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

GingerTim

Farouk casually eliding the bits of the Elexon statement that describe his 'lack of engagement' with the mechanism to stop Tomato screwing up the market. Actions speak louder than this corpocodswallop, and his actions don't appear those those of someone who wants to stay in business. 

MWT

powerful_Rogue said:

From Farouk Alhassan on Facebook.

We can't let our competitors, the regulators, the wolves who pretend to be on our side, the dogma of the existing "arrangements" derail us.

Yes, paying bills on time and complying with the requirements of a regulated market must be a bit inconvenient at times...

QrizB

Anyone else reminded of that famously-resubtitled "Downfall" clip? Or is it just me?

Scot_39

Newbie_John said:

So nothing really changes, all it says no new customers any time soon?

For those already on board - that's good news really - if they found them struggling with money they would be shut down, but they just continue preventing their growth until they fix their underlying issues - which is very expected.

I may try to sign up to another deal with Tomato then to extend my current fix for another 12 months.

Theres nothing good about failure to improve and in particular "further deterioration" for failures in meeting their obligations in the wholesale energy market.

If they collapse or closed down - owing money to generators - will we all face another SoLR charge - if so Ofgem have yet again clearly failed.

MWT

Scot_39 said:

If they collapse or closed down - owing money to generators - will we all face another SoLR charge - if so Ofgem have yet again clearly failed.

Much less scope for additional costs from this one as customer balances are likely to be negligible, and the trend seems to be for the winning 'bid' to take the customer base being on the basis of claiming little or nothing in return for getting the customers.

Also I'm, not sure you can say that Ofgem have 'clearly failed', their mandate doesn't require or permit them to ensure that no energy supplier can ever fail, and this time they have been proactive in limiting the potential for costs while they reach a final determination on this case.

A very different level and speed of reaction than it was for some of the more egregious cases in the past. 

Scot_39

Just read the bosses media post

How does Elexon "lack of progress" and "further decline" in last 4m match his claim to have "improved massively". 

Except that appears to be reflecting only on the domestic side operations not the wholesale / settlement interaction.

I remember such upbeat statements from the boss of one of the Icelandic banks - less than 24 hrs before it was shutdown. FSCS protected ordinary investors, many local councils lost £millions.

I for one have no faith in Ofgem protecting other bill payers not benefitting from TE low rates.  After we all had to fork out c£100 for past failures - not just those benefitting from the low rates.

MWT

Scot_39 said:

I for one have no faith in Ofgem protecting other bill payers not benefitting from TE low rates.  After we all had to fork out c£100 for past failures - not just those benefitting from the low rates.

in this case I'd be more concerned about the level of unpaid wholesale and distribution costs than about the costs related to individual customers as there will be virtually no account balances to protect as customers were on variable direct debits, so no build up of a balance for the most part..

So it will not have a zero impact on the rest of us, but I'd hope a lower impact than we have seen in the past...

QrizB

Scot_39 said:

I for one have no faith in Ofgem protecting other bill payers not benefitting from TE low rates.  After we all had to fork out c£100 for past failures - not just those benefitting from the low rates.

Tomato have been prevented (by Ofgem) from expanding beyond a micro supplier, which I think was reported in this thread as being 50k accounts? If somehow we end up with £1000 per Tomato customer in SoLR costs (and that seems a huge overestimate) it's "only" £50M, which is £2 each for the £25M domestic electricity accounts in the UK.

If a more realistic estimate is £100 per Tomato account, it'll be 20p each.

That seems like effective regulation to me.

masonic

Scot_39 said:

How does Elexon "lack of progress" and "further decline" in last 4m match his claim to have "improved massively". 

Blows the theory out of the water that this was mainly due to a rump of customers from the early days and an expansion of customer base with SMETS2 meters would dilute the issue down to more acceptable levels.

coupleuk

powerful_Rogue said:

From Farouk Alhassan on Facebook.

Its been a very long last couple of months... Its been extremely hectic. Its been tiring. Its been exhaustive. Its been draining.

But we march on. As we have grown into a mainstream supplier at the worst of times, our real drive is being tested.

Can you guys really do this. People are wondering. People are circumspect. Some people cannot feel the path forward.

But from where we stand, nothing has changed. These are the same pressures we have always faced. The pressures of building a business in a highly regulated market and hoping to really disrupt an entire market out of its doldrums.

We are not here to quit! We are not here to give up. We are here to take our stand and defend our business idea and proposition to the last man standing. We can't let our competitors, the regulators, the wolves who pretend to be on our side, the dogma of the existing "arrangements" derail us.

Nobody said it will be easy and we knew that before we went down this route.

What doesn't kill us will only make us stronger! The problems we have are the fires that will harden us like steel out of the furnace.

To all the people who have stood by us all this while, we are supremely grateful. We do not want you to feel like anything is going down. The Elexon notification just says we can't take on any new customers, but we haven't taken new customers for a while so its a bit of a moot point.

We have improved massively this year. Far more people being billed. We have now released full support for customers who sell energy to the grid. We have fixed lots of SMETS1 metering issues. We are progressively getting better. Stand with us.

We will win!!!

The guy is deluded