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

HillStreetBlues

TE billed me on the 3rd July, this bill was an error as that period has already been paid. I emailed  them about it telling them I had already paid them, and they never replied. That bill is still showing on my account (money never taken as I cancelled the DD). I opened a complaint about that bill as no reply in 8 weeks and not been sorted, I then tacked on no final bill and no compensation paid.
Final bill should be just over £80, the compo I'm due will just about cover it apart from a few pennies.

HillStreetBlues

colin79666 said:

I’d wait a week. Quite possible they will be shut down by Ofgem and, given the mess of their systems, you may never get billed by an administrator. Worst case is the administrator does get a final bill out in time and you won’t see the £40 as they are insolvent and an administrator doesn’t have the same obligation.  

If bill still not issued and they were solvent when the compensation should have been paid (so deducted from the total bill) can the administrator just ignore that? being the same account could a set-off be claimed.
I can understate if you are solely a creditor you won't get paid.

Bendo

No. The compensation applies to companies with a domestic energy supply licence.  The administrator is not in scope.

HillStreetBlues

Bendo said:

No. The compensation applies to companies with a domestic energy supply licence.  The administrator is not in scope.

But there would have been a supply licence when payment should have been made as once the 6 weeks are up then £40 is due. TE would owe anyone that they haven't paid it too (the debt has been occurred before administrator has been appointed). If that 6 weeks falls after the an administrator is appointed then there is no supply licence then it's not paid.

masonic

HillStreetBlues said:

Bendo said:

No. The compensation applies to companies with a domestic energy supply licence.  The administrator is not in scope.

But there would have been a supply licence when payment should have been made as once the 6 weeks are up then £40 is due. TE would owe anyone that they haven't paid it too (the debt has been occurred before administrator has been appointed). If that 6 weeks falls after the an administrator is appointed then there is no supply licence then it's not paid.

By the time administrators have been appointed, it will be very difficult for you to prove a payment had in fact been due. Even if they are able to corroborate your claim that you were not sent a final bill within 6 weeks, and did not receive a payment within 10 working days of that date, it is not for them to make a determination about whether or not any of the various get out clauses in section 9 of the GSOP legislation applied at that time. There will be no alternative dispute resolution available to you and you will not be able to take the administrators to court, should you disagree with their decision on whether an amount is in fact owing. A prior Energy Ombudsman decision would give more weight to your claim.

Even if they do agree it is owed, there will likely be no money available in the pot after priority and secured creditor are repaid. Should you be thinking of set-off, then that would be rather dependent on the processing of proof of debt claims being in sync with the issuing of final bills. There are also specific rules around this in administration that could trip you up, including a clause around not being able to do so if the claimant had prior notice of a winding up order against the insolvent at the time the debt was incurred. I suspect in any case your final bill will be relatively small compared with the compensation.

All in all, I think it is very risky not to collect ASAP.

HillStreetBlues

masonic said:

HillStreetBlues said:

Bendo said:

No. The compensation applies to companies with a domestic energy supply licence.  The administrator is not in scope.

But there would have been a supply licence when payment should have been made as once the 6 weeks are up then £40 is due. TE would owe anyone that they haven't paid it too (the debt has been occurred before administrator has been appointed). If that 6 weeks falls after the an administrator is appointed then there is no supply licence then it's not paid.

By the time administrators have been appointed, it will be very difficult for you to prove a payment had in fact been due. Even if they are able to corroborate your claim that you were not sent a final bill within 6 weeks, and did not receive a payment within 10 working days of that date, it is not for them to make a determination about whether or not any of the various get out clauses in section 9 of the GSOP legislation applied at that time. There will be no alternative dispute resolution available to you and you will not be able to take the administrators to court, should you disagree with their decision on whether an amount is in fact owing.

Even if they do agree it is owed, there will likely be no money available in the pot after priority and secured creditor are repaid. Should you be thinking of set-off, there are specific rules around this in administration that could trip you up. , including a clause around not being able to do so if the claimant had notice of a winding up order against the insolvent at the time the debt was incurred. I suspect in any case your final bill will be relatively small compared with the compensation.

All in all, I think it is very risky not to collect ASAP.

