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

fizz2017

A real nightmare is this company.
we are being overcharged for the last 30 min between 05:30-06:00 since day one but have been told it’s because we stop using the energy at 06:00 rather than just before, so are charged full rate for the last 30 min. What a joke response. This came from
complaints department who also emailed that all is fine previously and finally have advised they will send us their spreadsheets that clear up the extra charges. Still waiting for this magical spreadsheet. 

Can’t wait for our plan to finish in Jan.

tlcgrantham

@fizz2017 1. Tomato tariffs have no exit fees so you can leave when you like.

                  2. Tomato are cheap if you’re on the EV Lifestyle.  Why not just stop using Electricity at 5:30 am?

fizz2017

@tlcgrantham

Thanks for the reply, sure there were exit fees when I signed up. We are on the EV lifestyle and that states it’s 5p until 6am.

01:00 5.0

01:30 5.0 

02:00 5.0 

02:30 5.0

03:00 5.0 

03:30 5.0 

04:00 5.0

04:30 5.0 

05:00 5.0 

05:30 5.0

06:00 23.26

To me that’s 5p until 06:00

tlcgrantham

I suggest to look up your tariff details as Tomato don’t charge exit fees. I left last month to move to Fuse fearing  imminent collapse of Tomato from their EV Lifestyle and was not charged exit fees.

lohr500

fizz2017 said:

A real nightmare is this company.
we are being overcharged for the last 30 min between 05:30-06:00 since day one but have been told it’s because we stop using the energy at 06:00 rather than just before, so are charged full rate for the last 30 min. What a joke response. This came from
complaints department who also emailed that all is fine previously and finally have advised they will send us their spreadsheets that clear up the extra charges. Still waiting for this magical spreadsheet. 

Can’t wait for our plan to finish in Jan.

There was a major flaw in TE's billing logic in the early days of the Lifestyle tariff last year, where they were misinterpreting the half hourly data being sent by people's Smart Meters to the central DCC data system.

The timestamp for the half hourly usage generated by the meter is marked AT THE END of each 30 minute period.

So for example, if you used 3kWh of electricity between 05:30 and 06:00, that would be recorded by the Smart Meter as 3kWh with an 06:00 timestamp.

TE had wrongly assumed the 06:00 Timestamp referred to the usage AT THE START of the 30 minute period, and so were billing the 3kWh used between 05:30 and 06:00 as if it had been used between 06:00 and 06:30. Because the cheapest rate ended at 06:00, the 3kWh ended up being billed at the more expensive rate.

The problem was compounded as well in the early days because the Smart Meter timing is always based on GMT and TE did not factor in the 1 hour clock change when we were in BST.

I thought they had sorted out these basic errors by the time I left TE in October last year (For sure my final bill was correct), but from your post, perhaps they haven't.  


Their response is farcical anyway. The meter records in 30 minute timeslots on the hour and half hour.

Hypothetically, if you used 0.1Wh every minute between 05:30 and 06:00, and 0.01kWh every minute between 06:00 and 06:30 then the meter would record :

3kWh of usage with a timestamp of 06:00.
0.3kWh of usage with a timestamp of 06:30

If say your timers were out that limit your usage to the TE off-peak times and you overran the 06:00 off-peak cut off time by 5 minutes, then the whole of the 05:30 to 06:00 usage doesn't dop into the next timeslot !!!!! Assuming the same 0.1kWh and 0.01kWh usage every minute : 

The meter would record :

3kWh of usage with a timestamp of 06:00 
(0.3kWh + (5*0.1kWh) = 0.8kWh usage with a timestamp of 06:30

I hope this makes sense!!

Somebody

For what it's worth we charge an EV and a PHEV overnight between 00:00 and 06:00.  

From the .csv files available to download with the monthly bills in mywatts, our usage appear to be correct in the half hour periods, as seen with no high loads in the 06:00 time slot:

. 

The yellow highlighted is what I know to be charging periods. I experimented with a reduced charging rate setting in the EV on 17th August and no high usage was recorded beyond 06:00.   

The sum total of the 00:00 to 05:30 consumption tallies with what's been billed at the cheap rate.

Somebody

tlcgrantham said:

I suggest to look up your tariff details as Tomato don’t charge exit fees. I left last month to move to Fuse fearing  imminent collapse of Tomato from their EV Lifestyle and was not charged exit fees.

Are you on the Fuse EV tariff?  That tariff is not available for me when I looked.  The other dual rate tariffs are not that attractive.     

Newbie_John

fizz2017 said:

A real nightmare is this company.
we are being overcharged for the last 30 min between 05:30-06:00 since day one but have been told it’s because we stop using the energy at 06:00 rather than just before, so are charged full rate for the last 30 min. What a joke response. This came from
complaints department who also emailed that all is fine previously and finally have advised they will send us their spreadsheets that clear up the extra charges. Still waiting for this magical spreadsheet. 

Can’t wait for our plan to finish in Jan.

I use the most during 5-6 (immersion heater, rads etc.) and it's been fine this year. Have you had the same issue elsewhere or do you expect 6:15 usage to be stamped as 6am and charged at 5p?
As @tlcgrantham says, shift if to earlier slot if something is misconfigured somehwere.

tlcgrantham

Somebody said:

tlcgrantham said:

I suggest to look up your tariff details as Tomato don’t charge exit fees. I left last month to move to Fuse fearing  imminent collapse of Tomato from their EV Lifestyle and was not charged exit fees.

Are you on the Fuse EV tariff?  That tariff is not available for me when I looked.  The other dual rate tariffs are not that attractive.     

No I don’t have an EV but Fuse do an EV tariff but you have to actually have an EV. I’m not sure what their EV rates are. So far their Single rate Tariff is costing me the same as Tomato EV would without load shifting.

Gobsh

I think the reduced rate is actually from 12:00 - 5:30, it's just the table is showing start times in whole hours