothing from me to date.

BedrockFred

Just tried login again and was able to see my account although SP added

ScottishPower

 

Login Issues

We are currently experiencing some technical issues which may mean you are temporarily unable to login to your online account or app.  
We are working to resolve these as soon as possible and apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Tranboy

Perhaps Mr Blackbeard should read his screenshot again. Uswitch say he is on the best tariff and they can't switch him to a cheaper one however......further down the page it mentions more suppliers that you have to switch direct not using the Uswitch website. On most of these comparison websites you have to tick a box to allow you to see all of the available companies available and not just the ones the sites make money from. I use the moneysupermarket website which shows a side by side comparison of your current and possibly future tariff. Box unticked I get to see Eon, Edf , British gas etc at the top of my list, box ticked I see Outfox, Symbio,Neo, not all have good customer feedback and my current provider Neon Reef with the previously mentioned providers way down the list, I know the comparison sites are businesses out for profit but their recommendation fee could cost unknowing customers hundreds of pounds more on expensive tariffs.

bagand96

masonic said:

Phones4Chris said:

Today I got this email (after asking the Administrators about progress)
"Your final bill will be produced to the read of 12800, dated 5/12/20. This has been agreed with Scottish Power. Currently, the bills are in draft from, an yours stands at £31.07, which will take your credit balance to £46.79. We have completed a test batch of bills to ensure the systems are running correctly before we bill our entire customer base. This has been successful, so we are looking to do a second test batch in the coming days with a larger sample size. If this is successful, I expect the bills will be produced within the next couple of weeks, after which Scottish Power will be able to update your account with your remaining balance. 

Kind Regards,

The Yorkshire Energy team"

So folks it looks like a couple more weeks before most of our SP accounts are updated with any credits/balances.

This is very good news. If all goes to plan then the credit will be there by the time SP issues most of our final bills, which will avoid the need for us to chase them separately for the YE credit.

I've calculated that my final credit from YE minus final bill from SP should leave my account in debt by approx 1 month's direct debit, which is perfect given SP have collected nothing from me to date.

Whilst I guess it's reassuring they want to do so much thorough testing.... I have to wonder why it's necessary.  Yorkshire Energy had a very good billing system in place that was working right up until they folded.  Of course they may be worried about processing 74,000 final bills at once, but every customer would have had 1 or 2 YE bills by now had they not failed, so it could have been staggered.

Of course they do need to wait for closing readings from SP, but anecdotally that seemed to happen very quickly.  Plenty of us here who gave SP our readings following their email found those readings in our YE account within a week or so.

rooster47

masonic said:

rooster47 said:

If SP can manage my final bill last week with opening meter readings, not so different to those given to YE early December, how come I'm still missing a final bill from YE? Silly me, administrators dragging it out to inflate their fees!

Wake up OFGEM you're being taken for mugs!

There are various options for dealing with this, including the failed supplier dealing with everything, the SoLR acting as agent for the failed supplier and managing the process, to the outright sale of the outstanding balances to the SoLR. For example, my last SoLR experience involved the failed company appointing the SoLR as agent to produce the final bills and settle them in exchange for the SoLR being paid a fee of 60% of the customer debts realised during the process. My final bill came from the SoLR and it still took 10 weeks for me to receive it.

One of the administrators duties is to realize the assets of the failed business. Finalising as many as possible of the 140k customer accounts with closing meter readings would both identify monies payable to YE (and owed), enable monies to be collected (or balances transferred to SP, saving SP time and confusion) and make the administration clearer and more manageable. Its very easy, and not too time consuming, to input numbers into a computer which does all the processing.

Why don't the administrators do it? Its a nice littte earner for them not to!

masonic

bagand96 said:

masonic said:

Phones4Chris said:

Today I got this email (after asking the Administrators about progress)
"Your final bill will be produced to the read of 12800, dated 5/12/20. This has been agreed with Scottish Power. Currently, the bills are in draft from, an yours stands at £31.07, which will take your credit balance to £46.79. We have completed a test batch of bills to ensure the systems are running correctly before we bill our entire customer base. This has been successful, so we are looking to do a second test batch in the coming days with a larger sample size. If this is successful, I expect the bills will be produced within the next couple of weeks, after which Scottish Power will be able to update your account with your remaining balance. 

