Symbio new supplier

bsms1147

Set my DD a bit low. Better in my account than theirs.

jimjames

Mikebella said:

Wow so many people in the same boat. My main issue is that over the year of estimated billing from symbio I worked I have worked out to the penny that I overpaid by £170. I will now have to probably argue this with E.ON unless they have also worked this out which is doubtful. One thing I won't be doing is taking any !!!!!! so any resistance or stupidity from E.ON I will be going straight to the ombudsman. Basically I've had enough of these energy companies being incapable of doing their jobs properly.

I wouldn't necessarily argue too hard as it could be shooting yourself in the foot. If you've overpaid at 12p per unit you don't really want to be paying for the same electricity at 20p per unit instead.

emmajones1976

Will be trying to ring them this morning to see if they actually want my money, no reply on social media from them and the web portal still broken.

emmajones1976

^^^^got through on the phone. Apparently nobody who moved across from Symbio will be able to make a debit card payment online until the 28th November as the accounts wont be fully set up until then.

wittynamegoeshere

bsms1147 said:

Set my DD a bit low. Better in my account than theirs.

I'd worry that they'd overshoot in correcting the amount if you go into deficit, so you end up paying more than you would if you'd been more generous.  But, be warned, you can only increase the amount, not reduce it without talking to them.

I've set mine quite (over) generously, as it should work out pretty neatly that the extra that Symbio charged should pretty much zero out my usage by the end of this month, I cancelled my DD so won't have paid for 2 months.  Others who weren't overcharged as much by Symbio may start with a deficit, which may cause their DD algorithm to throw a wobbly as it may think that this is representative of one month's usage.

Having said that though, we used to pay Symbio for the estimated month to come, whereas Eon charge for the month that's just gone.  Hopefully this should mean that any missing payments are taken care of by this month's credit we all had with Symbio, even before they added their lies factor.

Mikebella

jimjames said:

Mikebella said:

Wow so many people in the same boat. My main issue is that over the year of estimated billing from symbio I worked I have worked out to the penny that I overpaid by £170. I will now have to probably argue this with E.ON unless they have also worked this out which is doubtful. One thing I won't be doing is taking any !!!!!! so any resistance or stupidity from E.ON I will be going straight to the ombudsman. Basically I've had enough of these energy companies being incapable of doing their jobs properly.

I wouldn't necessarily argue too hard as it could be shooting yourself in the foot. If you've overpaid at 12p per unit you don't really want to be paying for the same electricity at 20p per unit instead.

Not really sure what you mean. I've paid symbio for all I've used with them. What is owed is them over estimating my bills the money I am due will be for kWh I haven't even used. 

jbuchanangb

I guess we all got a bill for October calculating 31 days standing charge and some exaggerated estimate of energy (in my case 397.4kWh). Reality turns out they are only entitled to 3 days standing charge and likewise 3 days energy (in my case 55kWh). So 28 days of standing charge, and appropriate amount of energy charges have to be deducted from whatever the Symbio October bill said. Then subtract DD payments already made. In my case the October bill from Symbio stated that I owed them £21.73, but reality is that I am in credit with them by £23.12. I'm looking forward to seeing how EON Next sort it out. 

wittynamegoeshere

Anyone who didn't cancel their direct debit in theory paid at the beginning of October, as estimated amount that should have been the amount they would have paid if Symbio had carried on supplying them until the end of October.

So, in theory, at the end of this month, everyone will owe Eon for their usage in November plus the difference between the amount they would have paid Symbio and what Eon charge for almost all of October.

But Symbio massively overcharged me and many others, so Eon may still owe me money even though I cancelled the direct debit so haven't paid anything since the start of September.  All in all we should be somewhere around even.

I just hope that Eon are able to comprehend that Symbio's last three bills were literally thousands of units wrong.  The meter reading is still below what the've already billed me for, if you believed Symbio's nonsense you'd think my meter had gone backwards.

Mikebella

Symbio's method of charging for completely fictitious usage is idiotic. I had multiple conversations with them and they still couldn't get their heads round it. 

wittynamegoeshere

In theory it was reasonable.  They were a startup, so I was prepared to forgive the fact that they wanted me to pay a month in advance rather than after, this was all declared upfront.  I guess it limits their risk to defaults from bad customers, so is understandable.

The problem with this is that this meter reading in a month's time has to be an estimate.  So the algorithm for generating it could be a simple continuation of the current usage, a secret algorithm or a random number, you have no control and it's entirely down to trust.  Actually it was none of them, I think they had a fiddle-factor that they just kept increasing when they were running out of money.  When it got to the stage where last month's reading was 1000 units higher than reality they just started ignoring all my readings.  I think it got to about 3000 away from reality for the month start reading, with another 1000+ added on for the month end.  They went bust while I was in the ombudsman waiting period.