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

MWT

Bendo said:

I expect if Ofgem have any sense, they will try and get Octopus to be SOLR, as they have the technology and brains to simply pull all the data from the meters for the past 13 months and produce accurate bills based on Tomato rates, that could then simply be cross referenced against what has been paid already.

It doesn't have to be messy provided they don't jump into bed with the likes of British Gas.

Even if Octopus is appointed as SoLR, it does not automatically mean that they will have any involvement in the billing for periods prior to their appointment.

By default that is the province of the administrators unless they manage to do a deal with the SoLR to handle the billing for them...

Bendo

MWT said:

Bendo said:

I expect if 7BOfgem have any sense, they will try and get Octopus to be SOLR, as they have the technology and brains to simply pull all the data from the meters for the past 13 months and produce accurate bills based on Tomato rates, that could then simply be cross referenced against what has been paid already.

It doesn't have to be messy provided they don't jump into bed with the likes of British Gas.

Even if Octopus is appointed as SoLR, it does not automatically mean that they will have any involvement in the billing for periods prior to their appointment.

By default that is the province of the administrators unless they manage to do a deal with the SoLR to handle the billing for them...

Quite.  But given billing is an absolute mess and none existent for many customers,  it would make sense for the regulator to step in here with what is basically an easy solution. 

Maybe I am giving Ofgem too much credit to arrange such a basic fix.

MWT

Bendo said:

MWT said:

Bendo said:

I expect if 7BOfgem have any sense, they will try and get Octopus to be SOLR, as they have the technology and brains to simply pull all the data from the meters for the past 13 months and produce accurate bills based on Tomato rates, that could then simply be cross referenced against what has been paid already.

It doesn't have to be messy provided they don't jump into bed with the likes of British Gas.

Even if Octopus is appointed as SoLR, it does not automatically mean that they will have any involvement in the billing for periods prior to their appointment.

By default that is the province of the administrators unless they manage to do a deal with the SoLR to handle the billing for them...

Quite.  But given billing is an absolute mess and none existent for many customers,  it would make sense for the regulator to step in here with what is basically an easy solution. 

Maybe I am giving Ofgem too much credit to arrange such a basic fix.

It isn't something that Ofgem have the power to mandate.

They can appoint a SoLR if no supplier steps forward, but they cannot instruct the administrators to hand over billing and debt collection nor can they require the SoLR to assume that responsibility.

I'd agree that the administrators would be wise to try and do that deal with the SoLR, but the SoLR would be crazy to want to take it on...

Nothing in that mess of un-billed accounts is going to be 'basic'...

solarite

gopalsingh said:

I was with Octopus for gas and tomato for electricity. But this morning my online Octopus account is suddenly showing that they are the supplier both electrcity and gas for my address, showing all the smart meter details for my elec also but the elec tariff details it says "Sorry, we weren't able to get the details for your tariff. This should be temporary, but if it persists, contact us". Not sure if they have been appointed as SoLR? My octopus account has definitely changed since yesterday. Would be interesting to see if anybody else was Octopus for gas only and if their online account has changed overnight also to show they are the elec supplier now also... I did put in a switch request to swap elec to octopus a couple days before they went bust but that was declined by tomato and never went through

Yes, same here. Electricity added to my account so looks promising as I want to switch to agile.

Ildhund

Ildhund said:

GSV3MIAC2 said:

Smart meters use hh data for tou billing in most cases. 

Do you have evidence for this statement? I'm thinking of the millions of smart meters like mine, reporting day and night register readings for my ToU Economy 7 tariff. 

GSV3MIAC2 said:
e7 was often moved from dumb to smart meters, and some suppliers use r1/r2 on an ongoing basis.

Yes, but do you have any data that suggest that most customers on ToU tariffs (which surely includes tariffs like Economy 7) are billed to half-hourly readings? I think suppliers remain pretty mum about sensitive commercial data like 'numbers of customers on specific tariffs'.

(Of course, it's not the meter that decides how to conduct billing - that's an agreement between supplier and customer.)

GSV3MIAC2 said:

... a mystical random offset on half hour time.

