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

masonic

Newbie_John said:

superkoopauk said:

Final nail in the coffin?  Ofgem proposing a fine of £1.5m (which Tomato have until the 3rd Nov to object to)

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/tomato-energy-limited-failure-maintain-liquidity

That article makes OFGEM sound like a joke. The PDF says Tomato has 12mln of debts (10k customers, if each £50 bill - that's 0.5mln a month - so 2 years of debt minimum). Clearly that's not manageable, and as they say it's been an issue since 2023.. so the solution to the problem 2 years later is to add another 1.5mln 😉 

Back in April, they stated "The Authority considers it requisite to issue a Provisional Order rather than consulting on a Final Order. It is not appropriate in these circumstances to allow the delay associated with a Final Order."

Yet here we are now.

MWT

masonic said:

Newbie_John said:

superkoopauk said:

Final nail in the coffin?  Ofgem proposing a fine of £1.5m (which Tomato have until the 3rd Nov to object to)

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/tomato-energy-limited-failure-maintain-liquidity

That article makes OFGEM sound like a joke. The PDF says Tomato has 12mln of debts (10k customers, if each £50 bill - that's 0.5mln a month - so 2 years of debt minimum). Clearly that's not manageable, and as they say it's been an issue since 2023.. so the solution to the problem 2 years later is to add another 1.5mln 😉 

Back in April, they stated "The Authority considers it requisite to issue a Provisional Order rather than consulting on a Final Order. It is not appropriate in these circumstances to allow the delay associated with a Final Order."

Yet here we are now.

The point of that was they were able to enforce an immediate ban on new customers to prevent the risk increasing, if they had waited to consult on a Final Order then they could not have imposed that ban immediately.

.

whatisit

Somebody said:

whatisit said:

Hi, sorry if already answered.  I joined Tomato in January, and after some late billing its been fine the last 6 months or so.

Now I notice mywatts last reading was 1st September.

My bill for August (received 17th September) has blank graphs.  Though it does mention lowest/highest usage days.

Just me?

I would say something is amiss.  How does your bill breakdown in terms of usage in the 3 rate periods?  Have you tried downloading the usage data in excel/csv format?  Do you use the Bright app as that would also show consumption data?

myWatts has been fine for me for what it's worth.  My last blank period was in July.

I think your right.  Octopus have no 30 minute consumption data from 9th September, but claim they got a reading on 3rd October (to bill me for Gas).  I installed bright app, it says it can take 24 hours to show data, but its been 36+ now.  Tomato yet to reply to email.

born_again

QrizB said:

Ildhund said:

A company apparently doesn't have enough money in the bank to satisfy the regulator, so reduce its bank balance by £1.5M to make sure it doesn't.

And

Newbie_John said:

... so the solution to the problem 2 years later is to add another 1.5mln 😉 

It's not about solving Tomato's cashflow problems. It's about about maintaining a regulated market.

Energy suppliers can gain a commercial advantage by violating the terms of their supply licence. The penalties exist to discourage them from doing so.

Suppliers that break their licence have to be seen to suffer the consequences of doing so. Regulators can't play favourites.

Best penalty is to remove their licence. 
No 2nd chances. it's gone. 
This is the 3rd name they have traded under, since 2017

Regulator is a toothless beast & yet again fails to act in the manor they should. 

MWT

born_again said:

QrizB said:

Ildhund said:

A company apparently doesn't have enough money in the bank to satisfy the regulator, so reduce its bank balance by £1.5M to make sure it doesn't.

And

Newbie_John said:

... so the solution to the problem 2 years later is to add another 1.5mln 😉 

It's not about solving Tomato's cashflow problems. It's about about maintaining a regulated market.

Energy suppliers can gain a commercial advantage by violating the terms of their supply licence. The penalties exist to discourage them from doing so.

Suppliers that break their licence have to be seen to suffer the consequences of doing so. Regulators can't play favourites.

Best penalty is to remove their licence. 
No 2nd chances. it's gone. 
This is the 3rd name they have traded under, since 2017

Regulator is a toothless beast & yet again fails to act in the manor they should. 

