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

Darkriver

I switched to the TE Lifestyle tariff  from Octopus on October 4th, so far I haven't had a bill or any usage data on the myWatts app but I can see it on the Bright app. TE have not responded to my emails and phone calls to customer services are a waste of time. I wonder if this company will still be around in 2025.

bedake666

Has anyone got issues with their mywatts portal not showing any meter readings after 2 weeks of signing up? I switched on 22nd November and still nothing on the portal as of today..

I was with Octopus and their app always showed my meter readings correctly, also Hugo and Bright app both can connect to my smart meter and show usage correctly.

I contacted Tomato and they said readings will start coming through in 7-14 days from day of switch.

I haven't also received any final bill from Octopus which I believe due to the lack of final meter reading from Tomato.

I am just worried to get hit with a big bill or be switched to standard tariff because Tomato dont seem to be able to connect to my meter..

Any ideas what to do?

bob2302

I was supposed to switch on Monday, which is sort of consistent with Octopus saying  I was leaving on Sunday, the readings were in place this morning (Tuesday), but didn't cover Monday. 

das1969

I am looking into switching, and the two tariffs I'm looking at are Lifestyle and Intensity. Most people on here seems to be going for Lifestyle, though Intensity has a 15% discount when "the grid is green", The grid is considered "green" when the carbon intensity is 115 or lower

Looking at the NESO website this has occured about 20 weeks so far this year. Is anyone else already on this tariff?

https://www.neso.energy/about-neso/our-progress-towards-net-zero/carbon-intensity-dashboard

NibblyPig

Are these guys scam artists? Is it legit?

I signed up 2 months ago, the first month's bill was wrong - they had AM and PM the wrong way around. I charge my car and heat my water overnight, but the bill was showing me doing it at 1pm instead of 1am so I got a large bill.

The number on the bill 0330 something said 'number disconnected' so I had to go on their website for the number to phone them. The guy said they would put a stop on my direct debit, and sort out the issue by sending it to their billing team.

Absolutely nothing happened and I paid the full amount. Now today I just got a bill for the next month, for £100, with the same issue, 320kwh peak usage 80kwh off-peak when it should be the other way around.

Phoned them again, it was so noisy I could barely hear because of background noise of other operators. They said exactly the same thing as the first time. They didn't do any account security either, just asked my acc number and my name, and then told me my e-mail and phone number and asked if they were correct for someone to get in touch (same as last time, although last time had security).

I will probably cancel the direct debit if they try to charge me the full amount and send an e-mail to their complaints address. But the whole outfit seems very scammy... I wondered if they were just going to overcharge people for a bit and then leave the country with the money. I remember an energy company 20 years ago that did exactly this!

EssexHebridean

Nibbly - it sounds as though the registers on your meter might have been transposed? 

tlcgrantham

das1969 said:

I am looking into switching, and the two tariffs I'm looking at are Lifestyle and Intensity. Most people on here seems to be going for Lifestyle, though Intensity has a 15% discount when "the grid is green", The grid is considered "green" when the carbon intensity is 115 or lower

Looking at the NESO website this has occured about 20 weeks so far this year. Is anyone else already on this tariff?

https://www.neso.energy/about-neso/our-progress-towards-net-zero/carbon-intensity-dashboard

The discount is actually 10% because they inflate the rates by 5% when the grid is not green and then deduct 15% from that figure. Also the grid is mainly green when it’s cheap rate during the night and rarely green when it’s full rate. 

lohr500

@NibblyPig

I don't think they are scam artists. More like incompetent artists!

The latest error I read about on the FB Forum is that they have charged VAT at 10% on some customer bills.

In other cases thy haven't charged customers anything for over two months and seem to be struggling to get the half hourly data from some meter types, especially earlier SMETS1 smart meters.

They are also blocking some customers from switching away, claiming that customers have outstanding payments. But some of those customers haven't received a bill or have received a bill that is less than 28 days old. In such cases the Ofgem rules state that blocking a switch on outstanding payment grounds is not allowed. 

Because of the widespread 30 minute time shift error that affected many bills, including mine, they overcharged me slightly in September and again in October. I'm still awaiting a refund and my case has been accepted by the Ombudsman.

I switched away from them in early November because personally I don't think they have a sustainable business. I wanted to leave at a time of my choosing rather than risk ending up being forced moved to a supplier of last resort. 

tlcgrantham

I’ve just received my first bill from Tomato. It looks about right despite earlier difficulties with the 30min differences on charging rates.  The bill was £61.91 for 390.56 kw used including Vat & SC. This compares with £97.04 on Octopus Tracker and £105.97 for the SVT.

Veteransaver

Just had my November bill,( 1st to 30th November) 
Glad to say it all looks good and 100% correct
I think there still needs to be some sort of adjustment to the sept/Oct bill due to the half hour issue, presume they will get round that at some point.