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

geewcee

Doc_N said:

geewcee said:

Never heard of these guys before, Tomato energy, but today noticed a new direct debit coming out of my account without my authorisation. Very strange how they have obtained my details, I am an Octopus customer and am still being supplied by them for both electric and gas. Hopefully I can get to the bottom of this when I ring Tomato up tomorrow!! Seems very shady, so thought I would post on here and let people be aware.

But how on earth could they possibly have got hold of your bank details to set up the DD?

Haven't a clue. They rang me back mid afternoon to say they have tracked down the account of the person who has used my bank details to set up their account with. Obviously my name nor my address match. To be fair on Tomato, they were very helpful on trying to resolve this for me and have said they have removed my bank details from their system and will be refunding me in full over next couple of days. They are going to investigate fully and write to me with their conclusions at a later date.
Learnt something new that's for sure, that direct debits can be set up in the wrong name as long as they have your account number and sort code, no other information needed! First Direct haven't been the most helpful, haven't offered to refund the direct debit, nor could understand why I wanted my account number changing after this fraud breach! My details have obviously been leaked or obtaining somewhere, the only thing they offered to do was put a lock on my account so that any future direct debits will need my prior approval before they are set up. 

masonic

QrizB said:

Several posts in this thread have mentioned Tomato not accepting switches from customers with SMETS1 meters.

I thought Ofgem required (via the domestic supply licence rules) that any supplier had to accept any domestic customer? They don't have to offer tariffs other than the SVT, but they can't just refuse a switch?

Am I wrong/mistaken?

They are not banning these customers, they are just not offering them any of the TOU tariffs. So they just get offered Prime (10% below SVT). So I don't think this will make a huge difference.

masonic

geewcee said:

Doc_N said:

geewcee said:

Never heard of these guys before, Tomato energy, but today noticed a new direct debit coming out of my account without my authorisation. Very strange how they have obtained my details, I am an Octopus customer and am still being supplied by them for both electric and gas. Hopefully I can get to the bottom of this when I ring Tomato up tomorrow!! Seems very shady, so thought I would post on here and let people be aware.

But how on earth could they possibly have got hold of your bank details to set up the DD?

Haven't a clue. They rang me back mid afternoon to say they have tracked down the account of the person who has used my bank details to set up their account with. Obviously my name nor my address match. To be fair on Tomato, they were very helpful on trying to resolve this for me and have said they have removed my bank details from their system and will be refunding me in full over next couple of days. They are going to investigate fully and write to me with their conclusions at a later date.
Learnt something new that's for sure, that direct debits can be set up in the wrong name as long as they have your account number and sort code, no other information needed! First Direct haven't been the most helpful, haven't offered to refund the direct debit, nor could understand why I wanted my account number changing after this fraud breach! My details have obviously been leaked or obtaining somewhere, the only thing they offered to do was put a lock on my account so that any future direct debits will need my prior approval before they are set up. 

Glad you got it sorted, disappointing to hear that about First Direct - I expect more of them than that.

northernstar007

@geewcee, i dont want to alarm you but i would also check your creditfile
there is a credit file section on here in case you need any advice

Chrysalis

Early signs are move has gone through.

Octopus mini died, Meter current supplier is now MARI previously I think was MRCY. Tariff page says I have a live tariff.

I checked Octopus data and they are slow, my latest graph from them is just half of Wednesday, so I see why people are saying I will be billed SVR, the graph ends just before the 50+ pence chaos on agile for that day lol.

I took a reading about 30 minutes ago in case its needed.  In 45mins I have 5p pricing.

Chrysalis

QrizB said:

Several posts in this thread have mentioned Tomato not accepting switches from customers with SMETS1 meters.

I thought Ofgem required (via the domestic supply licence rules) that any supplier had to accept any domestic customer? They don't have to offer tariffs other than the SVT, but they can't just refuse a switch?

Am I wrong/mistaken?

I dont know about that, but Octopus do restrict who can join a lot of their tariffs, although they accept everyone on SVR.

Somebody

Chrysalis said:

Early signs are move has gone through.

Octopus mini died, Meter current supplier is now MARI previously I think was MRCY. Tariff page says I have a live tariff.

I checked Octopus data and they are slow, my latest graph from them is just half of Wednesday, so I see why people are saying I will be billed SVR, the graph ends just before the 50+ pence chaos on agile for that day lol.

I took a reading about 30 minutes ago in case its needed.  In 45mins I have 5p pricing.

I thought the 5p rate starts at midnight, so you should be on 5p already at the time pf posting, and not in 45 minutes time? 

tlcgrantham

depends on which tariff was chosen. The basic version of Lifestyle starts at 1:00am for the 5p rate and the EV option starts at at midnight.

jwball

masonic said:

The two would appear intricately linked. Looks to me like they are failing to get metering data from customers and this is preventing them settling with the wholesale market. All related to SMETS1 meters they cannot read?

Do you mean intrinsically?

jwball

This would explain why they are no longer accepting SMETS1 meters.