Sumo Energy
Verified1,388 reviews
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SUMO is an absolute scam! I had just signed up because their advertised rates looked very competitive. However, only a few weeks later I received my first elec bill and discovered they had charged me $5.00 per kW for Peak Demand instead of the 50 cents per kW stated in my Welcome Agreement—a shocking 10 times higher than agreed. Luckily, the… Read more
incorrect rate only applied for a short period, and I noticed it quickly. I tried calling their customer service, but after waiting on hold for over 30 minutes, no one answered.
I'm switching to another electricity provider immediately. Stay away from SUMO and don't be fooled by their misleading advertised rates.
on hold for one hour. promised another call back. when they do call back the phone only rings once and then when i pick up it is dead. when i call the number back i go back into the cue. website is not fit for purpose to contact them or leave a message ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Got a call back and person was prompt, knowledgeable, and helpful and solved my problem. Once I got the call all was good Show details
Reviews with attachments
Bait and switch when joining online. Tried 4 times to get their website to work but clearly just trying to scam people. On one of those attempts it wouldn't even give me the rates so I could be sure it was using demand charges. Show details
Same experience as everyone else. They are scamming. Got an email quote using NMI for the property with single rate. Sign up puts you on the a demand tariff with higher rates. No option to change in their portal (like most other competent retailers). A few days later you get a rate rise letter. Bait and switch. Can’t change anything online… Read more
or use chat - have to ring and wait 30mins+ during working hours Mon-Fri only. Normally that doesn’t bother me as you don’t need to contact competent and trustworthy companies - not these clowns! The only positive is that their customer representatives are useful.
So it’s off to ACCC, Energy Ombudsman and QLD Fair Trading for this deceptive behaviour (par for the course for these clowns). The more we report them the more likely (another?) investigation.
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Keep away from Sumo at all cost! Just got an electricity price hike of over 100% for power and over 300% for the daily service charge. Gouging at its finest! Our bill increased by over $600 for the period Show details
I signed up with Sumo after comparing their rates on a government energy comparison website. When I received the Welcome Agreement the next day I noticed the daily supply charge was higher than what I had signed up for. To make matters worse, I received a price change notification less than one week after my electricity supply commencing, with… Read more
all rates including the daily supply charge and usage charges increasing by 30% more than what I signed up for. The new rates were even higher than the default energy price!
This screams of blatant false and misleading advertising, they try to get you in with cheap rates, then immediately increase the price.
Their online portal is terrible and doesn't allow you to cancel your account without calling their customer service line which is only open during limited hours (9am-4:30pm Monday to Friday). They also don't seem to respond to emails or have any other way of contacting them other than by phone. Terrible customer service.
Avoid at all costs and don't waste your time!
I signed up to Sumo as they had competitive rates and are Australian owned. However, the website is pretty basic and there are ZERO contact options except telephone. I really don't like making phone calls - they tend to be slow ('your call is important to us, so much so, we'll keep you on hold for an hour' <- NOT an example from Sumo as I never… Read more
called them) and I'm slow at processing what I hear. I rather see stuff in writing - it's quicker, more precise, and asynchronous.
Around April 2025, I had need to change the debit card arrangement to another account. Oh boy :(
The website wasn't too clear, but I did update. I received confirmation on 29 April by email. 25 May I check the website - still shows the old card. So I update it again and get email confirmation. 6 June - old card is debited. 9 June - I update the debit arrangement again - get email. 3 July - website still shows old details, I'm getting cranky. Update them again, get the email. (iirc I chose bank acc this time in case updating the card is an issue) 16 July - Notified of 35% increase in rates. Decide this will be the opportunity to churn. 4 August - Old card is debited. FFS. So glad I churned.
I _almost_ signed up my other home for Sumo electric in July because the rates were really good. I couldn't actually get it to process though - talk about saved by the glitchy website! When I checked the debit detail for the existing account again, I saw the old card listed. and with the website not accepting my new home request I signed up elsewhere. Having gotten what I assume is the last bill still being debited from the wrong card, I am so glad the Internet gods were playing silly buggers.
Today (5th August) I cannot log into the website - keep getting connection timeout. I don't know if that's because my account is disabled after churning, or some other general issue with the site.
For me to consider ever going back to Sumo, I would need to see alternative contact methods - be-it email, live chat or whatever. Had I known Sumo was phone only, I would not have bothered signing up. iirc I had signed up elsewhere and during the cool off period, that company announced they were being sold to Chinese so I was in a rush to 'Plan B' and Sumo came into the list.
Latest follow-ups
Customer service – Lovely customer service and my questions were answered promptly I would recommend Sumo to anyone Show details
Follow-up · My experience with Sumo has always been perfect I have no problem at all There rates are good Connected easily And no issues at all
Excellent service – Very impressed with service received today.. With this sort of service I shall be with Sumo for a long time. Show details
Follow-up · I have changed companies twice since this review, mainly due to cost. I went to Alinta, and am now with OVO.
Signed up to Sumo on the 25th of June, on the 15th of July I received an email stating that my rates were going up 35% across the board on August 1st. Silly me for trusting a company - a quick Google search will show that not only have they been… Read more
doing this for years, but that the ACCC has fined them $1.2 million for precisely this practice. Clearly they haven't learnt their lesson. Never, ever, ever sign up for Sumo energy. Thank goodness the government has forced these companies to let you switch without even having to talk to your current supplier - I switched an hour after receiving this email.
