Octopus Tracker

Griffindog

Octopus clearly believed that I had a case as the end date was reinstated as soon as the problem was escalated. There was no discussion, debate or argument. This is what my app showed prior to February. 

I will not enter into any further discussion.

BarelySentientAI

Griffindog said:

Octopus clearly believed that it wasn't worth having an argument about.

Fixed that for you.

I'm glad you're happy with your situation, but it doesn't change the T&Cs of anyone else.

masonic

It is a matter of verifiable fact that the T&Cs said what they said at the point of sale and none of this other "evidence" existed when the agreement was entered into. A few individuals received some conflicting information subsequent to agreeing to the terms and saw this as an opportunity to push for this to take priority over the contract they'd entered into. Front line customer support didn't understand and did a fairly rubbish job of explaining the situation, and presumably an energy specialist had the opportunity to weigh in, but were also unable to clearly articulate what had happened and why.Had they been on the ball with that, who knows, maybe an apology would have sufficed. But what actually happened is, rather than enter into a protracted dispute resolution process, Octopus did some things ex gratia to make the complaints go away, giving each complainant exactly what they asked for. And it seemed like they all lived happily ever after for a while.

Doc_N

Moving on from an apparently interminable argument over the terms and conditions of an extinct tariff, is anyone aware of the actual percentage differences between the various versions of Tracker that have appeared?

masonic

Doc_N said:

Moving on from an apparently interminable argument over the terms and conditions of an extinct tariff, is anyone aware of the actual percentage differences between the various versions of Tracker that have appeared?

It varies by region and wasn't a percentage change. They loaded some extra onto the constant term, between 2-3.7p for Dec 23, then another 0.4-0.8p for Apr 24. So that would be very roughly 20-40% extra and 25-50% extra respectively, depending on region.

Doc_N

masonic said:

Doc_N said:

Moving on from an apparently interminable argument over the terms and conditions of an extinct tariff, is anyone aware of the actual percentage differences between the various versions of Tracker that have appeared?

It varies by region and wholesale price. As a very rough guide to the unit rates only Dec 23 took it up around 10% and Apr 24 seems to be another 5%ish higher. Though I've not gone through each region in detail. Standing charges also went up by widely variable amounts.

Thanks. December 23 is producing worthwhile savings of around 25-30% as against SVT, so happy enough with that, though Octopus are becoming greedier as they get bigger, and the customer service is increasingly poor.

Trying to get them to sort out a very simple move to Outgoing Fixed has taken almost a year so far, and we’re still not there. They are absolutely clueless on Feed in Tariff related payments.

masonic

Doc_N said:

masonic said:

Doc_N said:

Moving on from an apparently interminable argument over the terms and conditions of an extinct tariff, is anyone aware of the actual percentage differences between the various versions of Tracker that have appeared?

It varies by region and wholesale price. As a very rough guide to the unit rates only Dec 23 took it up around 10% and Apr 24 seems to be another 5%ish higher. Though I've not gone through each region in detail. Standing charges also went up by widely variable amounts.

Thanks. December 23 is producing worthwhile savings of around 25-30% as against SVT, so happy enough with that, though Octopus are becoming greedier as they get bigger, and the customer service is increasingly poor.

Trying to get them to sort out a very simple move to Outgoing Fixed has taken almost a year so far, and we’re still not there. They are absolutely clueless on Feed in Tariff related payments.

Having gone back and looked at the spreadsheet I made at the time, I misremembered the Dec 23 price rise, which was a bigger percentage based on unit rate alone. I updated my post above.

They are becoming a big energy supplier and have been growing too fast. Customer service staff are less experienced and probably go through a lot less training. I can forgive them some of the pricing changes as Ofgem has been busy meddling with what costs must come from each component of the bill, and these have been rising. But it is fair to say that these tariffs are no longer the loss-leader they once were. The whole business model is changing from one of customer acquisition funded by investors to build market share to one of trying to be profitable and return money to shareholders.

Qyburn

As well as updating the unit rate formula, December 2023 also increased the standing charge making it the same as standard variable.

masonic

Qyburn said:

As well as updating the unit rate formula, December 2023 also increased the standing charge making it the same as standard variable.

Yeah, the standing charge didn't go up nearly as much in percentage terms for Dec 23, so depending on usage brought the overall increase in percentage terms down. There was a second increase in standing charge for Apr 24, which was larger than the unit rate increase from Dec 23. From Nov 22 to Apr 24, both increased by comparable amounts, at least in some regions. There are so many variables, with regions, unit rate vs standing charge, and consumption, that the question 'what are the percentage differences' becomes a bit of a minefield. But it was remarked months ago that the changes made Tracker a regional tariff.

Looking on the bright side, standing charges are now aligned between Flexible, Agile and Tracker, so can be disregarded for the purposes of comparing at renewal time.

niktheguru

Octopus are now the biggest domestic supplier of electricity nationally, having overtaken british gas. So they're no longer just one of the "big 6" but in fact the leader. I've been extremely happy with them over the years. Yes there have been bumps along the road but they have all been resolved, usually with a phone call or twitter chat, tho scarcely via email as their email response times for me at least have always been so poor. 

Tracker is still a great tariff, but its not as good as it once was. I do not regret my move to agile earlier this year, have saved massively without much load shifting. Definitely worth a look for those who are willing to monitor when they use their energy.