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

Newbie_John

3 months per bill, so September may qualify, October's bill if arrives within 3 months won't be discounted.
If the reason your bills are delayed is SMETS1 then you may be "cancelled" and moved to non TOU tarrif - with just standing charge to pay for those days. 
I've joined mid Oct with SMETS2, and seen already some people who joined after me being billed - so I guess they just recalculate incorrectly reported early days. MyWatts is fine now for the past months, and the difference was negligible really, about £3 either way.

Bendo

What's their issue with SMETS1, other than incompetence?

NibblyPig

Gerry1 said:

NibblyPig said:

lohr500 said:

@NibblyPig

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

<snip>

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.

The stop never came, so I emailed them a complaint and cancelled the DD.

Probably not a wise move.  You're likely to lose your DD discount so you'll pay more.

You could even end up with it adversely affecting your credit rating.

Better to have asked your bank to reverse the DD.

I'm certainly not paying £100 for a fraction of that in electricity from some scam artists. Now they can send me a notice to pay which I can dispute.

How would asking the bank to reverse it be any different?

Gerry1

I'm not a finance expert but my understanding is that cancelling a DD means that you are refusing to pay your bill and that's seen as A Bad Thing.

If the supplier makes a mistake that breaches the DD Guarantee then it's seen as their mistake and isn't held against you.  They can correct it and re-submit it.

Others with more detailed financial knowledge my be able to clarify.

NibblyPig

Gerry1 said:

I'm not a finance expert but my understanding is that cancelling a DD means that you are refusing to pay your bill and that's seen as A Bad Thing.

If the supplier makes a mistake that breaches the DD Guarantee then it's seen as their mistake and isn't held against you.  They can correct it and re-submit it.

Others with more detailed financial knowledge my be able to clarify.

I see. I am refusing to pay an incorrect bill but perhaps you're right. Although I thought the DD guarantee was just that they wouldn't mess up the payments, not that the way they calculated your bill was incorrect.

Newbie_John

Bendo said:

What's their issue with SMETS1, other than incompetence?

SMETS2 follow a standard with a lot of documentation available.
SMETS1 the opposite, many types, lack of documentation, limited access, no standards and limited number of requests.

It's easier for larger players as they had more time to act on developing solutions to each different type, some designed them so knew what's happening and some simply just inherited all the knowledge like Octopus took on Bulb, Shell...

My main issue with the switch is actually Octopus not being able to get my smart meter data for the last day of my Agile (which had a lot of negative slots), and charging me standard rate.. also no billing for September yet issued? This simply shows it's hard for even big players.

Octopus is unable to show life usage unlike Tomato - and that's the difference in their solutions - Octopus has one that works for all and Tomato focused too much on SMETS2 failing those with SMETS1.

Bendo

Newbie_John said:

Bendo said:

What's their issue with SMETS1, other than incompetence?

SMETS2 follow a standard with a lot of documentation available.
SMETS1 the opposite, many types, lack of documentation, limited access, no standards and limited number of requests.

Those issues for SMETS1 apply to unadopted meters. Of which they should be few left and the remaining ones should be replaced with new meters. Dealing with apodpted SMETS1 meters should be no more of a challenge than SMETS2.

coupleuk

Newbie_John said:

If the reason your bills are delayed is SMETS1 then you may be "cancelled" and moved to non TOU tarrif - with just standing charge to pay for those days. 

The 2 addresses are SMETS1.

Octopus never had an issue with them.

And Utilita have never had any issues with another 2 x SMETS1 meters I have in the building which I didn't switch to Tomato.

I don't really need a specific TOU tariff anyway, just a 5p night and 23p day with 40p Standing Charge will suffice.

Sunfold

Tomato and SMET 1 meters. 

I’m in a tomato Energy user Facebook group and the issues of SMET1 meters have been directly addressed to the members by their CEO. 

Here’s the explanation 
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/b3vELQ1iZMcnJvuk/?

Gerry1

Sunfold said:

Tomato and SMET 1 meters. 

I’m in a tomato Energy user Facebook group and the issues of SMET1 meters have been directly addressed to the members by their CEO. 

Here’s the explanation 
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/b3vELQ1iZMcnJvuk/?

@Sunfold Please could you summarise for the benefit of those who don't use Facebook?