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

Chrysalis

bagand96 said:

JohnPo said:

Tomato billed me from 14/11/24 onwards - they did not setup the direct debit although I gave them the details when signing up.  I have raised a complaint as my contract shows the rates off-peak 4.77p KWhr, mid-peak 13.37p and standard rate rate 22.16 with standing charge 40.82p and no mention at all of these being prices excluding VAT but they just added 5% on the bottom on the Dec and Jan bills. Have paid the Dec one in full by bank transfer but will pay Jan's bill less VAT and deducting Dec's VAT and send them an email explaining why - referencing the complaint made on 03 Jan - which so far they have not replied to.

Let see how this goes - if they fold - I will make sure I have got a paper trail so that when Barrett Smith & Brown get hold of debt and start chasing - I can tell them where to go.

But what rates were you shown on the website when you signed up?

I'm on the same tariff as you and joined the same week. On the website graph when I signed up I was shown 5..004p / 14.0427p / 23.2628p with standing charge of 42.8563p.

My contract came through and like you says 4.77p / 13.37p / 22.16p and standing charge 40.82p.

The contract rates are excluding VAT, but when the VAT is added it matches what was shown on their website at sign up.  I do think there was (is?) some confusion as somewhere else they stated all rates include VAT , but in my case at least the rates are correct based on the web quote.

My contract has inc VAT rates.

Chrysalis

masonic said:

Newbie_John said:

Unless they pulled data more frequently, if you know customer is leaving why not attempt to pull it hourly so you get their final consumption, bill them, close the account - oh yeah, Octopus is unable to do it - having hundreds of IT people it can't do it.. it can only get the data for the past day, once a day - TE with probably 1 developer can access data multiple times a day already.. 

Octopus lost access to my meter at about 18:30 on the day before my switch (my Home Mini got kicked out at that time). Even if they pulled just before then they would be missing 6 hours.

Right now, MyWatts is only showing my data up to Saturday at 07:30, so even they can't keep it up to date over the weekend (Bright and Loop have all of Sat, but only part of Sun).

Please let's not try to defend the indefensible. A validated change of supply reading is a prerequisite (and regulatory requirement) for issuing opening/closing bills and there is no excuse for an energy supplier not knowing this. I'm willing to entertain the notion that Farouk has gone rogue in making this comment and his some of his staff would facepalm at upon seeing it, given they are stressing to customers the importance of providing their opening read within 5 days of the supply start date.

For me since I setup Bright again, it has failed to do a full day of data.

Most of my entire day values look plausible, except Sunday which is clearly too low, but when looking at the hourly (or is it 30min) data, its a repeated pattern, every day it starts ok, but at some point it just stops, the most complete day made it to 4pm, Sunday crashed and burned at 2am, most are between about 10am and 2pm they stop, it always starts again either at 11pm or midnight.

No one on a smart meter on a TOU tariff should be having to rely on a 3rd party app anyway, its up to TE (and all other suppliers) to have it working directly.

lohr500

Chrysalis said:

For me since I setup Bright again, it has failed to do a full day of data.

Most of my entire day values look plausible, except Sunday which is clearly too low, but when looking at the hourly (or is it 30min) data, its a repeated pattern, every day it starts ok, but at some point it just stops, the most complete day made it to 4pm, Sunday crashed and burned at 2am, most are between about 10am and 2pm they stop, it always starts again either at 11pm or midnight.

No one on a smart meter on a TOU tariff should be having to rely on a 3rd party app anyway, its up to TE (and all other suppliers) to have it working directly.

I agree with you that TE should sort it out.

But without Bright and also the N3rgy half hourly downloads, I think I would have struggled to provide TE with rock solid proof that their billing logic was flawed.

By having those two independent half hourly extracts (which unsurprisingly matched exactly, allowing for the different time stamp convention between Bright and N3rgy) I was able to demonstrate to TE that on some days their data was complete nonsense and for the other days, they were half an hour out on their half hourly reporting.

Can you try using N3rgy or Hugo to see if they are able to access a full set of data on the days where Bright is failing? If either of those fail as well, then it could be that TE have in some way screwed up the data reporting flow when pushing any new settings to your meter. There have been isolated reports of similar problems on the Facebook TE Users Forum.

Chrysalis

lohr500 said:

Chrysalis said:

For me since I setup Bright again, it has failed to do a full day of data.

Most of my entire day values look plausible, except Sunday which is clearly too low, but when looking at the hourly (or is it 30min) data, its a repeated pattern, every day it starts ok, but at some point it just stops, the most complete day made it to 4pm, Sunday crashed and burned at 2am, most are between about 10am and 2pm they stop, it always starts again either at 11pm or midnight.

No one on a smart meter on a TOU tariff should be having to rely on a 3rd party app anyway, its up to TE (and all other suppliers) to have it working directly.

I agree with you that TE should sort it out.

