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

PennineAcute

lohr500 said:

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.

When is your move date?  I just got in touch with Octopus in time, as I was set to go live tomorrow.  I have emailed TE informing them I have cancelled and will just keep telling Octopus to keep blocking if they retry.

lohr500

I switched on the 28th August, so I'm already in the thick of it!!!

I have received a reply to my formal complaint regarding the lack of responses to my question over the GMT/BST time issues and the fact that at the point of raising the complaint I had no data showing in the myWatts energy monitoring tool.

A senior customer care advisor has responded very positively, constructively and with apologies in writing to confirm that the tou times are based on the local clock time in place for the time of year. So the cheapest 6 hour period will be 00:00 to 06:00 in summer and winter.

He also said he would investigate why I was not seeing any data in myWatts and would look into the 30 minute discrepancy in data that I told him I was aware of from seeing other customers' usage data.

By the time his response arrived, myWatts was working so I was able to deep dive my own consumption and costing data which fully opened a can of worms on the 30 minute timing discrepancy and the incorrect application of the tou unit costs.

I have provided him with various screen shots to evidence the issues, which in a nutshell are : 

• The graphical usage display in myWatts is not offsetting the data correctly to reflect the half hourly usage in each half hourly timeslot using BST as he confirmed should be the case.
• The tou unit costs are not being applied correctly due to TEs misunderstanding on the fact that the half hourly time stamp shows the usage for the half hour UP TO the time stamp, NOT the half hour after the time stamp. The first issue is probably interconnected with the second issue.

Hopefully he will be on the case tomorrow and will return with an update.

wrf12345

Not sure I want to spend my time looking at that much detail, happy to scan tOU prices and work with them accordingly but well done for getting so deep into things, if you get the right guy in the organisation (ie one not working off a crib sheet) hopefully they will be able to suss it and fix it. A good test of Tomato energy, I guess, even if they should have known what they were doing in the first place. 

Do they allow variable direct debit or have they done a British Gas and disabled it?

lohr500

wrf12345 said:

Do they allow variable direct debit or have they done a British Gas and disabled it?

A few days prior to me switching, they had an explanation on their website as to how the billing worked. But it subsequently disappeared.

As far as I can recall It went along the lines of taking a DD at the start of each month based on an estimate of the likely usage for the month. Then generating a new usage estimate at the start of the following month, adjusted up or down to account for any refund or extra payment due from the difference between actual and estimated in the previous month.

The principle being they never build up a massive credit on the account. 

I suppose they could vastly overestimate the months usage and so take an unreasonably large DD at the start of the month.

But the billing process description has now disappeared.

The standard T&Cs I received talks about setting up a fixed DD based on estimated use with a 6 monthly review of the DD amount.

 11.13 The method of payment will be standard monthly direct debit (unless otherwise agreed with Us) and You are responsible for ensuring that the direct debit can be paid in full on the due date. If You are struggling to pay, We may install a Smart Meter (which We can switch into prepayment mode) or switch Your existing Smart Meter into prepayment mode. This would require You to top up credit to pay for Your supply in advance and may cost more per unit of electricity consumed. When paying by direct debit: 11.13.1 You should keep Your account in credit and We will track and carry the balance forward to the next month's Bill; 11.13.2 We typically set Your direct debit amount based on the amount of electricity We think You'll use across a year divided by twelve; 11.13.3 We aim to review Your direct debit at least twice a year and can offer to reduce Your direct debit if it's too high based on actual meter readings or We can increase Your direct debit if it is too low to help You avoid building up debt; 11.13.4 We will notify You at least 5 Working days before the direct debit is due to come out of Your account; 11.13.5 If Your direct debit fails due to insufficient funds, We will let You know and re-present the automated instruction within 5 Working days; and 11.13.6 Your direct debit amount will be shown on Your statement, and You should contact Us if You believe Your bill is incorrect.

I think this is yet another example of them making it up as they go along!!!

To date, I don't think anyone on the new Lifestyle Tariff has been hit with a DD or received a bill, so perhaps it will become clearer how it all works once the first billing cycle kicks in.

PennineAcute

Reminds me of Symbio

wrf12345

If the DD is fixed for six months then you will still build up a credit during the summer and probably have an argument when they review it again (as per BG every three months), prepayment I have no objection to as long as the system works properly, which may not yet be the case here.

I have emailed them, anyway, with the variable direct debit question, so see what they say. If they have disabled it then I will take that as a very bad sign.

EssexHebridean

lohr500 said:

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.

OK - the BiB above - that is indeed logical, as after all, a meter can't send info that it effectively gathered at 5am for a half hour timeslot that wouldn't yet have happened, could it! I have to say that it does seem rather concerning that apparently that pretty straightforward thought hasn't applied to ANYONE at Tomato and prompted further testing and checking of their systems! 

I'd completely agree that more competition in the market would be welcome, but it's worrying that we appear to have what are coming across as rank amateurs getting in on the game yet again, especially after the amount last time cost us al! 

Those who have already switched and who are now getting cold feet - can you invoke the cooling off period?

Spoonie_Turtle

EssexHebridean said:

lohr500 said:

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.

I'd completely agree that more competition in the market would be welcome, but it's worrying that we appear to have what are coming across as rank amateurs getting in on the game yet again, especially after the amount last time cost us al! 

What really baffles me is apparently Tomato has been at least two different energy companies already - how can they *still* be incompetent after having at least two goes at it?!

wrf12345

"how can they *still* be incompetent after having at least two goes at it?!"

New software and first time they are doing TOU, I would guess. But yes even the most advanced AI system is not going to know how much was used 30 minutes ahead of the timestamp! I hope the hardy pioneers get a discount for their efforts.

Gerry1

Spoonie_Turtle said:

EssexHebridean said:

lohr500 said:

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.

I'd completely agree that more competition in the market would be welcome, but it's worrying that we appear to have what are coming across as rank amateurs getting in on the game yet again, especially after the amount last time cost us al! 

What really baffles me is apparently Tomato has been at least two different energy companies already - how can they *still* be incompetent after having at least two goes at it?!

If only there were some agency to make sure that suppliers were competent and knew what they were doing...