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

Chrysalis

masonic said:

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.

It will probably be a waste of your time, I already tried to explain to them, expecting customers to do all the running around, waiting 8 weeks, collecting evidence, sending emails, making phone calls and so on for blatant disregards to energy legislation and trading standards, then on top of that its still a ombudsman case rather than a automated remedy.
I simply got a reply from Ofgem explaining to me how it works, I can contact the ombudsman, and everything is hunky dory, they in a totally different world.  My query wasnt about how do I exercise my rights, it was more of a get your act together as the suppliers are running rings around you.
I guess on the other hand though if no one bothers, then the numbers are lacking asking for change.

lohr500

I would like to think Ofgem are watching this thread and the Facebook page closely to add to their understanding of how TE are behaving with their customers. 
Sadly I suspect they are asleep at the wheel.

Chrysalis

lohr500 said:

I would like to think Ofgem are watching this thread and the Facebook page closely to add to their understanding of how TE are behaving with their customers. 
Sadly I suspect they are asleep at the wheel.

Usually it takes a BBC article to wake them up.

Newbie_John

As promised, my tarrif has been updated from the 1st of August and clearly shown in myWatts.
Just need to remind myself that cheap period overnight starts at 1am now!
Also, forgot that the day rate is 1p cheaper on the 5h@5p tarriff Vs 6h@5p.

tlcgrantham

Newbie_John said:

As promised, my tarrif has been updated from the 1st of August and clearly shown in myWatts.
Just need to remind myself that cheap period overnight starts at 1am now!
Also, forgot that the day rate is 1p cheaper on the 5h@5p tarriff Vs 6h@5p.

Your Daily Charge should be 2p cheaper as well. Have you had your bill yet for July and is it based on estimated half hourly readings or actual usages? MYWatts is showing estimated usage and costs since July 17th for me which is overall 6kwh and £1.80 more than Bright and IHD.

         I haven’t had a bill yet so I’m waiting a couple of days longer, in case they correct it, before phoning.

Scot_39

lohr500 said:

I would like to think Ofgem are watching this thread and the Facebook page closely to add to their understanding of how TE are behaving with their customers. 
Sadly I suspect they are asleep at the wheel.

You choose a cheap supplier then complain about it's business operating model - really.

Mind you the way some othes are treating some of their customers - are they any better.

CA put EDF lowest last year - Which put BG worst overall of 16,  but 2nd worst, Ovo worst for complaint handling and Ofgem did fine them £2.5m iirc for it, but there were 7 firms scored lower than half Whichs 15 max for complaint handling.

TE sadly not in either list, but another now failed supplier was in one of them.

https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/energy-companies/article/energy-companies/which-energy-survey-results-ajqM43e6ycY8

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/media-centre/press-releases/edf-and-utilita-named-as-worst-suppliers-for-customer-service-in-citizens/

Having read @Rosie1001 threads And EDF response I can see why CA might have come to that conclusion..

But you might at least have asked yourself the question - how do they make their deals so cheap ?

So yes Ofgem should and have in past intervened on customer service and complaint handling standards fining big and small, EOn, Ovo domestic etc, Maxen business but we're talking £Xm type numbers - relative small fractions of turnover for the big 6.

But Ofgem set the rules and financial standards for suppliers and remember they did so for all now c30 actual failing companies - and thats ultimately where the buck should stop. 
But yet the Chairman, Brearley gets a nice 5 year contract extension.

So if aofgem won't listen direct, see if you can get your MP on board to lobby them and DESNZs leadership to move things on.

They are in the end just an extension of DESNZ "non-ministerial government department" - a top level quango set up arguably to decouple the blame from politicians for the policy charges and taxes making up nearly 20% of the dual fuel cap.  And green net zero renewables operational and physical network  transition charges adding even more.

Newbie_John

tlcgrantham said:

Newbie_John said:

As promised, my tarrif has been updated from the 1st of August and clearly shown in myWatts.
Just need to remind myself that cheap period overnight starts at 1am now!
Also, forgot that the day rate is 1p cheaper on the 5h@5p tarriff Vs 6h@5p.

Your Daily Charge should be 2p cheaper as well. Have you had your bill yet for July and is it based on estimated half hourly readings or actual usages? MYWatts is showing estimated usage and costs since July 17th for me which is overall 6kwh and £1.80 more than Bright and IHD.

         I haven’t had a bill yet so I’m waiting a couple of days longer, in case they correct it, before phoning.

Yes, billed and DD paid already - actual usage.
I do have on average 2-3 missing readings per day since 18th July, but that didn't seem to be an issue to bill me (neither make reading assumption which should be 10kWh total max missing).

All the best - long live tomato 

wrf12345

"But yet the Chairman, Brearley gets a  nice 5 year contract extension."

I think he is on a six figure salary which has possibly increased due to the recruitment of a lot more employees, may have hit a quarter of a million a year - possibly so far removed from reality he still can't suss why people complain about the huge rise in s/c's, now extended to the water sector as well - allowed by a different quango.

lohr500

Scot_39 said:

lohr500 said:

I would like to think Ofgem are watching this thread and the Facebook page closely to add to their understanding of how TE are behaving with their customers. 
Sadly I suspect they are asleep at the wheel.

You choose a cheap supplier then complain about it's business operating model - really.


But you might at least have asked yourself the question - how do they make their deals so cheap ?

I did ask myself how they could offer the prices they did back in August last year and concluded that they were offering loss leader pricing as a market disruptor to build market share and to develop their MyWatts platform as a possible agnostic challenger to Octopus' Kraken system.

In my own opinion and without prejudice, what I hadn't expected was a level of incompetence to even get the basics right in the early stages of the Lifestyle tariff roll out. As an early adopter I went out of my way spending hours on the phone and via email to explain the flaws in their billing logic with respect to the incorrect 30 minute offset that they were applying to the raw meter data. It fell on deaf ears. The Ombudsman agreed with me and awarded compensation in my favour.

And nothing I have read since leaving TE has convinced me that they now have a handle on what they are doing for those customers who they onboarded without first checking that they could successfully read their meters.  

I did not expect them to apparently make up the rules as they go along, in order to "make their deals so cheap". 

Newbie_John

The 30 mins issue has been fixed long time ago and all billings fixed.
Yep, those customers on SMETS1 are still having issues - but it seems like a common approach - I've convinced my friend 2-3 years ago to switch to Agile - he did so, after a year I asked him how it's going and he said that Octopus was unable to read his meter and they settled on him paying a cap price for the entire period (which was around 1 year) - so it happens elsewhere - yes I agree it shouldn't.

How can they offer cheap prices - I think that every company offers now some sorts of TOU tarrif with <8p rates, even your UW has 5p and how can they afford it? 

One key thing being missed here is that a lot of people with SMET2 are really happy with TE.
Bills are fine, don't have to overpay building up credit as I pay for what I use, cheap prices, great customer service, very easy to undersatnd and informative bills, live data usage on MyWatts..