But without Bright and also the N3rgy half hourly downloads, I think I would have struggled to provide TE with rock solid proof that their billing logic was flawed.

By having those two independent half hourly extracts (which unsurprisingly matched exactly, allowing for the different time stamp convention between Bright and N3rgy) I was able to demonstrate to TE that on some days their data was complete nonsense and for the other days, they were half an hour out on their half hourly reporting.

Can you try using N3rgy or Hugo to see if they are able to access a full set of data on the days where Bright is failing? If either of those fail as well, then it could be that TE have in some way screwed up the data reporting flow when pushing any new settings to your meter. There have been isolated reports of similar problems on the Facebook TE Users Forum.

I wasnt aware is other app options,  I will try them, thank you, I do agree its important to get this data, so the data from TE can be verified (whenever it finally appears).  I certainly wont accept being billed at SVR, as I am currently using energy with expectations of lifestyle billing.
Ok I just discovered something, if I set Bright to display cost instead of usage, the hourly graphs are complete, but obviously thats useless to me as I want usage values not cost.  As soon as I flip to usage, the graphs are incomplete.  You ever heard of that problem?
Ok I need to report a bug to Bright, but at least I found a way to get the usage graphs, if I go to compare, then tap back, it populates the usage graph.

masonic

I am actually getting really good data from Loop. I only registered to get n3rgy to accept me, and it does seem to have a lot of marketing within it, but it is pretty good at staying up to date. No support for TOU, but I am mainly interested in consumption.

I am still using n3rgy as my primary data source. It updates once a day with the (full) previous day's data. The date and time is set up as period_to rather than period_from. TE is normally more up to date, but didn't update at all over the weekend.

Bright has been patchy for me too, but gaps do get back-filled. I might revoke this authorisation and bin it.

wakeupalarm

Chrysalis said:

Done some more digging as I still have no consumption data, turns out some customers have been told they are having issues with some SMETS2 meters as well, getting offered the same discount as SMETS1 customers.  Both IHD and the meter received a welcome to tomato energy message.
Also my email to Octopus regarding closing bill didnt even get a reply, looks like they waiting for that DCC thing and dont trust my reading.

No consumption data so far from Tomato Energy after 10 days with a SMETS2 meter.  No discount offered, infact no response to my messages or emails either.

Newbie_John

Had a look at MyWatts yesterday and it froze mid day on Friday, but has now picked up.
All works fine here.

lohr500

Chrysalis said:

I wasnt aware is other app options,  I will try them, thank you, I do agree its important to get this data, so the data from TE can be verified (whenever it finally appears).  I certainly wont accept being billed at SVR, as I am currently using energy with expectations of lifestyle billing.
Ok I just discovered something, if I set Bright to display cost instead of usage, the hourly graphs are complete, but obviously thats useless to me as I want usage values not cost.  As soon as I flip to usage, the graphs are incomplete.  You ever heard of that problem?
Ok I need to report a bug to Bright, but at least I found a way to get the usage graphs, if I go to compare, then tap back, it populates the usage graph.

That fault is a new one on me and it does sound more like a bug than a missing data issue.

Is it worth deleting the App on your phone and re-installing? Or as you say, report the bug to Bright.

Bright was my prefered App when I was with TE because it supported the multiple TOU times and costs.
I couldn't find any other free App that could handle the multiple TOU slots.   

colin79666

Found this thread whole searching for TE issues when switching…

I moved to them over the weekend but the only emails I’ve had are the direct debit and the my watts link. No contract and no request for a reading. Is that normal at this stage?

No data in my watts but I’m not surprised as the meter still says that octopus are the supplier. 

I’ve got a photo of the meter on Sunday night. I have TOU 1 and 2 readings. Octopus where only using 1 latterly but I’m worried TE are not going to handle it right.

Octopus appear to have send me a final bill already. It doesn’t say it’s final but a bill for 2 days cant really be explained another way. 

masonic

colin79666 said:

Found this thread whole searching for TE issues when switching…

I moved to them over the weekend but the only emails I’ve had are the direct debit and the my watts link. No contract and no request for a reading. Is that normal at this stage?

No data in my watts but I’m not surprised as the meter still says that octopus are the supplier. 

I’ve got a photo of the meter on Sunday night. I have TOU 1 and 2 readings. Octopus where only using 1 latterly but I’m worried TE are not going to handle it right.

You should have had an email with the contract and T&Cs immediately after signing up, and an email requesting a meter reading on the day of the switch. Check your spam folder.

colin79666 said:

Octopus appear to have send me a final bill already. It doesn’t say it’s final but a bill for 2 days cant really be explained another way. 

This is what Octopus has been doing. They take a smart reading on the last day of supply so that the final bill is just for your last day's use (check the meter reading history in the app, you'll see it was probably taken one day before your switch, and your statement won't have any charges for your last day). This limits any shenanigans if TE fail to register your opening read and it ends up being estimated based on annual consumption.