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

GingerTim

MWT said:

Chrysalis said:

coupleuk said:

coupleuk said:

Bendo said:

I'm sure at some point you will end up with some form of bill...

Lengthy email from TE today - confirming the usage has been written-off, wont be back-billed later and all I have to pay are the 40p a day Standing Charges.

TE have also emailed to confirm the 2 meter moves I instigated for June 9th and 11th.

Suggest anyone else without bills for months also considers writing to them with the kind offer to move (on condition of usage write off)

They do seem so much more pro consumer than Octopus, cant argue with that customer service, accepting liability for their failure.  Did you do this via email to their standard address? So I know best way when asking for my compensation.

... but they are 'accepting liability' by making grand gestures that they cannot afford with their own money ...

Is an administrator bound to abide by a company simply writing off a debt before they go into administration?

QrizB

GingerTim said:

MWT said:

Chrysalis said:

coupleuk said:

coupleuk said:

Bendo said:

I'm sure at some point you will end up with some form of bill...

Lengthy email from TE today - confirming the usage has been written-off, wont be back-billed later and all I have to pay are the 40p a day Standing Charges.

TE have also emailed to confirm the 2 meter moves I instigated for June 9th and 11th.

Suggest anyone else without bills for months also considers writing to them with the kind offer to move (on condition of usage write off)

They do seem so much more pro consumer than Octopus, cant argue with that customer service, accepting liability for their failure.  Did you do this via email to their standard address? So I know best way when asking for my compensation.

... but they are 'accepting liability' by making grand gestures that they cannot afford with their own money ...

Is an administrator bound to abide by a company simply writing off a debt before they go into administration?

If you've got written evidence of it being agreed, I think they'd have trouble challenging it.

Otherwise the administrator could go rewriting all sorts of other agreements, like ToU tariff contract terms and so on.

masonic

MWT said:

Chrysalis said:

coupleuk said:

coupleuk said:

Bendo said:

I'm sure at some point you will end up with some form of bill...

Lengthy email from TE today - confirming the usage has been written-off, wont be back-billed later and all I have to pay are the 40p a day Standing Charges.

TE have also emailed to confirm the 2 meter moves I instigated for June 9th and 11th.

Suggest anyone else without bills for months also considers writing to them with the kind offer to move (on condition of usage write off)

They do seem so much more pro consumer than Octopus, cant argue with that customer service, accepting liability for their failure.  Did you do this via email to their standard address? So I know best way when asking for my compensation.

... but they are 'accepting liability' by making grand gestures that they cannot afford with their own money ...

Having read more about their origins I do feel they started out with good intentions, they just came to this very under-capitalised and then got overwhelmed with the volume growth before their systems were mature enough to cope.

... add in a few poor judgements in how they were managing cash-flow, especially forecasting and building reserves to meet their market obligations and that is how you get to where they are today.

If they had been able to stay as a service provider to the industry they could have been building a rival to Kraken, but stepping over into being their own energy provider appears to be something they were not really ready for...

Should Tomato Energy go bust, they will still have Senapt and MyWatts. Will just be a bit more of a hurdle to find other suppliers to adopt the platform. That may be why they've taken such a relaxed approach to an existential crisis in the supply company. Through all of this they have been making improvements to the platform and ignoring the difficult regulatory/financial problems.

masonic

QrizB said:

GingerTim said:

MWT said:

Chrysalis said:

coupleuk said:

coupleuk said:

Bendo said:

I'm sure at some point you will end up with some form of bill...

Lengthy email from TE today - confirming the usage has been written-off, wont be back-billed later and all I have to pay are the 40p a day Standing Charges.

TE have also emailed to confirm the 2 meter moves I instigated for June 9th and 11th.

Suggest anyone else without bills for months also considers writing to them with the kind offer to move (on condition of usage write off)

They do seem so much more pro consumer than Octopus, cant argue with that customer service, accepting liability for their failure.  Did you do this via email to their standard address? So I know best way when asking for my compensation.

... but they are 'accepting liability' by making grand gestures that they cannot afford with their own money ...

Is an administrator bound to abide by a company simply writing off a debt before they go into administration?

If you've got written evidence of it being agreed, I think they'd have trouble challenging it.

Otherwise the administrator could go rewriting all sorts of other agreements, like ToU tariff contract terms and so on.

Would depend exactly how it was agreed. If it could be spun as a mistake by a low level employee, then the contract could probably still be enforced.

GingerTim

QrizB said:

GingerTim said:

MWT said:

Chrysalis said:

coupleuk said:

coupleuk said:

Bendo said:

I'm sure at some point you will end up with some form of bill...

Lengthy email from TE today - confirming the usage has been written-off, wont be back-billed later and all I have to pay are the 40p a day Standing Charges.

TE have also emailed to confirm the 2 meter moves I instigated for June 9th and 11th.

Suggest anyone else without bills for months also considers writing to them with the kind offer to move (on condition of usage write off)

They do seem so much more pro consumer than Octopus, cant argue with that customer service, accepting liability for their failure.  Did you do this via email to their standard address? So I know best way when asking for my compensation.

