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

HillStreetBlues

bob2302 said:

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.

But they have debt, which doesn't show.

GingerTim

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.

They seem to be at the 'let's just make it up' stage.

 https://www.reddit.com/r/tomatoenergy/s/EULZ6ExaS8

"Just received 3 very sketchy bills!

They are all made with completely made up data, there's no meter reading estimates like i used to get from my old suppier, at least they would say we think your meter reading is xxxxxxx! So with made up data, how do they work out how much of the cheap rate I've used?"

masonic

bob2302 said:

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.

The issue arises if they take too much (which has happened to some people) or you get given compensation or a refund for previously billed energy.

Your energy account and payment history are separate and may not always be aligned.

Newbie_John

GingerTim said:

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.

They seem to be at the 'let's just make it up' stage.

 https://www.reddit.com/r/tomatoenergy/s/EULZ6ExaS8

"Just received 3 very sketchy bills!

They are all made with completely made up data, there's no meter reading estimates like i used to get from my old suppier, at least they would say we think your meter reading is xxxxxxx! So with made up data, how do they work out how much of the cheap rate I've used?"

Ok so they're doing the same thing as other big providers with old meters? Charge estimated amount and once you get correct readings adjust..

Sounds normal.

Someone here had 0p rate applied just paid standing charges - so that was a good will gesture!

MWT

Newbie_John said:

GingerTim said:

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.

They seem to be at the 'let's just make it up' stage.

 https://www.reddit.com/r/tomatoenergy/s/EULZ6ExaS8

"Just received 3 very sketchy bills!

They are all made with completely made up data, there's no meter reading estimates like i used to get from my old suppier, at least they would say we think your meter reading is xxxxxxx! So with made up data, how do they work out how much of the cheap rate I've used?"

Ok so they're doing the same thing as other big providers with old meters? Charge estimated amount and once you get correct readings adjust..

Sounds normal.

Someone here had 0p rate applied just paid standing charges - so that was a good will gesture!

Not really normal for half-hour billing though as you either have the data and can bill, or you don't have the data and you bill based on the flat rate tariff.

Sounds like they are using some estimates based on very little to generate a bill the customer is more likely to pay without argument. 

As long as Tomato survive, and manage to get the real meter data this could work out fine, but if not this is going to get very messy indeed.

masonic

MWT said:

As long as Tomato survive, and manage to get the real meter data this could work out fine, but if not this is going to get very messy indeed.

I'm not sure what would happen if SoLR was initiated and upon acquisition of the meter point the new supplier did a manual pull and successfully retrieved all of the missing data that Tomato was unable to request. Could they issue a final bill including everything that was missing? Or would it have to be considered water under the bridge and written off? I don't think normally suppliers can request periods before they were responsible for the meter point, but SoLR is responsible for reconciling the unbilled period prior to the failure of their predecessor.

MWT

masonic said:

MWT said:

As long as Tomato survive, and manage to get the real meter data this could work out fine, but if not this is going to get very messy indeed.

I'm not sure what would happen if SoLR was initiated and upon acquisition of the meter point the new supplier did a manual pull and successfully retrieved all of the missing data that Tomato was unable to request. Could they issue a final bill including everything that was missing? Or would it have to be considered water under the bridge and written off? I don't think normally suppliers can request periods before they were responsible for the meter point, but SoLR is responsible for reconciling the unbilled period prior to the failure of their predecessor.

The SoLR only gets to handle billing prior to the date they take-over if agreed with the Administrators of the failed supplier (or the failed supplier itself if there is no Administration).

Some do hand over billing/debt collection, some don't. 

Access to the data is a bit of an unknown though and not normally an issue when dealing with register based tariffs, so we are on uncertain ground.

Chrysalis

No reply on me informing them nothing is in my bank, and when I phoned asking for her directly as she told me to, staff say will ring back.
Ofgem need to get a grip on all of this, consumers should be able to just fill in a form on Ofgem's site, Ofgem send a choice, pay up or fine for 3x the amount,
Instead suppliers are basically policing themselves. 

masonic

Chrysalis said:

No reply on me informing them nothing is in my bank, and when I phoned asking for her directly as she told me to, staff say will ring back.
Ofgem need to get a grip on all of this, consumers should be able to just fill in a form on Ofgem's site, Ofgem send a choice, pay up or fine for 3x the amount,
Instead suppliers are basically policing themselves. 

I was half tempted to raise a concern with Ofgem about the difficulty extracting this compensation. Both Octopus and Tomato made it very difficult.

born_again

Chrysalis said:

No reply on me informing them nothing is in my bank, and when I phoned asking for her directly as she told me to, staff say will ring back.
Ofgem need to get a grip on all of this, consumers should be able to just fill in a form on Ofgem's site, Ofgem send a choice, pay up or fine for 3x the amount,
Instead suppliers are basically policing themselves. 

If the payment is coming in as a DD, card payment (would be odd) or banking payment. Then 1st bank knows is when it hits your account.
So in effect if they say it was sent. Get them to prove it with the payment trace details.
Best guess, they have never sent it.