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

masonic

Alnat1 said:

Octopus are probably using "the mysterious 3rd party" reading, which they are legally forced to do. This may be higher or lower than the actual reading but has to be used by both the losing and gaining suppliers.
The problem seems to be happening because Tomato don't use readings at all and totally rely on the 30 minute usage figures. They therefore can't start charging only when the meter has passed the reading specified by the 3rd party and they start to charge from midnight on the date the account is transferred.
The problem lies with Tomato and not Octopus. 

Origin of the issue is Tomato probably not processing the opening reads correctly, resulting in no D0086 flow. However, it is unlikely this would result in the gross overestimates being seen. For one thing, Octopus has routinely been capturing a read on the day before the switch, so the final bill is for a single day's usage. Any 3rd party validation would not allow a reading more than 2.5x your seasonally adjusted EAC to be used - it would be reduced to the adjusted EAC for this 1 day and would result in a lower reading. In the absence of a reading that is also what would be used. The difference would therefore be small and often in the customer's favour (if they are switching to a cheaper tariff).

I'd contend that the real problem lies with the system itself. There should be a period of overlap where both suppliers can obtain the data they need from the meter for accounting purposes.

Bendo

It looks like the Tomato 50% discount for not being able to bill smets1 meters is approaching for a lot of customers. 

 Tomato seem to be trying to get around their promised discount by generating random bills based on estimated index reads at a flat rate rather than the lifestyle tou rates.

masonic

Bendo said:

It looks like the Tomato 50% discount for not being able to bill smets1 meters is approaching for a lot of customers. 

Tomato seem to be trying to get around their promised discount by generating random bills based on estimated index reads at a flat rate rather than the lifestyle tou rates.

Is this from the Facebook group? I don't see that they have provisions in their T&Cs to enable this. Most likely this will just drive complaint volumes and be overturned if they allow complaints to get to the EO. High complaint volumes could land them in hot water with Ofgem (I recall the action they took when Outfox was deluged was to block them from taking on any new customers while they sorted out their customer service).

lohr500

Personally, I think the storm clouds are fast approaching for TE. 

Whilst I applaud their desire to be a serious disruptor in the UK energy market, in my opinion and without prejudice,  the way they have gone about it is shambolic.

• From not understanding the basics of how the half hourly time stamp works on the smart meter data.
• To launching the MyWatts platform which initially was (and it would seem for some) still is very slow to show any customer data. And in the early days when it did work, for me and others, the usage and cost data was incorrect.
• To onboarding new customers straight onto a TOU tariff without 1st requiring a switch onto a single rate tariff so they could establish if they could reliably access the meter data.
• Then throwing out offers of various bill discounts to those customers where they couldn't access the data and so couldn't bill.
• And now, this week, billing customers who signed up for a TOU contract at a flat rate because of the problems reading the half hourly usage data.

Meantime their CEO has been, or possibly still is, in Cameroon selling the concept of Tomatopia to Africa.
I would have thought his priorities were closer to home.

Others may disagree.

Chrysalis

Mywatts is clearly in a state of development, but once its working its much quicker than Octopus, as an example I still dont see my gas usage from Saturday on Octopus, that is approaching 4 days ago at this point.  Once Mywatts is working I now get the previous day consistently, and some people get it almost live.

Meanwhile for Octopus, its not been pretty.
Slow updates.
Billing with fake reading numbers.
Staff unable to place me on proper tariff, needing me to talk down to them for nearly 2 hours on a phone call.
Staff unable to follow simple instructions to start tariff switch immediately instead of end of tracker.
A member of staff when I first started on Agile trying to tell me SVR would be cheaper.
Refusal to send of broken meter for testing despite multiple requests.
Billing team, being stubborn to the point it lost Octopus energy ombudsman fees.

