Higher tariff for existing customers (Symbio)

DavidWB

As at 6 August 2021: Renewal email offering "Attention!! Loyalty Bonus Alert!! " with offer at 18.156p per kWh from 1 September 2021. On Symbio website SE02 B2 tariff is shown as 14.457p per kWh, but after very long call to Customer services they are not willing to offer loyal existing customers the rate offered to new customers on their website.

And despite their claim "Symbio Energy has been the LOWEST PRICED Electricity Provider for two years consistently including renewals for all regions" there are alternative providers such as Neon Reef at 16.498p per kWh.

So be warned!

Rodders53

Already been covered in the other Symbio threads here.

Easy enough to switch to a cheaper supplier if/when they try that one on me, next year

Reed_Richards

OUR TARIFF & PRICING DETAILS

3.4: The tariffs displayed on our get quote page are for new and potential customers only. Existing Symbio Energy customers who want to renew their contract will receive a renewal email with our renewal tariff before their contract expires. Existing customers will receive an email with a link to a selection of renewal tariffs. Renewal tariffs are competitive tariffs and not loss leaders such as Promotional Tariffs. Competitive tariffs are tariffs which provide competitive rates without causing an operational loss to Symbio Energy.

So Symbio now draw a distinction between Renewal Tariffs and loss-leader Promotional Tariffs

Petriix

It's really simple: switch to Bulb or Octopus for one month just to hoover up the £50 referral credit, then switch back to Symbio on the tariff of your choice. You can even alternate with putting the account in your spouse's/partner's name to obfuscate what you're doing.

greenguppie

Symbio seem to be playing all sorts of games over their pricing strategy at present.

I was looking to help out my daughter who lives in a small flat in East Anglia that has heating and hot water supplied via a community heating scheme. As a result, she informs me she only uses about 1500kWh of electricity per year.

From the Symbio website I was only offered the following tariffs:
Symbio Low Fair and Green Variable v1
Symbio Low Fair and Green 12M Fixed v1

Both tariffs were very similar in price.
The fixed tariff was 16.594 p per kWh and 24p per day. The variable one was marginally cheaper on the unit price.

That's not even very competitive for her.

Not seeing the SE02 B2 tariff referred to by the OP, I did another check, this time with an assumed usage of 6000kWh per year. Neither of the previous tariffs came up, but this time I was offered all the following tariffs:

Low Fair and Green Variable SE02 B2
Low Fair and Green 12M Fixed SE02 B2
Low Fair and Green 13M Fixed SE02 B2.1
Low Fair and Green Variable SE03 v22
Low Fair and Green 12M Fixed SE03 v23
Low Fair and Green Variable SE01 B2.3
Low Fair and Green 13M Fixed SE03 v21
Low Fair and Green 12M Fixed SE01 B2.3
Symbio Energy Standard Variable v2

I haven't checked all the details, but the Low Fair and Green 12M Fixed SE02 B2 tariff was 14.056 p per kWh and 26p per day. Despite the higher standing charge, that tariff would actually be better value for my daughter, but it's not available if I use the correct estimated usage figure.

So it seems that Symbio not only price new customers differently to existing customers, but also charge new customers different tariffs depending on their estimated usage, saving the most competitive tariffs exclusively for the higher consuming, higher profit customers.

Cardew

As said earlier, promotional tariffs are often offered to new customers only.

This dreadful practice is often used in banking, insurance firms etc.

spot1034

Given that, as the OP states, the renewal tariff offered is easily beaten by one of their rivals, I wonder if Symbio have failed to buy ahead sufficiently to cover existing fixes at much lower rates which still have many months to run and are desperately trying to make this up by inflating renewal prices. Neon Reef - until recently Symbio's main competitor at the cheap end of the market - also increased prices sharply but was a bit quicker off the mark in doing so, and maybe that is why they are now able to offer a better deal.

[Deleted User]

spot1034 said:

Given that, as the OP states, the renewal tariff offered is easily beaten by one of their rivals, I wonder if Symbio have failed to buy ahead sufficiently to cover existing fixes at much lower rates which still have many months to run and are desperately trying to make this up by inflating renewal prices. Neon Reef - until recently Symbio's main competitor at the cheap end of the market - also increased prices sharply but was a bit quicker off the mark in doing so, and maybe that is why they are now able to offer a better deal.

A year ago to the day the wholesale price of electricity was 3.332p/kWh, and today it is 8.542p/kWh. I suspect that energy buying teams across the Country are struggling to know what to pay in the form of hedging. Get it wrong and the risk of insolvency must be high on the Risk register. I suspect that a number of the smaller suppliers will go to the wall in the next few months - particularly, those who are not linked to power generators.

c.nixon

I thought this practice was illegal but obviously it isn't recent OFGEM email to me just "cuts and pastes" statements and state that its all generating the best deal for the customer.  ".... These are commercial decisions that suppliers must make themselves. Ofgem expects suppliers to explain and justify their pricing to consumers.".  Yeh right!  OFGEM also said. "By inputting their postcode or address on the supplier own website, consumers are able to access the labels for all tariffs available to them. Suppliers are able to provide filters to make it easier to consumers to select those Tariff Information Labels they are interested in seeing.  In addition, consumers are able to request copies of the labels from their suppliers free of charge."  Symbio will not even quote for existing customers.  It is years since I saw a page with all current tariffs shown, now we have to get a quote and give up loads of information (the supplier licence actually states as above ONLY POSTCODE OR ADDRESS shall be needed).  OFGEM need to clamp down on all these profit centred practices....I could go on! don't get me started on the Comparison Websites.

MWT

c.nixon said:

OFGEM need to clamp down on all these profit centred practices....I could go on! don't get me started on the Comparison Websites.

This is the energy business, it isn't a social welfare service, so you should expect the suppliers to be 'profit centred' so they can continue to stay in business...

That said, not all suppliers are as transparent as others, Octopus for example does provide all the tariff details based only on postcode and does let current customers move to any of their current tariffs, even the ones designed for the switching sites.

Ironically those very low prices offered by the likes of Symbio come at a cost...

niktheguru

When you go and buy sky or virgin there’s usually a promotional offer, similar with insurance, the first year is usually always a better offer. If you don’t like the offer available move on to someone else, you’re not stuck with one provider.