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

MP1995

Do those that are moving to TE really see where they make profit, everything is under cap and the lowest rates seen anywhere overnight and lowest SC.

I wonder if they have come into a large backer like Octopus had. 

Interesting to watch from afar.

PennineAcute

lohr500 said:

PennineAcute said:

lohr500 said:

After switching to TE on the 28th August, rightly or wrongly I have come to the conclusion that they have launched their Lifestyle tariff and the associated myWatts energy tracking website prematurely.

They have so far been unable to answer what should be a simple question regarding the timing of the Lifestyle tou price bands. This being are they fixed permanently to GMT, or do they move with the GMT/BST clock change?

ie. If the cheapest off-peak rate is advertised as 00:00 to 06:00, then when we are in BST, is it still 00:00 to 06:00 or 23:00 to 05:00 ?

Customers have received conflicting advice from the TE Customer Service team, with some being told the timings are fixed to GMT, whilst others have been told they use BST through the summer.

I understand Octopus tariffs move with the GMT/BST clock change, but my old EDF ECO20:20 tou tariff was fixed on GMT. So different rules apply for different suppliers.

Also, their online energy usage tracking/billing website called myWatts is also not working for many customers and in my case shows zero usage. So it is not possible to verify what logic is being applied to the tou timings re GMT/BST.
Furthermore some customers who can see their data are now reporting discrepancies in the information around the rates and half hourly usage numbers.

All in all, it does not fill me with confidence that TE have got a tight grip on things.

From the screenshots on the FB group, it seems that they are working GMT all year through.  This being the case, knock an hour off all your start and end times.

From the FB group I am following, I'm not convinced. The screenshots I am seeing from customers who have downloaded their data would suggest that although the half hourly timings are being reported in GMT, the unit rates applied to those half hourly kWh consumption numbers are based on the BST time window. So for example, one customer posted a screenshot of the download showing high kWh usage starting at 23:00 BST, but the half hourly rate applied from 23:00 BST was the 5p rate. So effectively the tou billing is currently based on BST. 

I was looking at this one last night.  It certainly shows that they are using GMT time now.

Largs

I was with this supplier when they were know as Logicor. The MY WATTS portal never worked at all in the time I was with them them. So really you had to rely on the bill for any information which were sent at random points in the year.

One thing I will say, the bills appeared to be manual. As the addition on one was incorrect. Like balance brought forward £25 in credit, new charges £20 debit, payments £20 credit. Balance zero. They had show the balance brought forward but not included it in their calculations. 

I did get it sorted via ombudsman with extra £60. Just something to watch out for. They were very cheap as Logicor and I would probably go back for saving money. I am grateful for all this feedback you are all giving.

wrf12345

At the moment, electric is under 10p a unit and selling in general for 22p so there is plenty of margin for companies that are not making the real profit disappear into the ether as some of the big players may be doing. Be ironical, I agree, if a company offering a relatively low s/c were to go bust which in turn meant that everyone's s/c went up (but, again, it is only because of Ofgem that it is put on the s/c rather than the unit cost). My electric s/c is fixed until March via Agile Octopus and just moved to their gas tracker to fix that s/c for a year but also somehow have to recover the loss of WFA (which almost covered the cost of the s/c's), not seeing how I can do that other than not paying the bills... but good to see a couple of players breaking through the normal cartel pricing. If Ofgem tweak the rules, might even get Ebico with zero s/c's coming back into the game.

lohr500

PennineAcute said:

lohr500 said:

PennineAcute said:

lohr500 said:

After switching to TE on the 28th August, rightly or wrongly I have come to the conclusion that they have launched their Lifestyle tariff and the associated myWatts energy tracking website prematurely.

They have so far been unable to answer what should be a simple question regarding the timing of the Lifestyle tou price bands. This being are they fixed permanently to GMT, or do they move with the GMT/BST clock change?

ie. If the cheapest off-peak rate is advertised as 00:00 to 06:00, then when we are in BST, is it still 00:00 to 06:00 or 23:00 to 05:00 ?

Customers have received conflicting advice from the TE Customer Service team, with some being told the timings are fixed to GMT, whilst others have been told they use BST through the summer.

I understand Octopus tariffs move with the GMT/BST clock change, but my old EDF ECO20:20 tou tariff was fixed on GMT. So different rules apply for different suppliers.

Also, their online energy usage tracking/billing website called myWatts is also not working for many customers and in my case shows zero usage. So it is not possible to verify what logic is being applied to the tou timings re GMT/BST.
Furthermore some customers who can see their data are now reporting discrepancies in the information around the rates and half hourly usage numbers.

All in all, it does not fill me with confidence that TE have got a tight grip on things.

From the screenshots on the FB group, it seems that they are working GMT all year through.  This being the case, knock an hour off all your start and end times.

From the FB group I am following, I'm not convinced. The screenshots I am seeing from customers who have downloaded their data would suggest that although the half hourly timings are being reported in GMT, the unit rates applied to those half hourly kWh consumption numbers are based on the BST time window. So for example, one customer posted a screenshot of the download showing high kWh usage starting at 23:00 BST, but the half hourly rate applied from 23:00 BST was the 5p rate. So effectively the tou billing is currently based on BST. 

I was looking at this one last night.  It certainly shows that they are using GMT time now.

Yes, the settlement times are GMT, but look at the unit cost that TE have applied.
The 5p unit cost has been applied between 23:00 and 05:00 GMT which equates to 00:00 to 06:00 BST.

So they are treating consumption between 23:00 and 05:00 GMT as off peak. 
Or as we are now in BST, 00:00 to 06:00 BST.

I still believe the tou times are based on the clock for the time of year, not GMT.