Kind Regards,

The Yorkshire Energy team"

So folks it looks like a couple more weeks before most of our SP accounts are updated with any credits/balances.

This is very good news. If all goes to plan then the credit will be there by the time SP issues most of our final bills, which will avoid the need for us to chase them separately for the YE credit.

I've calculated that my final credit from YE minus final bill from SP should leave my account in debt by approx 1 month's direct debit, which is perfect given SP have collected nothing from me to date.

Whilst I guess it's reassuring they want to do so much thorough testing.... I have to wonder why it's necessary.  Yorkshire Energy had a very good billing system in place that was working right up until they folded.  Of course they may be worried about processing 74,000 final bills at once, but every customer would have had 1 or 2 YE bills by now had they not failed, so it could have been staggered.

Of course they do need to wait for closing readings from SP, but anecdotally that seemed to happen very quickly.  Plenty of us here who gave SP our readings following their email found those readings in our YE account within a week or so.

While the billing system was clearly very good, there are a few differences this time. For example, the final readings on which the bills are based have been sideloaded into their database via SP and based on what was visible to us until the relevant section of the web service was turned off and information from SP, validation took place from the YE side, which is not the normal way of things when a customer switches to a new supplier. An automatically generated estimated read was added to the database (as seen by several people), which no doubt had to be dealt with. Finally, the normal process that results in the triggering of a final bill will not be followed in this instance, meaning that some extra coding was likely needed to provide the functionality. With limited staff and IT support likely being retained, a testing phase is prudent and sensible. If I put my DBA hat on for a moment, I can vouch for the fact that I've been burned several times by a small code modification I didn't believe would cause any issues, and sometimes such an issue is caused by something peculiar to a very small proportion of records, such that a small-scale test is insufficient.

As you say, the final readings appeared within a few weeks of SP receiving them, but it was later stated that these had not been validated. Additionally, not all customers provided meter readings promptly. One of the prime responsibilities of administrators is to minimise costs for the benefit of creditors, so processing bills in tranches would require them to incur greater wage and consultancy costs than if they set a bar date for meter reads and do a single final bill run for all customers. There will be no need for us to speculate over this as the administrators' proposals should be published imminently and will very likely detail the process they are following and rationale for the decision.

Incidentally, it is the nature of administrator's responsibilities (minimising costs) that makes them unsuitable to get involved in dealing with customer-facing aspects of the SoLR transfer beyond data sharing with SP.

bagand96

masonic said:

bagand96 said:

masonic said:

Phones4Chris said:

Today I got this email (after asking the Administrators about progress)
"Your final bill will be produced to the read of 12800, dated 5/12/20. This has been agreed with Scottish Power. Currently, the bills are in draft from, an yours stands at £31.07, which will take your credit balance to £46.79. We have completed a test batch of bills to ensure the systems are running correctly before we bill our entire customer base. This has been successful, so we are looking to do a second test batch in the coming days with a larger sample size. If this is successful, I expect the bills will be produced within the next couple of weeks, after which Scottish Power will be able to update your account with your remaining balance. 

Kind Regards,

The Yorkshire Energy team"

So folks it looks like a couple more weeks before most of our SP accounts are updated with any credits/balances.

This is very good news. If all goes to plan then the credit will be there by the time SP issues most of our final bills, which will avoid the need for us to chase them separately for the YE credit.

I've calculated that my final credit from YE minus final bill from SP should leave my account in debt by approx 1 month's direct debit, which is perfect given SP have collected nothing from me to date.

Whilst I guess it's reassuring they want to do so much thorough testing.... I have to wonder why it's necessary.  Yorkshire Energy had a very good billing system in place that was working right up until they folded.  Of course they may be worried about processing 74,000 final bills at once, but every customer would have had 1 or 2 YE bills by now had they not failed, so it could have been staggered.

