Octopus Tracker

stripling

@masonic said:

1. They offered you the Dec 23 version on 17th March 

1. You replied to discuss options and didn't action anything at that time

1. The conversation did not include accepting a renewal on Dec 23 to start at the expiry of your existing fixed term

1. You saw the Dec 23 tariff had been pulled and emailed the same day to renew and they refused to honour the offer made a couple of weeks or so earlier?

1) yes. 

2) & 3) I was caught a bit on the hop - I was thinking in terms of how my insurance/broadband/phone make an offer a month or so before the end of my contract which, if I agree, starts when my old contract ends.

I only thought it was odd when the CS staffer asked me if I wanted to change the day I replied.
I said I wanted to finish my contract first because the SCs alone mean nearly a £250 rise but I made a big caveat in writing saying: "unless the prices or tariff is going to change". 
The response was, 'that's fine, we can talk about it nearer the time'. 

The entire conversation was by email with sometimes a week or more in between replies. No one replied to the April 3rd email either until I raised it on Twitter days later. 

4) Yes. Exactly. My argument is that they should've honoured the deal both because of the March 17 conversation AND emailing in April 3rd. Never mind the ethics of moving goal posts mid renewal and not enabling informed decisions. 

But this is when it turned a bit Kafka.
The 'higher up' person interpreted it as me demanding a backdating to December - she literally didn't grasp that it was the tariff running from December 6 to April 3rd that was named December 2023 V1.  

It went down hill from there. She then kept chucking things at me randomly in multiple emails - I'd had cheap energy for 2 years, everyone got moved to a new tariff on Feb 14th (no, not those with fixed end dates) she wasn't going to backdate a tariff by 4 months, I should never have had my Tracker rolled over in previous years - written in such a way as to imply I was cheating (everyone on V1/V2 did)   [🤦🏻‍♀️] 

I've politely fought my quarter trying to be non judgemental and clear but I've also taken the position it's a structural problem - the details in that screen shot should be in every renewal email and customer service staff should have process documents to follow.  
If you read my back & forth with Ms Senior Customer Happiness person - it's surreal - and shockingly ill-informed about their own product.   Sadly Ms SCH person was 'out to win' no matter what. She absolutely ignored everything I said.  

bristolleedsfan

stripling said:

@masonic said:

1. They offered you the Dec 23 version on 17th March 

1. You replied to discuss options and didn't action anything at that time

1. The conversation did not include accepting a renewal on Dec 23 to start at the expiry of your existing fixed term

1. You saw the Dec 23 tariff had been pulled and emailed the same day to renew and they refused to honour the offer made a couple of weeks or so earlier?

2) & 3) I was caught a bit on the hop - I was thinking in terms of how my insurance/broadband/phone make an offer a month or so before the end of my contract which, if I agree, starts when my old contract ends.

Someone renewing Broadband with BT, new deal starts from midnight not from renewal date.

masonic

stripling said:

Yes. Exactly. My argument is that they should've honoured the deal both because of the March 17 conversation AND emailing in April 3rd. Never mind the ethics of moving goal posts mid renewal and not enabling informed decisions. 

But this is when it turned a bit Kafka.
The 'higher up' person interpreted it as me demanding a backdating to December - she literally didn't grasp that it was the tariff running from December 6 to April 3rd that was named December 2023 V1.  

It went down hill from there. She then kept chucking things at me randomly in multiple emails - I'd had cheap energy for 2 years, everyone got moved to a new tariff on Feb 14th (no, not those with fixed end dates) she wasn't going to backdate a tariff by 4 months, I should never have had my Tracker rolled over in previous years - written in such a way as to imply I was cheating (everyone on V1/V2 did)   [🤦🏻‍♀️] 

I've politely fought my quarter trying to be non judgemental and clear but I've also taken the position it's a structural problem - the details in that screen shot should be in every renewal email and customer service staff should have process documents to follow.  
If you read my back & forth with Ms Senior Customer Happiness person - it's surreal - and shockingly ill-informed about their own product.   Sadly Ms SCH person was 'out to win' no matter what. She absolutely ignored everything I said.  

