Should I cancel DD when energy supply hugely in credit? Symbio Energy

Admiral_Barbarossa

Be careful if you cancel your direct debit, you could in in breach of your tariff terms. Use your log in to adjust the DD or even get your balance reduced.

My big six supplier adjusts my bill every year, gives me good rates (not switched in twenty years) and refunds excess balance! I have to do nothing except update meter readings!

Egbert

niktheguru said:

I really dont understand how you could have let it get to £800 credit?
Did you give them an accurate annual usage? (they always overestimate depending on what you inputted originally, so always best to underestimate your EAC)
Are you giving monthly meter reads? If so then you should only ever be 1 month in credit.

When you speak to them on the phone, insist to either reduce your fixed direct debit (if you have one and its too high) be firm but polite, don't get fed the whole " we will speak to a manager and get back to you", say you want to speak to the manager as you've been waiting long enough and your request is a simple one.

As a last resort you can cancel the direct debit.

Make sure you do your sums and check how much your account ACTUALLY is in credit, work it out based on meter readings and direct debits paid.

Getting a refund from them is difficult, but doable. Plenty of us have done it.

The main question is how long will they be in business for?

We have given them an accurate annual usage - they ignored it. We give them weekly and monthly meter readings. Despite us giving regular readings - and their system clearly showing our readings - the statements show that they are massively over estimating our usage - so they seem to be ignore the readings themselves. 

For example - say our monthly use in July was 300 - they have on our statement that we used 2200. 

My husband phones regularly and tries to explain it to them. They say they need to speak to a manager / the billing team and will call back. They don't. Or, variously and *in the same call* they have said they can see a credit of £78 and £350. They do not acknowledge our own figures or readings. 

We have emailed the complaints team monthly for about 4 months, and had zero reply. Now we have emailed Ofgem. But still, nothing is happening. And I guess the reason we let it go this far is because we cannot change the amount of the DD ourselves - they control that - and we didn't want to just cancel it in case as I still don't know if that's legal. But - at this point we will have to just cancel it. They are not taking another penny. 

My husband is very on the dot about our usage - we have records going back years. We know exactly what we used and what we paid - but their own statements are completely inaccurate and we cannot get them to listen. 

Swipe

Doubt they'll be around for much longer. The only hope of getting your credit back is them going bust. Just had yet another email from them promising to pay my final bill credit balance within 72 hours 🐷✈

spot1034

Symbio won't go down without a fight. I've heard a rumour that they are planning a reverse takeover of one of the Big Six, to be funded by profits from the sale of company branded T Shirts and baseball caps in their new Symbio Supporters shop. This will happen just as soon as they've finished changing banks. 

Gerry1

Egbert said:

niktheguru said:

I really dont understand how you could have let it get to £800 credit?
Did you give them an accurate annual usage? (they always overestimate depending on what you inputted originally, so always best to underestimate your EAC)
Are you giving monthly meter reads? If so then you should only ever be 1 month in credit.

When you speak to them on the phone, insist to either reduce your fixed direct debit (if you have one and its too high) be firm but polite, don't get fed the whole " we will speak to a manager and get back to you", say you want to speak to the manager as you've been waiting long enough and your request is a simple one.

As a last resort you can cancel the direct debit.

Make sure you do your sums and check how much your account ACTUALLY is in credit, work it out based on meter readings and direct debits paid.

Getting a refund from them is difficult, but doable. Plenty of us have done it.

The main question is how long will they be in business for?

We have emailed the complaints team monthly for about 4 months, and had zero reply. Now we have emailed Ofgem.

Better to use snail mail and get a free Certificate of Posting.  You need the Ombudsman, not Ofgem.

niktheguru

Egbert said:

niktheguru said:

I really dont understand how you could have let it get to £800 credit?
Did you give them an accurate annual usage? (they always overestimate depending on what you inputted originally, so always best to underestimate your EAC)
Are you giving monthly meter reads? If so then you should only ever be 1 month in credit.

When you speak to them on the phone, insist to either reduce your fixed direct debit (if you have one and its too high) be firm but polite, don't get fed the whole " we will speak to a manager and get back to you", say you want to speak to the manager as you've been waiting long enough and your request is a simple one.

As a last resort you can cancel the direct debit.

Make sure you do your sums and check how much your account ACTUALLY is in credit, work it out based on meter readings and direct debits paid.

Getting a refund from them is difficult, but doable. Plenty of us have done it.

The main question is how long will they be in business for?

We have given them an accurate annual usage - they ignored it. We give them weekly and monthly meter readings. Despite us giving regular readings - and their system clearly showing our readings - the statements show that they are massively over estimating our usage - so they seem to be ignore the readings themselves. 

For example - say our monthly use in July was 300 - they have on our statement that we used 2200. 

My husband phones regularly and tries to explain it to them. They say they need to speak to a manager / the billing team and will call back. They don't. Or, variously and *in the same call* they have said they can see a credit of £78 and £350. They do not acknowledge our own figures or readings. 

We have emailed the complaints team monthly for about 4 months, and had zero reply. Now we have emailed Ofgem. But still, nothing is happening. And I guess the reason we let it go this far is because we cannot change the amount of the DD ourselves - they control that - and we didn't want to just cancel it in case as I still don't know if that's legal. But - at this point we will have to just cancel it. They are not taking another penny. 

My husband is very on the dot about our usage - we have records going back years. We know exactly what we used and what we paid - but their own statements are completely inaccurate and we cannot get them to listen. 

When you say you gave an eac and they ignored it what do you mean. What is the eac written on your bill and on your welcome letter? Did they use a completely different number or is the one you gave written on it.

Depending on what you gave as your eac, they over estimate your monthly usage for the next month by 20-50%, but as long as you're giving meter readings monthly this should be reconciled so you should only be paying 1 month extra at any one time.

Are you on a fixed or variable direct debit? If its a fixed direct debit then the amount agreed is way too high if you're in 800 pounds credit. You should have insisted they reduced the direct debit. You have to be firm and persistent and insist they speak to a manager while you're on the phone with them (sometimes easier said than done I admit)

Are your readings appearing on your bills. Do you understand their overcomplicated billing system, if the difference between their overestimate and your actual readings being reconciled each month?

What is the credit amount on the bill (first page)?

You should have cancelled the direct debit long before it got to 800 pounds. Then the onus is on them to contact you.

The symbio billing method is unnecessarily complicated but quite easy to understand and work with once you get your head round it. I suspect they used a different eac right from the start and it hadn't been noticed. Then getting them to change it is a challenge.

Egbert

We gave them our EAC of annual usage. They seem to be using one they have made up themselves which is far higher, and will not listen when we tell them it is wrong. 

We have given them photographs of the meter on the day we joined them and quite often since to prove our usage. We give a meter reading monthly if not more frequently. Despite our clearly documenting our readings they continue to tell us our EAC usage is far higher. 

We didn't 'agree' a DD amount. They told us what it would be and refused to lower it when we said it was wrong, based on their EAC. We have insisted they reduce it - but at the end of the day what can we do to insist when they control it at their end and they refuse. We can tell them they are wrong and argue daily, but if they just refuse, what more can we do?

We have been firm, persistent, polite, written emails, phoned regularly. I really don't know what else we could do. As I said, we didn't cancel the DD as we didn't know if that was allowed in the agreement. Getting them to do anything is a challenge. 

Having said that - we have cancelled the DD now.