Help please! I'm due £370 from a bust energy company and they won't give me it.

ChrisxBates

Hello All,

On 3/10/21 my Symbio account was transferred to EON under the SoLR process.

In December 2021 Symbio sent me their Final Bill, informing me that I owe them £283 and promptly took it via direct debit.

On studying previous bills it appears that the wrong meter readings were passed across from my previous supplier, Outfox,  in April 2021.

 

I took meter readings around the transfer date and promptly passed these onto Outfox and Symbio.

 

Performing a calculation on these wrong readings of April 21 means that I am due £370. (The £370 accounts for the majority of the £283 taken.)

 

I have spoken to Symbio who claim it's EON's problem, EON claim it's Symbio's problem and Outfox don't answer the phone.

 

I have written a letter to them all asking them to sort it out between them, but have yet to receive a reply.

 

The Ombudsman doesn't want to know because Symbio has gone bust.

 

Can anyone give me advice about getting my £370 back ?

 

Thank You

 

Chris Bates

MWT

ChrisxBates said:

On studying previous bills it appears that the wrong meter readings were passed across from my previous supplier, Outfox,  in April 2021.

The meter readings used during a switch are frequently changed by the industry process, but the same reading should be used by both losing and gaining suppliers, so for this to result in you being owed money you would have to have started the first Symbio bill with a reading that was considerably below the reading that Outfox billed you for on their closing bill... is that the case?

Currently, the closing reading on the Symbio final bill should match the opening reading on the E.ON bill, is that the case?

If both those statements are true then your loss is between Outfox and Symbio and is not something E.ON can do anything about.

Your best bet would be to raise a complain with Outfox regarding not using the meter reading which Symbio would have passed back to them...

ChrisxBates

MWT said:

ChrisxBates said:

On studying previous bills it appears that the wrong meter readings were passed across from my previous supplier, Outfox,  in April 2021.

The meter readings used during a switch are frequently changed by the industry process, but the same reading should be used by both losing and gaining suppliers, so for this to result in you being owed money you would have to have started the first Symbio bill with a reading that was considerably below the reading that Outfox billed you for on their closing bill... is that the case?

Currently, the closing reading on the Symbio final bill should match the opening reading on the E.ON bill, is that the case?

If both those statements are true then your loss is between Outfox and Symbio and is not something E.ON can do anything about.

Your best bet would be to raise a complain with Outfox regarding not using the meter reading which Symbio would have passed back to them...

I didn't have a meter readings on the first Symbio bill. The first meter reading came a month after . I should have checked this and taken it up with Symbio, at the time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

The Symbio / Eon transfer readings alight and are correct.

.

QrizB

ChrisxBates said:

I didn't have a meter readings on the first Symbio bill. The first meter reading came a month after . I should have checked this and taken it up with Symbio, at the time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
The Symbio / Eon transfer readings alight and are correct.

Is OTM's closing reading at least vaguely consistent with the first Symbio reading you have? £370-worth of energy is a large amount, much more than most people would use in a month?

ChrisxBates

ChrisxBates said:

I didn't have a meter readings on the first Symbio bill. The first meter reading came a month after . I should have checked this and taken it up with Symbio, at the time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
The Symbio / Eon transfer readings alight and are correct.

Is OTM's closing reading at least vaguely consistent with the first Symbio reading you have? £370-worth of energy is a large amount, much more than most people would use in a month?

The difference in OTM's & Symbio's electric readings for 19/4/21 is 3310 KWh. (75% of my annual usage). Symbio's reading for 19/4/21 is wrong. OTM reading is correct. 

But I don't have a  meter reading for 19/4/21 with Symbio. I have a meter reading for 30/4/21 and an estimated usage for 19/4/21 to 30/4/21 (which is about right). So I have subtracted the estimated usage from the 30/4/21 reading to get 19/4/21 reading. 

MWT

When you moved to Symbio you were supposed to give the final reading to Symbio, not to Outfox, so that way the gaining supplier passes the correct (adjusted) reading back to the losing provider, so there should have been nothing passed from Outfox to Symbio, it should have been the other way around...

... did you make the mistake of giving the closing meter reading to Outfox yourself?

ChrisxBates

MWT said:

When you moved to Symbio you were supposed to give the final reading to Symbio, not to Outfox, so that way the gaining supplier passes the correct (adjusted) reading back to the losing provider, so there should have been nothing passed from Outfox to Symbio, it should have been the other way around...

... did you make the mistake of giving the closing meter reading to Outfox yourself?

Thank you for the information about gaining supplier giving info to the losing supplier I didn't realise this.

16/4/21 I gave actual reads to OTM via their online portal.

19/4/21 (Day of switch) I gave actual reads to Symbio via their online portal, and Symbio have ignored them. 

[Deleted User]

Any credit balance due from Symbio would be repaid by the appointed SoLR not the failed supplier. In turn, the SoLR will claim for all the repayments that it has made under the SoLR Support Payment scheme. The issue here is whether the SoLR has been given an accurate Final Bill? I am not sure that a ‘sort it amongst yourselves’ letter will suffice. What is needed here is a detailed letter to Symbio’s Administrator with the facts to show that the Final Bill agreed with the SoLR may be incorrect. That said, the Administrator may well opine that Symbio has used the correct industry-validated opening reading which was also given to the old supplier (OFTM) to close your account, and as no Agreed Readings Dispute was raised at the time then there is nothing the Administrator can do to put matters right. It follows that your only hope might be that OFTM will agree that it has failed to use the correct opening reading. The problem here is one party to the problem no longer holds a Supply Licence so industry regulations no longer apply.

MWT

ChrisxBates said:

Thank you for the information about gaining supplier giving info to the losing supplier I didn't realise this.

16/4/21 I gave actual reads to OTM via their online portal.

19/4/21 (Day of switch) I gave actual reads to Symbio via their online portal, and Symbio have ignored them.

I guess you don't really know if Symbio ignored the meter reading or if the industry process adjusted it to the figure they used and then Outfox ignored it when it was given to them by Symbio...

ChrisxBates said:

But I don't have a  meter reading for 19/4/21 with Symbio. I have a meter reading for 30/4/21 and an estimated usage for 19/4/21 to 30/4/21 (which is about right). So I have subtracted the estimated usage from the 30/4/21 reading to get 19/4/21 reading. 

Can you tell us the actual meter reading that Outfox used on their final invoice, and the 30/4/21 reading which Symbio used on their first bill, together with the estimated usage for the 19/4 - 30/4 period?

ChrisxBates

The first readings on a Symbio bill are on 30/4/21 of 6549.21 KWh((N) and 25032.33 KWh (D). 

For the period 19/4/21 to 30/4/21 Symbio estimates by usage to be 38.31 KWh (N) and 155.23 KWh (D).

Outfox's final bill 27269 KWh (D) and 7200 KWh (D) .

 

MWT

Thanks, as a minimum I would open a complaint with Outfox and ask why they failed to use the meter readings supplied to them by Symbio as required by the industry process?

Let them respond to that and see where it goes as they have failed to follow the correct process one way or another.

Meanwhile you can also write to the administrator for Symbio and try to contest the opening reading, but it is frankly very late to be doing that having not queried the initial bill back when it was first raised...

It must have been a lot higher than you were expecting at the time, didn't that cause you to look at it at all?