... but they are 'accepting liability' by making grand gestures that they cannot afford with their own money ...

Is an administrator bound to abide by a company simply writing off a debt before they go into administration?

If you've got written evidence of it being agreed, I think they'd have trouble challenging it.

Otherwise the administrator could go rewriting all sorts of other agreements, like ToU tariff contract terms and so on.

I only ask, as the infamous section 66 of the Insolvency Act if 1986 does seem to give an administrator some some wide leeway to ignore prior contractual agreements it it's not in their interests (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/45/section/66).

Pushing for a debt written off prior to administration might be a step too far!

coupleuk

Its quite ironic really - but the email address used to confirm my usage write-off and organise my departure elsewhere is ------ welcometeam@tomato.energy   

born_again

Chrysalis said:

They do seem so much more pro consumer than Octopus, cant argue with that customer service, accepting liability for their failure.  Did you do this via email to their standard address? So I know best way when asking for my compensation.

Very easy for someone sat on the end of the phone/email to admit fault.

If it is not followed up in a prompt manner with any refunds due being paid out. They might as well just not reply or refuse to admit error.

Good customer service would be processing any due refunds there & then. 👍

MWT

masonic said:

MWT said:

Chrysalis said:

coupleuk said:

coupleuk said:

Bendo said:

I'm sure at some point you will end up with some form of bill...

Lengthy email from TE today - confirming the usage has been written-off, wont be back-billed later and all I have to pay are the 40p a day Standing Charges.

TE have also emailed to confirm the 2 meter moves I instigated for June 9th and 11th.

Suggest anyone else without bills for months also considers writing to them with the kind offer to move (on condition of usage write off)

They do seem so much more pro consumer than Octopus, cant argue with that customer service, accepting liability for their failure.  Did you do this via email to their standard address? So I know best way when asking for my compensation.

... but they are 'accepting liability' by making grand gestures that they cannot afford with their own money ...

Having read more about their origins I do feel they started out with good intentions, they just came to this very under-capitalised and then got overwhelmed with the volume growth before their systems were mature enough to cope.

... add in a few poor judgements in how they were managing cash-flow, especially forecasting and building reserves to meet their market obligations and that is how you get to where they are today.

If they had been able to stay as a service provider to the industry they could have been building a rival to Kraken, but stepping over into being their own energy provider appears to be something they were not really ready for...

Should Tomato Energy go bust, they will still have Senapt and MyWatts. Will just be a bit more of a hurdle to find other suppliers to adopt the platform. That may be why they've taken such a relaxed approach to an existential crisis in the supply company. Through all of this they have been making improvements to the platform and ignoring the difficult regulatory/financial problems.

... and 'Northern Gas Heating', but that may not survive if it still owes over £4m to Tomato as the Administrators would have to go after that money as part of their normal process. 

From what I've read elsewhere, Tomato (Logicor at time) was the only customer they ever managed to get of any size and they ended up having to take it over themselves to avoid being left with no customers at all.

Senapt will have done well from the payments they received from Tomato, but unclear how much was retained vs 'invested, as they have failed to deliver even their 2023 accounts to Companies House.

masonic

MWT said:

masonic said:

MWT said:

Chrysalis said:

coupleuk said:

coupleuk said:

Bendo said:

I'm sure at some point you will end up with some form of bill...

Lengthy email from TE today - confirming the usage has been written-off, wont be back-billed later and all I have to pay are the 40p a day Standing Charges.

TE have also emailed to confirm the 2 meter moves I instigated for June 9th and 11th.

Suggest anyone else without bills for months also considers writing to them with the kind offer to move (on condition of usage write off)

They do seem so much more pro consumer than Octopus, cant argue with that customer service, accepting liability for their failure.  Did you do this via email to their standard address? So I know best way when asking for my compensation.

... but they are 'accepting liability' by making grand gestures that they cannot afford with their own money ...

Having read more about their origins I do feel they started out with good intentions, they just came to this very under-capitalised and then got overwhelmed with the volume growth before their systems were mature enough to cope.

... add in a few poor judgements in how they were managing cash-flow, especially forecasting and building reserves to meet their market obligations and that is how you get to where they are today.

If they had been able to stay as a service provider to the industry they could have been building a rival to Kraken, but stepping over into being their own energy provider appears to be something they were not really ready for...

Should Tomato Energy go bust, they will still have Senapt and MyWatts. Will just be a bit more of a hurdle to find other suppliers to adopt the platform. That may be why they've taken such a relaxed approach to an existential crisis in the supply company. Through all of this they have been making improvements to the platform and ignoring the difficult regulatory/financial problems.

... and 'Northern Gas Heating', but that may not survive if it still owes over £4m to Tomato as the Administrators would have to go after that money as part of their normal process. 

It would not surprise me at all if NGH fails around the same time and mysteriously has no remaining assets.

debitcardmayhem

A novel solution is DESNZ nationalise them and give the back end systems to Fujitsu