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

Bendo

lohr500 said:

bagand96 said:

E2MeteredOut said:

Now can the thread title be edited to remove the question mark?

It wasn't Too Good To Be True for the 11 months I was with them.  I got the cheap electricity at the advertised rates.

Of course not all customers enjoyed a hassle free experience.  And a few on these forums take a more detailed interest and dare I say will indulge in a little schadenfreude when the inevitable happens.  But plenty did just take the cheap rates and save cash.

Did you think the pricing was sustainable long term? Or just a loss leader to grow a customer base to test the MyWatts platform as a mainstream challenger for the Octopus Kraken IT platform?

I have to say there is nothing wrong with that strategy so long as the funding and competence are there to drive the strategy. 

Everything was wrong with the strategy given the platform is proven to be defective and partially contributed to their demise. Absolutely noone would be stupid enough to buy into it now so the Senapt offering is pretty mch dead. The question is, will it take down Senapt and the rest if tbe group companies with it. 

wrf12345

"will it take down Senapt and the rest if tbe group companies with it. "

Only if Tomato owe them money, I would guess

masonic

wrf12345 said:

"will it take down Senapt and the rest if tbe group companies with it. "

Only if Tomato owe them money, I would guess

The whole setup relies on Tomato paying the parent company for the energy platform (£5.7m in 2023 according to the last set of published accounts). It doesn't really have any other significant customers to sell its services to, so how is it going to pay its bills without Tomato and a revenue stream from energy consumers?

The answer would normally be to try to replace that lost revenue stream as quickly as possible, but any other energy supplier exercising reasonable care would look at the widely published story of Tomato's woes, partly a consequence of using the defective software platform, and run a mile. If they attempted to adopt the same system, there is a risk they too could be facing disciplinary action from Elexon further down the line.

MeteredOut

bagand96 said:

MeteredOut said:

Now can the thread title be edited to remove the question mark?

It wasn't Too Good To Be True for the 11 months I was with them.  I got the cheap electricity at the advertised rates.

Of course not all customers enjoyed a hassle free experience.  And a few on these forums take a more detailed interest and dare I say will indulge in a little schadenfreude when the inevitable happens.  But plenty did just take the cheap rates and save cash.

Well done you, and the others who benefitted, but I'd still argue what has happened shows it was too good to be true. I'm sure those employed by TE (and probably Senapt) are asking themselves the same thing now. 

PennineAcute

When they don't bill people for over 6 months - and when they do, it is just estimated bills (I don't pay estimated bills) - it is no wonder they are in the mess they are.  

Somehow, I managed to get away from them in September, and no I did not pay any bills.

I joined on 16/12/24.  At 2pm, they managed to break my electricity meter.  It stopped giving live readings.  I am now with BG (for both E & G) and am in the process of trying to get them to fix the meter.  

I shall await the big bill from the administrators.  I hope they realise I have my start and end readings.

Edit

I am hoping that Tomato's accounts are in. such a mess that it takes the administrators past 16 Dec 25.  My big bill may not be as big then.

MWT

wrf12345 said:

"will it take down Senapt and the rest if tbe group companies with it. "

Only if Tomato owe them money, I would guess

Senapt were down to just one customer and that customer (Logicor) was planning to shut down so Senapt bought them and rebranded as Tomato.

Without Tomato there is no revenue stream and some of the other Senapt entities were in receipt of loans from Tomato so life is about to get complicated... 

born_again

PennineAcute said:

When they don't bill people for over 6 months - and when they do, it is just estimated bills (I don't pay estimated bills) - it is no wonder they are in the mess they are.  

Somehow, I managed to get away from them in September, and no I did not pay any bills.

I joined on 16/12/24.  At 2pm, they managed to break my electricity meter.  It stopped giving live readings.  I am now with BG (for both E & G) and am in the process of trying to get them to fix the meter.  

I shall await the big bill from the administrators.  I hope they realise I have my start and end readings.

Edit

I am hoping that Tomato's accounts are in. such a mess that it takes the administrators past 16 Dec 25.  My big bill may not be as big then.

More likely to be some debt collector in a couple of years time.