I agree it's better to get it ASAP.
AFAIK there are no current winding up orders at the time debt incurred. I can't see an administrator decision being final with no redress to challenge it being correct.

masonic

HillStreetBlues said:

masonic said:

HillStreetBlues said:

Bendo said:

No. The compensation applies to companies with a domestic energy supply licence.  The administrator is not in scope.

But there would have been a supply licence when payment should have been made as once the 6 weeks are up then £40 is due. TE would owe anyone that they haven't paid it too (the debt has been occurred before administrator has been appointed). If that 6 weeks falls after the an administrator is appointed then there is no supply licence then it's not paid.

By the time administrators have been appointed, it will be very difficult for you to prove a payment had in fact been due. Even if they are able to corroborate your claim that you were not sent a final bill within 6 weeks, and did not receive a payment within 10 working days of that date, it is not for them to make a determination about whether or not any of the various get out clauses in section 9 of the GSOP legislation applied at that time. There will be no alternative dispute resolution available to you and you will not be able to take the administrators to court, should you disagree with their decision on whether an amount is in fact owing.

Even if they do agree it is owed, there will likely be no money available in the pot after priority and secured creditor are repaid. Should you be thinking of set-off, there are specific rules around this in administration that could trip you up. , including a clause around not being able to do so if the claimant had notice of a winding up order against the insolvent at the time the debt was incurred. I suspect in any case your final bill will be relatively small compared with the compensation.

All in all, I think it is very risky not to collect ASAP.

I agree it's better to get it ASAP.
AFAIK there are no current winding up orders at the time debt incurred. I can't see an administrator decision being final with no redress to challenge it being correct.

An administrator is not at liberty to make a decision where it cannot be established whether or not the money is actually owed. That's the problem. It needs a higher authority to make the determination. Since the licence holder is no more (and I doubt the directors will be in a cooperative mood), the EO won't hear complaints about a no longer regulated company, and the courts won't hear claims relating to companies with the protections afforded by administration, getting proof the money is actually owed will be challenging. The administrator has a duty to act in the best interests of creditors as a whole, and perform their functions as quickly and efficiently as is reasonably practicable. That would mean not accepting claims that are in doubt, or spending a disproportionate amount of time assessing claims for trivial sums in the context of the millions that would likely be owed to other creditors. Any creditor can make an application to the court for unfair harm, but would need to do this at their own expense. It is not the sort of thing that would be done for the sake of £80. Perhaps if lots of people were affected by this issue, you could club together and share costs, or run a crowdfunder.

HillStreetBlues

masonic said:

An administrator is not at liberty to make a decision where it cannot be established whether or not the money is actually owed. That's the problem. It needs a higher authority to make the determination. Since the licence holder is no more (and I doubt the directors will be in a cooperative mood), the EO won't hear complaints about a no longer regulated company, and the courts won't hear claims relating to companies with the protections afforded by administration, getting proof the money is actually owed will be challenging. The administrator has a duty to act in the best interests of creditors as a whole, and perform their functions as quickly and efficiently as is reasonably practicable. That would mean not accepting claims that are in doubt, or spending a disproportionate amount of time assessing claims for trivial sums in the context of the millions that would likely be owed to other creditors.

And if a person disagreed with the debt the administrator claimed, would then the administrator take that person to court to for that £40?

Netexporter

In the usual way of administrations, secured creditors will get first dibs and there will be nothing left for "small claims".

masonic

HillStreetBlues said:

masonic said:

An administrator is not at liberty to make a decision where it cannot be established whether or not the money is actually owed. That's the problem. It needs a higher authority to make the determination. Since the licence holder is no more (and I doubt the directors will be in a cooperative mood), the EO won't hear complaints about a no longer regulated company, and the courts won't hear claims relating to companies with the protections afforded by administration, getting proof the money is actually owed will be challenging. The administrator has a duty to act in the best interests of creditors as a whole, and perform their functions as quickly and efficiently as is reasonably practicable. That would mean not accepting claims that are in doubt, or spending a disproportionate amount of time assessing claims for trivial sums in the context of the millions that would likely be owed to other creditors.

And if a person disagreed with the debt the administrator claimed, would then the administrator take that person to court to for that £40?

No, they would quickly sell the debt to a collection service for however many pence in the pound, and those debt collectors would deal with it in the usual way.