Tomato Energy Credit Scam

TroubledTarts

An interesting test of what we may all think of SOLR and their responsibilities if a customer leaves before the SOLR process begins yet the supplier owes that customer money.

You would think this should be ringfenced and sent to the SOLR, when I say sent I mean a record of that money being owed to said customer but this might be one of the gaps in the system

Largs

This happened to me when Symbio Energy went bust. I had left and was owed a refund.

I did eventually get a refund from Eon (or EDF maybe) despite customer service saying I was not due as no account was held.

It turned up out the blue many months later.

MWT

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81993218#Comment_81993218

It is a not uncommon situation, but customers who were not part of the SoLR transfer process tend to be the very last to be sorted out.

… but it does depend on the new supplier actually being told that the customers exist, and I'm not confident that is going to happen with Tomato…

Due to the way Tomato billed there are not likely to be many with a qualifying balance (money paid by the customer to the supplier to cover energy costs).

QrizB

I indicated the SLCs say that credit balances can and must be protected, and you said that I'm wrong or have misunderstood.

And it's clear that either you've misunderstood the SLC, or I've misunderstood your message.

Can we both agree that SLC 4D does not impose a blanket requirement on suppliers to ringfence credit balances? The SLC says:

The licensee must comply with the provisions of this condition where the Authority has issued a direction pursuant to standard condition 4B.23 …

So there's no obligation to ringfence credit balances until such time as the Authority (Ofgem) has issued such a direction. In your words, while credit balances can be protected, there's nothing to say they must be protected absent a direction from Ofgem to do so.

The question then becomes "Did Ofgem issue such a Direction to Tomato?"

I can't find any such direction in the various Ofgem documents associated with their Provisional Order to Tomato. Ofgem seem to have been focusing on SLCs 4A and 4B and haven't made reference to 4D.

If you know of such a direction having been made, or if you think I've missed it in the text of the Provisional Order, please share the info here.

PJ12

I had a chat today to Consumers Affairs at OFGEM and they sent me the Standard Supply Licence Conditions (SLCs). They stated “When Ofgem appoints a Supplier of Last Resort (SoLR), the SoLR becomes responsible for the supply of electricity (and/or gas, as appropriate) from a specified date.  The SoLR is also likely to have agreed to be responsible for honouring customer credit balances – they should already have contacted you to confirm this.” BG did not!

They confirmed that it was BG responsibility to protect present and past customer credit balances as per the wording on their web site. “Funds that current and former domestic customers of the supplier have paid into their accounts will be protected, where they are in credit. “ Could this be interrupted as “issuing a direction” and does it have any standing? BG have clearly decided to ignore what OFGEM have said in the public domain. I will ask OFGEM if they issued a direction to BG, but I would be very surprised if BG were allowed to takeover thousands of accounts and to pick and choose which credit balnces to honour. The details will be in the contract between BG and OFGEM.

brewerdave

Not much help - but this issue was very common 4 or 5 years ago when many suppliers went to the wall.

I was with Together Energy and I was one of the few who profited from their collapse as I wasn't in credit when I left them before the SOLR process - but many ex customers didn't get their credit balances back when T.E customers were dumped on BG, mainly because their final accounts were such a mess and BG weren't inclined to spend money sorting it out !