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

nikkijayne28

Newbie_John said:

masonic said:

TroubledTarts said:

tlcgrantham said:

niktheguru said:

I'm still waiting a month and a half later to get switched. Customer services have no idea and just say the "technical team" are dealing with it and we just have to wait. I suspect the technical team consists of one guy at a computer.

Thanks for keeping us updated. It’s obvious they’re still not onto top of failed switches yet. You should eventually get £80 for your trouble plus a good tariff. 🤗

As exciting as that is..... those combined £80 could ruin the Tomato crop forever.

If you look at how little profit companies make per customer it could be quite detrimental to their business.

These combined £80 will be annoying for the shareholders, as they are unnecessary expenditure of their capital, but even if the £80 is paid out to a couple of thousand customers (£160k), the cost will pale into insignificance compared to the cost of growing an energy company into a profitable entity. As a case in point, Octopus Energy required £253m in investor capital to cover its losses between 2014-2022.

I have exactly the same situation, 22nd is fine now but all the days after have random gaps, less and less with time. It was similar a month ago then eventually they were all ready for the 1st of March bill.

And regarding the £80, not sure how they pay it - I got £30 from Octopus for missing October bill (which yesterday finally arrived and they billed me 0 kWh for the last day btw) which was given to me in December.. and stayed in account for 4 months, which could be offset from monthly income - so it wasn't £30 to many customers all at once but £7.50 less income each month.. not sure what Tomato does, but nothing stops them from putting imaginary number into system for several months.

I’ve not been billed by Tomato yet but they paid the £80 directly into my bank account that the direct debit is set up with. 

Ildhund

Ofgem threatening another big stick

Suppliers to be penalized and customers compensated for non-communicating smart meters: Ofgem sets out new rules to boost smart meter standards and compensation | Ofgem

Another blow to Tomato Energy?

Bendo

Ildhund said:

Ofgem threatening another big stick

Suppliers to be penalized and customers compensated for non-communicating smart meters: Ofgem sets out new rules to boost smart meter standards and compensation | Ofgem

Another blow to Tomato Energy?

Probably not.  They will have gone bump long before that is in place. But if they have I imagine they will still be burying their heads in the sand claiming they aren't responsible for their customers meters.

masonic

Ildhund said:

Ofgem threatening another big stick

Suppliers to be penalized and customers compensated for non-communicating smart meters: Ofgem sets out new rules to boost smart meter standards and compensation | Ofgem

Another blow to Tomato Energy?

Perhaps more of a blow to Tomato Energy, but this is badly needed across the market.

colin79666

Coming up on 3 months since switching. Still no my watts data or bills. Octopus still haven’t produced a final bill either so beginning to suspect the switch never completed properly. What a farce. 

HillStreetBlues

colin79666 said:

Coming up on 3 months since switching. Still no my watts data or bills. Octopus still haven’t produced a final bill either so beginning to suspect the switch never completed properly. What a farce. 

Have you checked your electric network?
I'm still waiting for my final bill from Octopus, I switched beginning of Sep.

masonic

The next challenge for them will be the switch to BST tomorrow. Will they allocate pricing to the correct time slots I wonder? With the recent issues with data collection, we may not find out immediately.

TroubledTarts

masonic said:

The next challenge for them will be the switch to BST tomorrow. Will they allocate pricing to the correct time slots I wonder? With the recent issues with data collection, we may not find out immediately.

And here I am logging onto work for some 3rd parties naff application that can't handle BST to move all the schedules forward one hour as to not crash tomorrow.

I guess someone is lined up for Tomato with their software for early hours tomorrow night lol

Chrysalis

Ildhund said:

Ofgem threatening another big stick

Suppliers to be penalized and customers compensated for non-communicating smart meters: Ofgem sets out new rules to boost smart meter standards and compensation | Ofgem

Another blow to Tomato Energy?

This will affect all suppliers, they finally adding something for smart meters not communicating.  Of course its another thing for TE to get on top off. 90 days fix time is extremely generous though, it shows how much Ofgem is getting chucked around by the industry.

lohr500

Ildhund said:

Ofgem threatening another big stick

Suppliers to be penalized and customers compensated for non-communicating smart meters: Ofgem sets out new rules to boost smart meter standards and compensation | Ofgem

Personally I think this is long overdue.

I just hope Ofgem set the compensation level for non communicating smart meters at a high enough level to make the industry work harder to get reliable comms in place.

As more and more households adopt heat pumps/EV's and embrace the idea of TOU tariffs, it seems very unfair that some are excluded from the advantages because their meters cannot send the required 30 minute data.

I accept there will always be cases where reliable communication cannot be established.

But surely in the days of multi carrier auto switching SIM cards and with high rates of domestic internet access, there must be other secure options to establish a connection in areas where the current systems are failing.