I had a rather different experience last year coming off the very cheap Go Faster onto Agile (while Tracker was unavailable/waitlisted). I had the same experience of email ping-pong with almost a week between responses when discussing various options (as I needed to change to something different), but the responses I received were very helpful and in the end, because I said I would be on holiday around the time of the actual expiry, the offer was that if I signed up to Agile now and emailed back, my tariff would change immediately, but before my next bill, they'd go in and adjust the start date so my existing Go Faster would run until its original expiry date and I'd be billed for Agile after that. Which was the ideal solution for me. They didn't have to offer that of course.

The independent nature of Octopus' customer service units causing inconsistencies has come up many times before. It can be useful in some respects, but it also causes confusion and makes the whole experience a bit of a lottery.

Griffindog

@stripling I found that my emails were not being responded to in February, we were going round in circles - when asked why they had taken me off a fixed period they said it was “because everyone needs to be on a fixed period” but I already was, just a different date and different tariff to the ones they were trying to impose. I asked for the issue to be escalated to a complaint and it was resolved within hours. I am now two months without a bill because they “are not able to get [my] electricity figures”. The readings are coming through fine on the app so I can only imagine that the daily rates for Nov 22 are not available (I can’t find them either). This will be escalated to a complaint next week if no bill appears.

masonic

Griffindog said:

@stripling I found that my emails were not being responded to in February, we were going round in circles - when asked why they had taken me off a fixed period they said it was “because everyone needs to be on a fixed period” but I already was, just a different date and different tariff to the ones they were trying to impose. I asked for the issue to be escalated to a complaint and it was resolved within hours. I am now two months without a bill because they “are not able to get [my] electricity figures”. The readings are coming through fine on the app so I can only imagine that the daily rates for Nov 22 are not available (I can’t find them either). This will be escalated to a complaint next week if no bill appears.

The daily rates are still available at Octopus and multiple third party sources have them, as was pointed out when you last mentioned this. The billing issue will be unrelated to the availability of tariff information. It may be related to whatever jiggery-pokery they had to do to prevent you being rolled onto the current tariff with everyone else in the same cohort. I wouldn't be surprised if the problem rights itself when your current contract expires.

MP1995

For those whom can load shift Agile is really coming into its own right now with these higher tracker prices.

Doc_N

MP1995 said:

For those whom can load shift Agile is really coming into its own right now with these higher tracker prices.

Maybe, but Tracker’s still producing savings of around 30% from the cap.

masonic

MP1995 said:

For those whom can load shift Agile is really coming into its own right now with these higher tracker prices.

Even for me, who uses 20-30% during peak, the cheaper days are tipping the scales in favour of Agile. Not enough for me to make a change. Over the past month I would have saved £1.50 with no change to usage. If prices rise above current levels, then it would swing the other way, but when I reach the end of my fixed term next year the latest formula or anything worse that comes in might well be enough to push me over to Agile. I might end up doing something like Tracker Dec-Feb and Agile Mar-Nov.

tlcgrantham

MP1995 said:

For those whom can load shift Agile is really coming into its own right now with these higher tracker prices.

We switched to agile from tracker in February and avoid showering, washing and drying clothes during peak periods but still do cooking. My recent bill dated 21st April showed I’d used 494.8kw costing £51.42 Interestingly that compares with the bill for the same period last year on Go Faster of 459.6kw costing £54.34. 

Griffindog

masonic said:

Griffindog said:

@stripling I found that my emails were not being responded to in February, we were going round in circles - when asked why they had taken me off a fixed period they said it was “because everyone needs to be on a fixed period” but I already was, just a different date and different tariff to the ones they were trying to impose. I asked for the issue to be escalated to a complaint and it was resolved within hours. I am now two months without a bill because they “are not able to get [my] electricity figures”. The readings are coming through fine on the app so I can only imagine that the daily rates for Nov 22 are not available (I can’t find them either). This will be escalated to a complaint next week if no bill appears.

The daily rates are still available at Octopus and multiple third party sources have them, as was pointed out when you last mentioned this. The billing issue will be unrelated to the availability of tariff information. It may be related to whatever jiggery-pokery they had to do to prevent you being rolled onto the current tariff with everyone else in the same cohort. I wouldn't be surprised if the problem rights itself when your current contract expires.

I have no doubt that it will all be fixed when I go on a new tariff but the daily rates should be available. They aren’t on the Octopus app or website, nor are they on My Smart Energy which is where Octopus told me to look. The most recent price I can see on there is Thursday. I get the Dec 23 rates emailed by Gas Tracker daily so I have a rough idea what I will be paying but Octopus really should be providing the correct information.