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

masonic

masonic said:

masonic said:

Chrysalis said:

masonic said:

If they cannot read people's smart meters, and require them to enter monthly manual readings, at the minimum that will create a level of dissatisfaction.

Still no follow up from my original reply on the late final bill, I just sent an email reminder, as I had almost forgot.

It's the 7th working days since I was promised the compensation would be in my bank account within 10 working days. That was after an email reminder, phonecall, and even then took another week. We're now just entering the 5th week since my formal complaint, so not long for them to cough up now. I will be pushing the EO for additional compensation should I need to involve them.

Is anyone surprised that their self-imposed deadline has now passed without any sign of payment of my compensation? Time for another attempt to extract it from them, but it's looking likely I'll be off to the EO in a couple of weeks.

As a pleasant surprise to end the week, TE finally coughed up my £80 compensation. Same 11th hour delaying tactics we've seen time and time again when they owe money, but glad to have closure at last.

chuckie851

@Masonic warned me not to expect much from my complaint, but I did get this quote from billing to customer service:

Thank you for reaching out to us regarding this complaint,

We expect that some customers will not be happy and raise a complaint. In that situation we can offer few options:

 
         Payment plans upto 3 months (we would need to reach out to credit control for this)

         Book for Meter exchange

         Move to Tomato Prime rates and bill using Meter Reading

Since this is a Lifestyle customer, we can only bill based on data, not MRs. As we haven’t been able to retrieve actual data from their meter, we’ve estimated their usage using their EAC.

I phoned to pretend I didn't understand, and they did mention having comms problems affecting a number of customers.  I'll be moving back to Octopus in plenty of time so I don't miss out on the WHD.

Chrysalis

TE have (claimed) refunded me half of what I claimed, £40, they said it was issued before I submitted the complaint, earlier in July.

I feel I cant be bothered to ask for the other half, but is cheeky, as I did clearly state £80, and the reasons why.

masonic

So they are claiming they added it to your account as credit (without any statement, credit note, or email confirming this at the time)? In that case did they refund the credit within 10 working days of your final bill? If not then they owe you £40 for failing to meet that standard of performance. It seems to me there was much more than 10 working days since your final bill and this refund, so the claim they added it within 8 weeks of you leaving is simply not credible. In your shoes I would not be settling for any less than the full £80, and would ask for the complaint to be kept open.

This does highlight a deficiency of MyWatts, which is that you have nowhere to see your account balance and transactions online, which is a feature virtually every other energy supplier provides.

MWT

masonic said:

This does highlight a deficiency of MyWatts, which is that you have nowhere to see your account balance and transactions online, which is a feature virtually every other energy supplier provides.

I think their original intention was for MyWatts to be a generic tool for consumers to view their energy consumption data regardless of supplier, so no account connection was designed into the system.

It was pressed into service as the default Tomato app without adding that facility. 

They had a vision of an energy marketplace where suppliers could come to acquire customers...

Bendo

Looks like Tomato need some cash, they have started billing customers whos meters they cant read on estimates, despite giving them the option to wait until they could read them.

Almost a year of being unable to read a good chunk on smart meters.

Chrysalis

masonic said:

So they are claiming they added it to your account as credit (without any statement, credit note, or email confirming this at the time)? In that case did they refund the credit within 10 working days of your final bill? If not then they owe you £40 for failing to meet that standard of performance. It seems to me there was much more than 10 working days since your final bill and this refund, so the claim they added it within 8 weeks of you leaving is simply not credible. In your shoes I would not be settling for any less than the full £80, and would ask for the complaint to be kept open.

This does highlight a deficiency of MyWatts, which is that you have nowhere to see your account balance and transactions online, which is a feature virtually every other energy supplier provides.

It was way outside of the time period still, its claimed in mid July.  they are stating its in my bank, I just havent checked yet, guess will check now.  Its actually not there, whats the point of ringing someone to say they sent it when havent.  Now i am wasting time to chase it, I will now go for the full £80 again.

Newbie_John

Bendo said:

Looks like Tomato need some cash, they have started billing customers whos meters they cant read on estimates, despite giving them the option to wait until they could read them.

Almost a year of being unable to read a good chunk on smart meters.

What are they offering?
Fairest option would be to offer 5p/kWh for the entire usage + standing charge.

In my opinion that's the smartest move, then wait for their tarrifs to expire, then offer Prime capped tarrif only and for any new customers - take the approach of other companies - accept only meters that they can read.

MWT

Newbie_John said:

Bendo said:

Looks like Tomato need some cash, they have started billing customers whos meters they cant read on estimates, despite giving them the option to wait until they could read them.

Almost a year of being unable to read a good chunk on smart meters.

What are they offering?
Fairest option would be to offer 5p/kWh for the entire usage + standing charge.

In my opinion that's the smartest move, then wait for their tarrifs to expire, then offer Prime capped tarrif only and for any new customers - take the approach of other companies - accept only meters that they can read.

That isn't going to fix their long-term cash-flow issues though, as they really can't afford to give everything away for 5p when it is costing them more to buy it themselves...

bob2302

masonic said:

This does highlight a deficiency of MyWatts, which is that you have nowhere to see your account balance and transactions online, which is a feature virtually every other energy supplier provides.

I've not missed it. They don't support fixed DDs, so people don't build-up credit.