I think most of the things you listed people could show up for other suppliers, The CEO is clearly a bit of a loose cannon with public statements, but the bigger issue is perhaps the lack of a behemoth behind the organisation with funding, as an example Octopus did their own form of loss leading in their early days, remember the capped 35p Agile tariff right in the middle of the peak of the energy crisis?  All the capped EV tariffs which were also clearly loss leaders?

Your final point?  Octopus billed me on flexible when I was on Agile and they actually had the readings which makes it even worse.

There is no fixed DD on TE, which might help a fair bit, as I do think large debit balances are rife amongst the energy supplier sector.

masonic

lohr500 said:

Personally, I think the storm clouds are fast approaching for TE. 

Whilst I applaud their desire to be a serious disruptor in the UK energy market, in my opinion and without prejudice,  the way they have gone about it is shambolic.

• From not understanding the basics of how the half hourly time stamp works on the smart meter data.
• To launching the MyWatts platform which initially was (and it would seem for some) still is very slow to show any customer data. And in the early days when it did work, for me and others, the usage and cost data was incorrect.
• To onboarding new customers straight onto a TOU tariff without 1st requiring a switch onto a single rate tariff so they could establish if they could reliably access the meter data.
• Then throwing out offers of various bill discounts to those customers where they couldn't access the data and so couldn't bill.
• And now, this week, billing customers who signed up for a TOU contract at a flat rate because of the problems reading the half hourly usage data.

Meantime their CEO has been, or possibly still is, in Cameroon selling the concept of Tomatopia to Africa.
I would have thought his priorities were closer to home.

Others may disagree.

Agree with these concerns. Would add the apparent inability to take smart readings, and where they have done so, get them wildly wrong (as in my case).

Also agree with Chrysalis that MyWatts has improved significantly over the time I've been with TE. Had they gone about things differently, made it a bit clearer early customers were beta testing, and kept Farouk in his cage, things might have been less uncomfortable for them by now.

lohr500

Time will tell @Chrysalis. Time will tell.
Let's compare notes in 6 months time.

Chrysalis

lohr500 said:

Time will tell @Chrysalis. Time will tell.
Let's compare notes in 6 months time.

You right on that, and I have posted before it could well happen, but my take on this, I am not a shareholder, so whatever money I save in the mean time will remain saved.  The discount thing I do have an opinion is silly as well.

JKS$(

bristolleedsfan said:

JKS$( said:...

If your final Octopus Bill is estimated with numeric value after decimal point then it is not a valid final reading.

Old supplier and new supplier closing/opening readings have to be the same to avoid paying for same energy twice.

https://octopus.energy/unhappy/

I've asked Octopus if the reading having a number after the decimal point means it's an estimated reading - they insist it's an actual, accurate reading, not an estimate. Every bill I've had from them has listed meter readings all with a number after the decimal point, all with 'smart meter reading' printed next to that number. 

The first meter reading that appears on myWatts is for 6 Feb, my switch date was 27 Jan, so I don't know if TE have used the same incorrect reading as Octopus for their opening reading - waiting for TE to confirm what opening reading they are using. 

Bendo

masonic said:

Bendo said:

It looks like the Tomato 50% discount for not being able to bill smets1 meters is approaching for a lot of customers. 

Tomato seem to be trying to get around their promised discount by generating random bills based on estimated index reads at a flat rate rather than the lifestyle tou rates.

Is this from the Facebook group? I don't see that they have provisions in their T&Cs to enable this. Most likely this will just drive complaint volumes and be overturned if they allow complaints to get to the EO. High complaint volumes could land them in hot water with Ofgem (I recall the action they took when Outfox was deluged was to block them from taking on any new customers while they sorted out their customer service).

Yeah. There was a couple of posts on there about it. The first seems to have been caused by the user submitting manual reads and the bill being auto generated so they claim,. But someone else has said the same has happened to them and they haven't submitted any reads.

Either way, surely if tomorrow starts marking the 50% discount day,  how can they not have fixed the problem by now, surely it should be number one priority.