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

masonic

calleyw said:

Thought it was just me.  last full day 21st and I joined on the 15th Feb and still no bill either!!!

Unless you join quite early in the month, your first bill will be generated after your first full calendar month.

calleyw

masonic said:

calleyw said:

Thought it was just me.  last full day 21st and I joined on the 15th Feb and still no bill either!!!

Unless you join quite early in the month, your first bill will be generated after your first full calendar month.

I assumed that as I swtiched on the 15th feb that the billing cycle would be 15th feb to the 14th March.  But obviously not.  So will wait until I get a bill.  And keep putting the money aside

masonic

calleyw said:

masonic said:

calleyw said:

Thought it was just me.  last full day 21st and I joined on the 15th Feb and still no bill either!!!

Unless you join quite early in the month, your first bill will be generated after your first full calendar month.

I assumed that as I swtiched on the 15th feb that the billing cycle would be 15th feb to the 14th March.  But obviously not.  So will wait until I get a bill.  And keep putting the money aside

Everyone is billed by the calendar month at Tomato, not some arbitrary account month. You should have your first bill covering the period to 31st March within a couple of days of the end of the month.

barker77

Website currently saying “ We are temporarily not accepting new registrations or providing quotes for new customers. Please check back later for updates.”

Is this a new thing ? 

HillStreetBlues

barker77 said:

Website currently saying “ We are temporarily not accepting new registrations or providing quotes for new customers. Please check back later for updates.”

Is this a new thing ? 

Nearly a couple of weeks now.

masonic

barker77 said:

Website currently saying “ We are temporarily not accepting new registrations or providing quotes for new customers. Please check back later for updates.”

Is this a new thing ? 

They have been having problems with switching customers, and were being forced to pay £40 in compensation for each customer they couldn't switch within 5 days. They announced that they were closing new registrations for a month to focus on this and other on-boarding issues. I suspect it will take them longer than a month to reopen to new customers.

nikkijayne28

So I just used the MSE Cheap Energy Club to compare rates and it said my supplier is Ebico - I have never used them, nor heard of them before. As far as I’m aware my switch went over to Tomato a few weeks ago and MyWatts is pulling my data (and says my supplier is MARI). Can anyone make sense of this? I’m wondering if Ebico are something to do with Tomato, or if there’s an issue with the Cheap Energy Club.

(Tomato also paid me my £80 delayed switching compensation last week!)

tlcgrantham

Cheap Energy Club also has me down as with Ebico.   I’ve never been with them. Tomato has been my supplier for 5 months and also shows MARI on MyWatts which I believe stands for Marigold another name for Tomato.    Still very happy with having saved £300 so far on Tomato Lifestyle.

Gerry1

MARIgold is one of the former names used by Tomato.

The Ebico story is a bit convoluted.  It was a not-for-profit energy supplier (short for Equitable Billing Company) that used Robin Hood Energy.  However, Robin Hood (founded by Nottingham City Council) lost £38 million of taxpayers' money and was taken over by BG.  Ebico then partnered with Octopus but since last year has been a white label for Rebel Energy.

Unfortunately Rebel Energy seems not to be in Ofgem's good books right now...

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/rebel-energy-supply-limited-provisional-order, nor does it have a good TrustPilot rating.

More history here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78467210/#Comment_78467210

* Note that Ofgem has ruled that Rebel Energy must 'Refrain from all sales, marketing and customer acquisition activity, including the acquisition of any new domestic customers or upgrading of all existing domestic customer to dual fuel'.

SJMALBA

SJMALBA said:

SJMALBA said:

My switch supposedly took place on the 7th of February, but no data has ever appeared in myWatts; I was assured by TE, over the phone, and in an email, that the switch definitely took place, and that their technical team was looking in to the data issue, which they hoped to have resolved by the end of this month.

At @masonic 's suggestion, I've just put my address into my distributor's 'Who is my supplier?' page, and... Octopus Energy! What the ****?! 

What do I do now?

Contacted Octopus via their social media typeform, and have already had a reply, saying that 'Your supply has switched, I have confirmed this by checking this on the national database all suppliers have access to.'

Distributor's website not a reliable source, then?

What a shambles!

Emailed farouk.alhassan@tomato.energy, and received a response (not from him) stating, as before, that the switch has taken place, that I'm a Tomato Energy customer, and they're still waiting for a problem with the national database to be fixed...

Bizarrely, in order to expedite things, they suggested that I contact my DNO, to 'request they push an update to the Central Switching Service (CSS) from their end' - Not my responsibly, but I thought why not (fully expecting the DNO to say that they didn't deal with requests from end customers (or some such), but I received the following, shocking response from them today:

'Tomato Energy have been banned from taking on new customers in our distribution areas (due to non-payments to the DNO), however the CSS allowed them to process, but this means there is conflicting information each side of the industry for Tomato customers, and this is still being discussed on how it is to be resolved. The CSS is relatively new to the industry so I imagine this may be the first case of this scenario they have had to resolve, hence the time it’s taking for a resolution, but it is being regularly chased by the DNO.

Unless the CSS instruct us, there is nothing the DNO can do now for you and the DNO have actually requested to CSS that all Tomato Energy customer (since the cut-off date of 30th January) are ‘rolled back’ to their previous supplier – but this is still to be confirmed.'

?! 😲