There's nothing particularly mystical about it; it's detailed in SMETS2. [And, with my pedant hat even more firmly on, it's not 'random', either. It is randomized, so no two meters are likely to display the same offset. It won't change while the meter is in service.] 

GSV3MIAC2 said:

... If they want hh data they need customer approval. 

Only from older-established customers. Automatic Hh data retrieval has been the default for some years, but a customer can opt out.
  

GSV3MIAC2

nope I only have a few data points, from which it appears most tomato tou customers were billed on hh data, not 3 registers (where billed at all), all octopus eV customers are on hh data, eon required me (new customer) to agree to hh collection (not in by default, opt out) and all octopus e7 customers I know about are on r1/r2 readings. in my wife's case, they had them reversed.

 yes I agree it is 'random' between meters, any one meter is fixed (with no easy way to discover the offset except watch the meter at midnight), although hh data from smart meters matches the stated time slots, near as I can tell .. I.e. if I charge my batteries 12-6, it is all off peak, whatever the offset might be, and it actually appears to start at 12 midnight by my clock. didn't do that on mechanical e7.

Ildhund

GSV3MIAC2 said:

... hh data from smart meters matches the stated time slots, ...

Yes, so they should. The offset (always a delay, BTW) only applies to tariff switching and to any ALCS calendar in service. A day's Hh buckets run from the dot of midnight meter-time, which may vary slightly from any other time source. Hh customers whose tariff relies on dynamic ALCS - e.g. Octopus Snug - have noticed that there's a mismatch between bucket timings and on/off times of meter-switched equipment. I don't know of any reliable solution to this quandary.

Qyburn

Bendo said:

Quite.  But given billing is an absolute mess and none existent for many customers,  it would make sense for the regulator to step in here with what is basically an easy solution. 

Why do you think it would be easy? Octopus won't have Tomato's tariffs and tariff history on their systems.

Bendo

Qyburn said:

Bendo said:

Quite.  But given billing is an absolute mess and none existent for many customers,  it would make sense for the regulator to step in here with what is basically an easy solution. 

Why do you think it would be easy? Octopus won't have Tomato's tariffs and tariff history on their systems.

Tomatos tariffs were not complicated (other than the Agile like one that absolutely noone will have been on as they never published upcoming rates etc.  

Given that in the past 13 months, they never changed the rates there was only a handful of tariffs and the regional variations, it wouldn't be a huge effort to set them, pull the historical data and produce an accurate bill.

JohnPo

Bendo said:

Qyburn said:

Bendo said:

Quite.  But given billing is an absolute mess and none existent for many customers,  it would make sense for the regulator to step in here with what is basically an easy solution. 

Why do you think it would be easy? Octopus won't have Tomato's tariffs and tariff history on their systems.

Tomatos tariffs were not complicated (other than the Agile like one that absolutely noone will have been on as they never published upcoming rates etc.  

Given that in the past 13 months, they never changed the rates there was only a handful of tariffs and the regional variations, it wouldn't be a huge effort to set them, pull the historical data and produce an accurate bill.

Tomato's tariffs might have been relatively simple for most customers although I recollect they had a tariff at the time I signed up which was a clone of Octopus Agile including it's name!  The issue is that Tomato messed up the billing from day one with different cohorts of customers in different categories: e.g 

1. Smets1 customers that were not billed at all. 

2. Smets2 customer where incorrect bills were sent out - known issue with the half hour time block being incorrectly applied for some customers.

3. Various customers who were given discretionary discounts or rebates for customer service / billing failures.

So asking anyone to step in and work out for each customer what is actually contractually due versus what has been paid without access to all the data is a non starter. Tomato customers don't have an online account which shows the current balance or history of bills and payments - so I doubt it exists at all. 

In theory with enough time, effort and goodwill the process of forensically restructuring every account and getting it accurate could be done - but the costs of doing it would be prohibitive.

My prediction is that whoever takes on the administration of Tomato will find there are no funds - they will very quickly issue any outstanding bills without paying much attention as to their accuracy so their own fees get covered and then swiftly move to sell the 'debt book' for pennies in the pound and let debt collectors harass ex tomato customer for years to come - so be warned!