Administrators are there to try & sell as a going concern. Not start chasing people for funds.

MWT

born_again said:

PennineAcute said:

When they don't bill people for over 6 months - and when they do, it is just estimated bills (I don't pay estimated bills) - it is no wonder they are in the mess they are.  

Somehow, I managed to get away from them in September, and no I did not pay any bills.

I joined on 16/12/24.  At 2pm, they managed to break my electricity meter.  It stopped giving live readings.  I am now with BG (for both E & G) and am in the process of trying to get them to fix the meter.  

I shall await the big bill from the administrators.  I hope they realise I have my start and end readings.

Edit

I am hoping that Tomato's accounts are in. such a mess that it takes the administrators past 16 Dec 25.  My big bill may not be as big then.

More likely to be some debt collector in a couple of years time.

Administrators are there to try & sell as a going concern. Not start chasing people for funds.

Little to no chance of selling a failed energy supplier without a licence as a going concern, so the administrators next task is to achieve the best possible outcome for the creditors which is where all the chasing people for payments comes into play...

MeteredOut

MWT said:

born_again said:

PennineAcute said:

When they don't bill people for over 6 months - and when they do, it is just estimated bills (I don't pay estimated bills) - it is no wonder they are in the mess they are.  

Somehow, I managed to get away from them in September, and no I did not pay any bills.

I joined on 16/12/24.  At 2pm, they managed to break my electricity meter.  It stopped giving live readings.  I am now with BG (for both E & G) and am in the process of trying to get them to fix the meter.  

I shall await the big bill from the administrators.  I hope they realise I have my start and end readings.

Edit

I am hoping that Tomato's accounts are in. such a mess that it takes the administrators past 16 Dec 25.  My big bill may not be as big then.

More likely to be some debt collector in a couple of years time.

Administrators are there to try & sell as a going concern. Not start chasing people for funds.

Little to no chance of selling a failed energy supplier without a licence as a going concern, so the administrators next task is to achieve the best possible outcome for the creditors which is where all the chasing people for payments comes into play...

Other that the outstanding bills, and probably office equipment, I doubt TE have any other assets and I suspect the administrator won't be able to pay all their creditors and they'll get pennies in the pound.

Where they own money to, eg, the energy distributor, does the distributor have write that debt off, or is that a cost that will be borne by taxpayers?

MWT

MeteredOut said:

MWT said:

born_again said:

PennineAcute said:

When they don't bill people for over 6 months - and when they do, it is just estimated bills (I don't pay estimated bills) - it is no wonder they are in the mess they are.  

Somehow, I managed to get away from them in September, and no I did not pay any bills.

I joined on 16/12/24.  At 2pm, they managed to break my electricity meter.  It stopped giving live readings.  I am now with BG (for both E & G) and am in the process of trying to get them to fix the meter.  

I shall await the big bill from the administrators.  I hope they realise I have my start and end readings.

Edit

I am hoping that Tomato's accounts are in. such a mess that it takes the administrators past 16 Dec 25.  My big bill may not be as big then.

More likely to be some debt collector in a couple of years time.

Administrators are there to try & sell as a going concern. Not start chasing people for funds.

Little to no chance of selling a failed energy supplier without a licence as a going concern, so the administrators next task is to achieve the best possible outcome for the creditors which is where all the chasing people for payments comes into play...

Other that the outstanding bills, and probably office equipment, I doubt TE have any other assets and I suspect the administrator won't be able to pay all their creditors and they'll get pennies in the pound.

Where they own money to, eg, the energy distributor, does the distributor have write that debt off, or is that a cost that will be borne by taxpayers?

Collecting on the unpaid/unbilled amounts owed by consumers is going to be an important part of the process of trying to get creditors paid, but who does that is always open to negotiation as it can be either the administrators or the SoLR.

In the end though, where there are unpaid debts to the other participants in the regulated supply side of the industry it is ultimately all of the rest of the energy customers who will end up paying, not tax payers.

The good news though is that bad as this failure will be, the amounts are not all that large when spread across the rest of the bill payers, and this isn't like many other failures where there were a lot of customer balances to repay as Tomato didn't take advance payments in the majority of cases.