Of course they do need to wait for closing readings from SP, but anecdotally that seemed to happen very quickly.  Plenty of us here who gave SP our readings following their email found those readings in our YE account within a week or so.

While the billing system was clearly very good, there are a few differences this time. For example, the final readings on which the bills are based have been sideloaded into their database via SP and based on what was visible to us until the relevant section of the web service was turned off and information from SP, validation took place from the YE side, which is not the normal way of things when a customer switches to a new supplier. An automatically generated estimated read was added to the database (as seen by several people), which no doubt had to be dealt with. Finally, the normal process that results in the triggering of a final bill will not be followed in this instance, meaning that some extra coding was likely needed to provide the functionality. With limited staff and IT support likely being retained, a testing phase is prudent and sensible. If I put my DBA hat on for a moment, I can vouch for the fact that I've been burned several times by a small code modification I didn't believe would cause any issues, and sometimes such an issue is caused by something peculiar to a very small proportion of records, such that a small-scale test is insufficient.

As you say, the final readings appeared within a few weeks of SP receiving them, but it was later stated that these had not been validated. Additionally, not all customers provided meter readings promptly. One of the prime responsibilities of administrators is to minimise costs for the benefit of creditors, so processing bills in tranches would require them to incur greater wage and consultancy costs than if they set a bar date for meter reads and do a single final bill run for all customers. There will be no need for us to speculate over this as the administrators' proposals should be published imminently and will very likely detail the process they are following and rationale for the decision.

Incidentally, it is the nature of administrator's responsibilities (minimising costs) that makes them unsuitable to get involved in dealing with customer-facing aspects of the SoLR transfer beyond data sharing with SP.

Yeah I guess it does all make sense.  It's likely the same as some of the issues SP face on their side (sideloading of meter readings etc.)  I'm quite relaxed about the timescale, first experience of SoLR but I expected it would take a long time.  I'm not too worried, I've got all the relevant meter readings and account data so I know what should be what in the end.  YE and SP can get in touch with me when they want, I certainly don't feel the need to be chasing them!

masonic

rooster47 said:

masonic said:

rooster47 said:

If SP can manage my final bill last week with opening meter readings, not so different to those given to YE early December, how come I'm still missing a final bill from YE? Silly me, administrators dragging it out to inflate their fees!

Wake up OFGEM you're being taken for mugs!

There are various options for dealing with this, including the failed supplier dealing with everything, the SoLR acting as agent for the failed supplier and managing the process, to the outright sale of the outstanding balances to the SoLR. For example, my last SoLR experience involved the failed company appointing the SoLR as agent to produce the final bills and settle them in exchange for the SoLR being paid a fee of 60% of the customer debts realised during the process. My final bill came from the SoLR and it still took 10 weeks for me to receive it.

One of the administrators duties is to realize the assets of the failed business. Finalising as many as possible of the 140k customer accounts with closing meter readings would both identify monies payable to YE (and owed), enable monies to be collected (or balances transferred to SP, saving SP time and confusion) and make the administration clearer and more manageable. Its very easy, and not too time consuming, to input numbers into a computer which does all the processing.

Why don't the administrators do it? Its a nice littte earner for them not to!

The administrators don't generally do things like that themselves, they engage ex-staff and service providers, paying them to do it on behalf of the company. These are not costs they benefit from. On the subject of their own fees, they will tend to be very conservative in the first 8 weeks of an administration, because during that period of time they have no agreement on the basis on which they can charge their fees. The administrators' proposals will include a section on this topic so close to their heart, and it needs to be voted on and/or approved by the court. There are a number of methods that are used and it can become a negotiation. The most common method is the time-cost basis, where they do not accrue any fees for doing nothing, but they may also be paid by way of a percentage of asset realisations (good for motivating them to get a good outcome for creditors), or a fixed fee in simple cases. I suspect in this case the time-cost methodology will be used, but we will see what they propose very shortly.

If I were to be very cynical, I'd suggest that they might have done a rough estimate of customer positions quite early on in the process and used that to determine how much of a priority billing should be - it's of little value to the administration if the average customer was in credit.