If it was GMT all the time, the table above would show 13p for the 23:00 and 23:30 half hour slots and 5p for the 05:00 and 05:30 slots. 

PennineAcute

lohr500 said:

PennineAcute said:

lohr500 said:

PennineAcute said:

lohr500 said:

After switching to TE on the 28th August, rightly or wrongly I have come to the conclusion that they have launched their Lifestyle tariff and the associated myWatts energy tracking website prematurely.

They have so far been unable to answer what should be a simple question regarding the timing of the Lifestyle tou price bands. This being are they fixed permanently to GMT, or do they move with the GMT/BST clock change?

ie. If the cheapest off-peak rate is advertised as 00:00 to 06:00, then when we are in BST, is it still 00:00 to 06:00 or 23:00 to 05:00 ?

Customers have received conflicting advice from the TE Customer Service team, with some being told the timings are fixed to GMT, whilst others have been told they use BST through the summer.

I understand Octopus tariffs move with the GMT/BST clock change, but my old EDF ECO20:20 tou tariff was fixed on GMT. So different rules apply for different suppliers.

Also, their online energy usage tracking/billing website called myWatts is also not working for many customers and in my case shows zero usage. So it is not possible to verify what logic is being applied to the tou timings re GMT/BST.
Furthermore some customers who can see their data are now reporting discrepancies in the information around the rates and half hourly usage numbers.

All in all, it does not fill me with confidence that TE have got a tight grip on things.

From the screenshots on the FB group, it seems that they are working GMT all year through.  This being the case, knock an hour off all your start and end times.

From the FB group I am following, I'm not convinced. The screenshots I am seeing from customers who have downloaded their data would suggest that although the half hourly timings are being reported in GMT, the unit rates applied to those half hourly kWh consumption numbers are based on the BST time window. So for example, one customer posted a screenshot of the download showing high kWh usage starting at 23:00 BST, but the half hourly rate applied from 23:00 BST was the 5p rate. So effectively the tou billing is currently based on BST. 

I was looking at this one last night.  It certainly shows that they are using GMT time now.

Yes, the settlement times are GMT, but look at the unit cost that TE have applied.
The 5p unit cost has been applied between 23:00 and 05:00 GMT which equates to 00:00 to 06:00 BST.

So they are treating consumption between 23:00 and 05:00 GMT as off peak. 
Or as we are now in BST, 00:00 to 06:00 BST.

I still believe the tou times are based on the clock for the time of year, not GMT.

If it was GMT all the time, the table above would show 13p for the 23:00 and 23:30 half hour slots and 5p for the 05:00 and 05:30 slots. 

The advertised hours for the 13p rate is 22:00 to 00:00.  As they seem to be working in GMT, converting from BST to GMT gives you 21:00 to 23:00.  This ties in with the image.

What does seem to be of concern to me, is there also seems to be a 30 minute discrepancy.  I would assume that the stated 5.744 consumption at 23:30 GMT would have been used during 23:00 GMT.

This then knocks another 30 minutes off the hour already knocked off. 

By my reckoning, the 5p rate runs from 22:30 to 04:30 all year round.

It does not look good - still contemplating contacting Octopus and putting a block on the move until this is all sorted.

edit.

I have phoned Octopus and asked for a block to be put on the move.  If they can sort out this mess, I will return.

lohr500

It is getting really messy, especially the 30 minute discrepancy.

Put aside the GMT/BST issue for the time being : 

After pouring over my own data from myWatts now that I can access it, I am pretty sure the 30 minute difference is caused by the way TE are interpreting the timestamp on the raw meter data.

My understanding is that the half hourly time stamp on the meter holds the kWh usage from the preceding half hour that has just passed. This is how the n3rgy data download presents the data and I can verify this using my own high usage data over a fixed 6 hour period each day under my careful control.

In the spreadsheet example above, there is 4.366kWh logged at time 05:00 on Sun Sep 8.

TE are assuming that the 4.366kWh covers the period from 05:00 to 05:30 and are applying the higher 22p rate.
When in fact it actually covers the half hour from 04:30 to 05:00 and should be charged at 5p.

By the same logic, they are undercharging for the period time stamped at 23:00 each day!

I have sent yet another email to them asking for clarification, as have several other customers on the TE facebook page who agree that the tou unit costs are out of sync with the consumption times.

PennineAcute

To be honest, I am wondering what other gremlins may be in their system.

I know that Agile can have a 'moment' every now and again, but the issues with TE seem to be basic.  IMO, there has been a severe lack of testing of their system.

I will carefully watch this space and FB.  If these errors get rectified, I will join up again.

GingerTim

MP1995 said:

Do those that are moving to TE really see where they make profit, everything is under cap and the lowest rates seen anywhere overnight and lowest SC.

I wonder if they have come into a large backer like Octopus had. 

Interesting to watch from afar.

Neon Reef 2.0.

lohr500

PennineAcute said:

To be honest, I am wondering what other gremlins may be in their system.

I know that Agile can have a 'moment' every now and again, but the issues with TE seem to be basic.  IMO, there has been a severe lack of testing of their system.

I will carefully watch this space and FB.  If these errors get rectified, I will join up again.

I can't help but think that they have launched the range of tariffs and the myWatts reporting platform way before they were ready. The lack of clarity and delay in responses to simple questions leads me to conclude that they have thus far had very little experience in working with tou tariffs. 

I am getting very close to contacting EDF to ask if I can move back to my old tariff with them as I sense a train smash could well be imminent.

If they don't sort out the known and as yet unknown issues before the 1st round of billing kicks in later this month, they will be inundated with customers asking for repayment of overcharges. My gut feel is that they won't have the people or infrastructure in place to handle that and it will be game over.

I do hope I am wrong as we need challenger businesses to enter the energy market. But only if they are sustainable.