The current owners of the company are not the original owner, short version is that the software provider, Senapt, bought the company to avoid having no active customers for their energy platform and renamed it to Tomato.

Hard to view the regulator as 'toothless' when they acted quickly to stop Tomato from taking on new customers months ago.

The rest of the process to remove their ability to trade as an energy supplier takes time, but at least they are prevented from growing further unlike the way things were handled a few years ago...

masonic

MWT said:

masonic said:

Newbie_John said:

superkoopauk said:

Final nail in the coffin?  Ofgem proposing a fine of £1.5m (which Tomato have until the 3rd Nov to object to)

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/tomato-energy-limited-failure-maintain-liquidity

That article makes OFGEM sound like a joke. The PDF says Tomato has 12mln of debts (10k customers, if each £50 bill - that's 0.5mln a month - so 2 years of debt minimum). Clearly that's not manageable, and as they say it's been an issue since 2023.. so the solution to the problem 2 years later is to add another 1.5mln 😉 

Back in April, they stated "The Authority considers it requisite to issue a Provisional Order rather than consulting on a Final Order. It is not appropriate in these circumstances to allow the delay associated with a Final Order."

Yet here we are now.

The point of that was they were able to enforce an immediate ban on new customers to prevent the risk increasing, if they had waited to consult on a Final Order then they could not have imposed that ban immediately.

It is probably worth examining the case for allowing an immediate ban on new customer acquisition during a Final Order consultation. Under what circumstances should an energy supplier be allowed to continue taking on new customers when the regulator believes there may be sufficient grounds to terminate their licence and is taking steps to make that happen?

It seems like Elexon has more power, as they could have kicked them out of BSC at pretty much any point this year without warning. AIUI that would have stopped them being able to register any new meter points.

MWT

masonic said:

MWT said:

masonic said:

Newbie_John said:

superkoopauk said:

Final nail in the coffin?  Ofgem proposing a fine of £1.5m (which Tomato have until the 3rd Nov to object to)

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/tomato-energy-limited-failure-maintain-liquidity

That article makes OFGEM sound like a joke. The PDF says Tomato has 12mln of debts (10k customers, if each £50 bill - that's 0.5mln a month - so 2 years of debt minimum). Clearly that's not manageable, and as they say it's been an issue since 2023.. so the solution to the problem 2 years later is to add another 1.5mln 😉 

Back in April, they stated "The Authority considers it requisite to issue a Provisional Order rather than consulting on a Final Order. It is not appropriate in these circumstances to allow the delay associated with a Final Order."

Yet here we are now.

The point of that was they were able to enforce an immediate ban on new customers to prevent the risk increasing, if they had waited to consult on a Final Order then they could not have imposed that ban immediately.

It is probably worth examining the case for allowing an immediate ban on new customer acquisition during a Final Order consultation. Under what circumstances should an energy supplier be allowed to continue taking on new customers when the regulator believes there may be sufficient grounds to terminate their licence and is taking steps to make that happen?

It seems like Elexon has more power, as they could have kicked them out of BSC at pretty much any point this year without warning. AIUI that would have stopped them being able to register any new meter points.

At least one DNO stopped processing switching to Tomato before Ofgem stepped in so there are several bodies that can have an impact on new business.

... but this creates a real mess in a regulated market when these things happen as the business flows depend on symmetrical timely processing in many cases, which is why there are penalties for failures in this area.

ppc1

Somebody has just posted this on the tomato energy Facebook group.  If it is true they are filing for insolvency. 

Case Search - Caseboard

MWT

ppc1 said:

Somebody has just posted this on the tomato energy Facebook group.  If it is true they are filing for insolvency. 

Case Search - Caseboard

It is real, guess we'll be reading something from the CEO soon...

Boohoo

ppc1 said:

Somebody has just posted this on the tomato energy Facebook group.  If it is true they are filing for insolvency. 

Case Search - Caseboard

Some people on MSE forum are going to be happy with this news ☺️