Tomato Energy goes bust - here's what you need to know

MattMattMattUK

silvercar said:

ConcernedBrummie said:

woodulike said:

As a Tomato customer I'm concerned about how much I will have to pay to whichever supplier we are transferred to and how quickly I can switch to a sensibly priced tariff.  As an all electric houshold our bills will be very expensive if we have to pay the price cap prices for long.

I have been with Tomato for over a year, have had no issues and had no idea they were struggling.

Fairly certain it's 3 working days the minimum it can take a supplier to switch your supply. 

So do you research now ready to contact whichever supplier to go with and request they take over your supply once the SOLR is picked and processed.

MattMattMattUK said:

woodulike said:

As a Tomato customer I'm concerned about how much I will have to pay to whichever supplier we are transferred to and how quickly I can switch to a sensibly priced tariff.  As an all electric houshold our bills will be very expensive if we have to pay the price cap prices for long.

It depends what you mean by "price cap", were you on their E7 tariff, "Lifestyle" their ToU tariff or one of the others? If you were/are on E7 then when moved via SoLR you will be out on another E7 tariff. ToU is slightly different and in most cases there probably will not be something identical, but depending on your usage pattern there will be other options and something similar, possibly even cheaper.

The concern people have is not how long it will take for people to move from SoLR to a new supplier, but how long will people be stuck on the price cap until they can move. For people with all electric households or who have EVs this is particularly concerning. For EVs alone this can triple the cost of charging the cars.

Somewhat of an issue but far from huge, given the size of Tomato I imagine the initial move will be fairly quick and it is far from cold at the moment which will help. I am all electric and drive and EV, as an example it would cost me more to charge on SVT but even doing 100 miles a day is still going to be significantly cheaper than driving a petrol car (£6.50 vs £21). 

If they are lucky they will be moved to Octopus, they can move to IOG or OG within a day of being transferred if people's previous experiences or the same experience of those activating EV tariffs is anything to go by. What will likely take far longer is the final bill from Tomato, I imagine those on ToU tariffs might be waiting some time for that to get resolved.

woodulike

silvercar said:

The concern people have is not how long it will take for people to move from SoLR to a new supplier, but how long will people be stuck on the price cap until they can move. For people with all electric households or who have EVs this is particularly concerning. For EVs alone this can triple the cost of charging the cars.

Exactly this.  We have two EV's and a heat pump and are using around 1000 kWh a month. At least we are in a well insulated house and don't need much heat yet, but the cars are going to be a lot more expensive to run.  Saying it is still cheaper than diesel doen't really make much difference to how much extra it will cost each week until I am in control of the tariff we are on again.

Does anyone know what happens if I try to switch now?  All the info I can see online says don't switch until the process is settled as it may make it harder to get back any credit balance. We pay for what we use each month so don't have a credit balance.

bagand96

woodulike said:

Does anyone know what happens if I try to switch now?  All the info I can see online says don't switch until the process is settled as it may make it harder to get back any credit balance. We pay for what we use each month so don't have a credit balance.

All you can do is try a switch.  It may well get blocked, seen reports on the Facebook group of switches being blocked from the start of the week.  It may the the case that Tomato have been instructed to stop switches as the SoLR process starts.

That said in previous failures there's been reports of people "beating" the SoLR process by switching in this period.  It's up to you, on one hand there's nothing to lose by trying.  On the other if a switch goes through then be vigilant that the nominated SoLR doesn't then try another switch to them.  In any event keep accurate records of what you did when as well as meter reads and copies of your Tomato bills and data (don't rely on MyWatts working for much longer)

woodulike

How does anyone go about comparing TOU tariffs?

masonic

woodulike said:

How does anyone go about comparing TOU tariffs?

One supplier at a time unfortunately.

Swipe

My deepest condolences if the SOLR turns out to be British Gas

silvercar

woodulike said:

How does anyone go about comparing TOU tariffs?

If you are on Facebook there is an active group discussing this constantly:

https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1Eqcn14wob/?mibextid=wwXIfr

When looking around, some electric vehicle tariffs don’t require you to have an EV, so their TOU tariff may work for you.

Some providers with TOU and/or EV tariffs are EDF, Octopus, Eon.Next, Scottish power (EV tariff), Good energy (EV tariff), Utility Warehouse, British Gas, Outfox the market, So energy. 

This is an ideal question you could ask one of the AI engines, even better if you can provide your usage split between peak and off peak.