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

bristolleedsfan

The reason T.E suggested as above is  consumers who emailed SSEN Network MPAS Dept had switch sorted out within 24 hours and back dated to when switch was supposed to have taken place . ( UK Power Networks will not deal with end user)

SJMALBA

bristolleedsfan said:

The reason T.E suggested as above is  consumers who emailed SSEN Network MPAS Dept had switch sorted out within 24 hours and back dated to when switch was supposed to have taken place . ( UK Power Networks will not deal with end user)

It was SSEN MPAS that I contacted.

masonic

SJMALBA said:

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.'

?! 😲

It seems like things are finally falling into place regarding the mysterious switch failures and voluntary withdrawal from taking on new customers. It does seem like not much has changed from their Logicor days.

TroubledTarts

masonic said:

SJMALBA said:

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.'

?! 😲

It seems like things are finally falling into place regarding the mysterious switch failures and voluntary withdrawal from taking on new customers. It does seem like not much has changed from their Logicor days.

This does explain a lot and does that mean the CEO was lying with their statement or just a  bending the truth?

masonic

TroubledTarts said:

masonic said:

SJMALBA said:

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.'

?! 😲

It seems like things are finally falling into place regarding the mysterious switch failures and voluntary withdrawal from taking on new customers. It does seem like not much has changed from their Logicor days.

This does explain a lot and does that mean the CEO was lying with their statement or just a  bending the truth?

I can't recall the precise words used, but it would probably be described as a politician's answer. As many of us suspected at the time.

TroubledTarts

SJMALBA said:

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.'

?! 😲

Reply from their CEO on this from Facebook

Ho Ho Ho... Hold fire guys. Hold fire. We are not going anywhere anytime soon! So no need for wild speculations! Although I am quite impressed with the sophistication of our group. We have decided we will use 1 month to clean up our space. That is our decision. That decision is in no way forced on us by anybody! Impressive investigative work but its not as you may have been told. 

We are having issues with CSS because our process have too many gaps! Gaps everywhere that causes customers to have a poor experience. Too many complaints. Too many erroneous switches. Too many customers trying us and changing their minds and telling their old suppliers to take back their sites.

CSS is implemented to ensure customers have a good experience and the reports on errors and erroneous switches were getting out of hand.

So we decided to PAUSE. We decided we will try and fix things before we create more mess. We had reached the threshold with CSS for Controlled Market Entry(CME). CME is a government program that allows innovators to enter the market with a bit more relaxed rules. Our numbers meant those business processes had to be now fully implemented. 

So basically everybody we had been working with(From customers to regulators to market supervision bodies) was asking one thing. We need you to sort the customer journeys out. So we decided to pause and build out that experience capability. We had proven that getting customers is not an issue. Lets make sure we can look after them. And that is what we did.

Around the same time, there have been some some missed DNO invoices here and there but nothing unusual. We just pay them before they get too upset.. 😉 Its just cash management - after all we are not registering new sites so the urgency is low..

All I want to say is, we are not going anywhere. We are just getting better. I have seen a report that says the number of unread emails has gone down from 9000 to 600! Now we are getting on top of it! 

So no doomsday scenarios please. Honestly, if we feel we can't continue I will be the one to tell you and thank you for giving us the chance. We won't be the first to have tried so no fuss... But for now, we are working hard to make smart tariffs the norm of the energy market!

masonic

LOL. On what date was that posted?

TroubledTarts

masonic said:

LOL. On what date was that posted?

Today in response to what Sjamalba shared

TroubledTarts

I do like the selectively paying invoices bit as a highlight 🤪😂

masonic

Reminds me of an old phrase I used to love. Chinny reckon.