Tomato Energy (Electric Only Supplier) - Too Good To Be True ?

WibbleBaaaaaa

Boohoo said:

After I had issues with Octopus leaving meter readings being wrong which turned out to be Tomato reading given to Octopus I eventually got the last bill sorted.

I got my 1st bill from Tomato and it was spot on and cheaper than Octopus Tracker.

As for the meter readings on 1/03 it was more than the actual smart meter. Another read was added by Tomato on 2/03 which was double what I used for 1 day so I put in the actual meter reading into Mywatts and today there is another reading which is 51 units more than the actual correct meter is displaying.

I know they don't use the readings as I am on a TOU tariff but if things go belly up then the readings will be all over the place.

I give a meter reading once a week, something i learned a lesson from because when i had over £400 in credit built up on my Octopus account, i had to email them and had to almost beg to get £150 of it refunded back, and before they did this they billed me £45 for some unpaid bill from 6 months previous, and i had no unpaid bill, i was direct debut and paid the bills they issued, and that is them taking meter readings from a smart meter, and it sees they still cannot get bills right, so lesson learned, and i still give a meter reading once a week.

Ildhund

It's a condition of the supply licence (SLC 21B.4) that the supplier takes "... all reasonable steps to obtain a meter reading (including any meter reading transmitted electronically from a meter to the licensee or provided by the Customer and accepted by the licensee) for each of its Customers at least once every year." Some early adopters will probably be running into that deadline soon - what then?

JKS$(

nekr0mantik said:

JKS$( said:

I had my first bill today for 33 days supply. It's spot on for TOU.

Double checked the CSV file data from myWatts - matches Bright App data & my own records.

111.58kWh total - TE bill £36.01
 Staying with Octopus it would have been £48.22 (Flexible Octopus)

Really pleased I switched. I've always been a relatively low energy user, so to have a TOU tariff has really helped me to cut my bills.

how long after the switch did it take for mywatts to show data?

myWatts data showed either on the evening of the switch, or the morning after, I can't remember now. It's worked perfectly for me from the start, no missing data, no problem with weekend data.

Like others, my meter reads on myWatts are incorrect. I keep recording my actual meter reads, then a few days later TE adjusts back to the higher, incorrect level. 

Still in discussion with Octopus about my incorrect final bill, estimated on the previous occupant's historic data. It's not about the money (around £5), it's more about the poor CS I've received while I've been querying the incorrect final bill. 

Chrysalis

I have a thought related to the switching process.

First on failed switches, if moving from Octopus, you should get a sorry you leaving us email very quickly after the request to move to TE, if you dont get this email, then its not a good sign.  After this on the migration day, log on to mywatts, and on the first page is information about your meter, this should display 'MARI' as the current supplier, if it does the migration worked, if it doesnt then it didnt work.
Second on the hand over reading, the main reason stated that this has to be correct is to avoid paying for the same energy twice, however if it is a TOU tariff on a smart meter then you could end up just flat out paying for electric you didnt use even if it is an agreed hand over reading between both suppliers, as the new method is billed on consumption not readings.  The avoid double billing scenario accurately applies to legacy systems only.  The Ofgem agreement is one of many where they have listened to the needs of the suppliers and not taken proper account of the consumer. 
I have logged the concern with Ofgem, and had to be very pushy for it to be logged as they initially tried to just fob me off which is unacceptable.  I also reported to them about what happened with my final electric bill from Octopus, they told me back "any bill" is enough to avoid the late bill penalty, I then had to be pushy to get my concern logged that I think its a flaw, and that it has to be a "correct" bill within the time frame, otherwise it allows suppliers to abuse the system at the customers expense.

masonic

Interesting. I am tempted to raise a concern around automatic compensation for not receiving a final bill being withheld in the energy account, which in some cases is going on for months.

The final bill can only ever be the last bill that is sent for a particular supply contract, so if "any bill" is followed up with "another bill" correcting it, clearly "another bill" is the final bill. Suppliers seem to acknowledge that, but not automatically (customers have to ask for the compensation).

Agree completely on the issue where a change from NHH to HH measurement class can result in a billing overlap. The whole change of supply process seems consumer hostile and could be viewed as a barrier to competition.

TroubledTarts

So does that mean Tomato owe a lot of customers £80 compensation or more if this is progressed through the ombudsman?

Bendo

Almost certainly.  But given the ombudsman fees, the fact they are probably making no profit in the electricity they sell, don't expect to see it before they go bust.

Chrysalis

masonic said:

Interesting. I am tempted to raise a concern around automatic compensation for not receiving a final bill being withheld in the energy account, which in some cases is going on for months.

The final bill can only ever be the last bill that is sent for a particular supply contract, so if "any bill" is followed up with "another bill" correcting it, clearly "another bill" is the final bill. Suppliers seem to acknowledge that, but not automatically (customers have to ask for the compensation).

Agree completely on the issue where a change from NHH to HH measurement class can result in a billing overlap. The whole change of supply process seems consumer hostile and could be viewed as a barrier to competition.

I think this is why they wouldnt reissue my bill, it would have have been a paper trail (and maybe over the time limit), instead I got the credit (goodwill), which I accepted as was lower hassle to get the over charge resolved.

Bendo

They have stopped taking new customers now.

One way to avoid switches taking longer than 5 days I suppose.

TroubledTarts

it does make you wonder