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

sebtomato

Does Tomato Energy support activating ACLS during off peak hours? Basically replicating a traditional economy 7?

I have some storage heaters, and ACLS needs to be activated for them to work. Else, they won't switch on.

Octopus has just released a tariff specially for storage heaters (Octopus Snug), but Tomato Lifestyle would be much cheaper (5p off peak rate, rather than 9p, and a cheaper standing charge too) and would offer more off peak hours too during the day. Probably 15% to 20% cheaper than Octopus Economy 7.

I am reluctant to switch to Tomato, as risk is to have no heating if they mess up.

coupleuk

Despite no attempt having been made by Tomato to correct my incorrect meter setup on their systems, no bills for 3 months, no response to my emails .......they have just sent me a email.

They have given me FOUR DAYS to choose one of the following;

1. Move to fixed tariff at 21p unit and 60p standing charge with nothing charged for the last 3 months consumption just 40p a day standing charge.

2. Move to another supplier

3. Do nothing and wait for them to fix all the issues

So they have done NOTHING for 3 months yet expect me to make a decision in 4 days - and if I haven't they will move me to the fixed tariff anyway.

What a shambles !!

I've told them I cannot make a decision until they correct all their errors with the original account setup so will have to stay as things are.

I have emailed them asking for a Deadlock Letter and will prepare my Ofgem submission - and a few of those will lead to their Licence being revoked (again)

crumpet_man

I'd be tempted to go for option 1 then switch suppliers.

coupleuk

crumpet_man said:

I'd be tempted to go for option 1 then switch suppliers.

The cheapest comparison I can find across the market is 23p a unit and 63p standing charge.

So on that basis Option 1 would be better than switching supplier.

And, because other suppliers are much the same rates, if I hang on with Tomato, they go belly-up and I'm transferred to another supplier, any backdated bills will be what I'd be paying anyway if I'd chosen to move now.

They were collecting my half hourly reads from September 1st to mid-October so we know my SMETS1 meters actually work - they just need to figure out why they stopped getting them.

We shall see what happens now I've asked for the Deadlock Letter (a request I'm confident they'll ignore)

Bendo

They will ignore the request in the hope they can fix it before you can goto the ombudsman.  Their pricing probably just about covers their costs, given they are unable to bill a good chuck of customers they likely have cash flow issues unless someone with deep pockets is bank rolling them, they likely can't afford ombudsman costs.

jadex

Switched last weekend to Tomato Lifestyle and so far everything works perfectly: MyWatts started promptly, timeslots are charged correctly as per MyWatts; hopefully my bill will replicate what that website is showing...
IHD is also working showing electricity from Tomato and gas from Octopus (in terms of kWh).
So far, so good.

lohr500

sebtomato said:

Does Tomato Energy support activating ACLS during off peak hours? Basically replicating a traditional economy 7?

I have some storage heaters, and ACLS needs to be activated for them to work. Else, they won't switch on.

Octopus has just released a tariff specially for storage heaters (Octopus Snug), but Tomato Lifestyle would be much cheaper (5p off peak rate, rather than 9p, and a cheaper standing charge too) and would offer more off peak hours too during the day. Probably 15% to 20% cheaper than Octopus Economy 7.

I am reluctant to switch to Tomato, as risk is to have no heating if they mess up.

I don't think TE will be able to activate your ACLS switching anytime soon. 

From my two month experience with TE, they weren't even able to push the new tariff rates and the s/c details to my working SMETS2 meter.

My meter continued to operate as a two register Economy 7 type meter, with the ACLS circuit activating based on the previous EDF ECO20:20 tariff times. It would be a gamble, but if you did switch, your meter might also continue to operate the ACLS switching at the same times as it does now. If the times coincide with the TE Lifestyle times, then fine, but I suspect there will be a discrepancy because the longest available TE 5p slot is only 6 hours, not 7.
And there is a danger that TE might get their act together and reset your meter at some point. Unless they offer customisation for each customer, what ACLS switching times would they set? Just the 5p slot, or the 5p and 14p slots?

Another option is to get a qualified electrician to change your consumer unit circuits, so the off-peak circuit is controlled by a separate relay/timer, linked to the 24/7 circuit. The risk in doing this is that you need to keep an eye on the clock time and timer settings on the timer to make sure that it remains synchronised to the correct off-peak times.

If you can shift a high % of your demand to the Economy 7 period, have a look at the Utility Warehouse Economy 7 pricing. I am only paying 5p for the 7 hours off-peak, but 34p peak and with a 63p standing charge.
As a high user (18,000kWh p.a.) it works for us as we able to shift virtually all our demand into the 5p off-peak window, so the high peak rate is largely irrelevant. The saving from the 5p rate more than compensates for the high s/c as well.

la531983

Out of curiosity I just put my address into the Tomato get a quote thing on their website and the ONLY things it comes back with are the Prime and the Tomatopia ones. Have they pulled the others? 

I have a SMETS1 meter, no idea if this is relevant.

matt_drummer

Bendo said:

They will ignore the request in the hope they can fix it before you can goto the ombudsman.  Their pricing probably just about covers their costs, given they are unable to bill a good chuck of customers they likely have cash flow issues unless someone with deep pockets is bank rolling them, they likely can't afford ombudsman costs.

Do they?

I'm not sure how it works exactly and whether this applies to all or only some of their costs.

Maybe somebody with more knowledge than me could clarify?

But, this is how I would expect it to work.

They can't be billed for buying energy until they know how much they have bought, and they only know how much they have bought when they work out how much their customers have used.

If they can't work out how much their customers have used and bill them for it, then how do they know how much they have bought and what the cost is?

Maybe they haven't had to pay for the energy unbilled to their customers yet?

One of my colleagues has a gas meter that is not recording any use and it hasn't been for years. He keeps telling the supplier and they do nothing.

I assume they don't care so much because as they haven't billed anything to a customer they haven't had to pay for it?

All the supplier is losing is a small profit, not the whole cost of the gas supplied.

wrf12345

"Out of curiosity I just put my address into the Tomato get a quote thing on their website and the ONLY things it comes back with are the Prime and the Tomatopia ones. Have they pulled the others? 

I have a SMETS1 meter, no idea if this is relevant."

Yes, too complicated or too much work for them to work with the older meters. If you trace back to the politicians responsible for their fitting and write them a nice letter I am sure they will offer to fund fitting a proper meter for you...