Follow-up · Switching process was very easy. The new retailer will 'pull' your account from your old one. You don't need to cancel directly with your old provider. Switched to Ovo since and I've had very stable rates since. Also lower than Sumo. Never be afraid to switch providers, check out government's energy made easy site for easy comparison. I discovered… Read more
Positive reviews
I signed up today due to lower rates. Have no review of the company at this time but would like to say the customer service rep I spoke to, George, was cheerful, helpful, patient and had all the information I needed. Thanks George! Show details
Sumo are happy to help – Moved to Sumo middle of 2024. Was easy and they provided a good service. In January of 2025 I received notification of an increase in the tariffs for electricity. I was not happy with that. However Sumo also informed me of a new plan that would reduce the increase. I didn't have to ask, they provided the information automatically. I did some… Read more
homework and the new plan is better for me and competitive with other available plans. Consequently I changed to the new plan. The Sumo representative was very helpful. Sumo were helpful and I'm very happy with them.
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the dress of changing plans – Everything explained clearly,very polite and knowledgeable the time factor was not over long but very efficient. Our power is normally very reliable. Show details
Negative reviews
impossible to cancel, been calling for 4 days now and yet to get throught to a real person, 10 people in the que and after 3 hours of waiting i managed to get to 6 people left before they closed, callback feature ive tried 3 times now and have never recieved a call back yet. dogs**t service go fys Show details
Think twice about a smart meter with sumo. Was wired incorrectly, resulted in no hot water. Then at my expensive had to get an electrician to do rewiring. Rang Sumo, they had nothing to say! Show details
I've just clicked over 60 minutes on hold listening to reedy music and repetitive ads trying to very simply have a move-out cancellation of my account. Now waiting for a third operator. And the 'call-back' feature did not result in receiving one despite waiting 4 hours. If you value your time, look elsewhere. Show details
Follow-up · I ended up waiting on hold for 90 mins, talking to 3 different people in an attempt to cancel my gas service due to moving out. Absolutely appalling service.
It should be clear from reading these reviews that signing up is easy, but cancelling is a nightmare. Don’t sign up!!
Recent reviews
**Updated** OK I couldn't get through on the phone, requested a call back after hanging up for the 3rd time today. After about 2 hours, I got a call from a Sumo rep. He was able to help me out in about 10 minutes. So all good. I've updated my rating from 2 stars to 3 stars. If it wasn't so hard to get through to them in the first place, I'd give … Read more
them 4 stars.
Terrible, terrible, terrible customer service. Non-existent actually. You can never get through to anybody. Years go, you could get through to somebody in sales who may or may not be happy to help with your account issues (depends on your luck). These days, ZERO chance of even getting through to Sales. Sumo just wants to take your money that's it - even when they have billing issues, errors, mismatching account records - they don't care and don't want to know. They don't want to speak with anybody once you've signed up. The only reason I gave them 2 stars is because the are competitively priced. But IF you have any issues that require speaking to somebody, you are in a world of pain. Sign up for the cheap rates - but expect cheap or non existent service. You've been warned!
Beware of this deceptive company. Like many other customer experiences with SUMO, they bait new customers with attractive rates and then hike the price substantially shortly after. Around 1 month after signing up, my rates increased by 25%. The whole point in changing companies was to save. Not so with SUMO. Furthermore, the so-called customer… Read more
service is simply appalling. Had I known or checked that they didn't support standard email customer support, I would have never signed up. When finally reaching out to the so-called customer support team, with no member name added, they ignored replying to multiple queries regarding price hikes 6x over the national inflation rate. There should be at least a 6-12 month sign up price guarantee for new customers, it turns out to be 5 days. SUMO is clearly a company that holds its customers with a high degree of contempt. A cash cow to milk as they wish. It's deceptive behaviour that really requires the ACCC to clamp down on much harder. 1 star too many.
I'd absolutely love to know where all these "friendly Sumo support staff" are. I heard about them for 20 minutes straight while waiting for my phone call, only for the male worker to be so blunt and cold with me on the phone. The entire call lasted for 1 minute and 40 seconds, as he rushed me off the phone. Customers definitely feel like a number… Read more
when with Sumo!!!
What I do like about Sumo is that they'll give you a voucher when things go wrong, which seems to be every second time I've contacted them.
Worse energy provider ever been in australia. Misleading , fraud, and always try to speak with Walsh accient thinking they can get away with their misleading & fraud with all customers. FROM EXPERINCE NEVER GO WITH SUMO EVEN IF ITS FOR FREE.... Show details
Follow-up · As I said above nothing to be added enough said...
Terrible company. It took me eleven attempts at calling them to cancel my account. When I finally got through the Irish guy on the end of the line was a smart-butt about the whole situation. These people are scammers. Show details
Follow-up · Even after moving out of my house, paying my final bill, Sumo have just sent me ANOTHER bill for the last month even when a new tenant had moved in. Criminal.
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SCAMMER ALERT!!! Avoid Sumo energy at all cost. They boast the cheapest rates then as soon as you sign the dotted line they hit you with a price increase and your paying closer to the highest rates available. Show details
Had Gas and electricity with Sumo, they led with great rates that lasted about two bill cycles (two months) after that they increased their prices ridiculously! I then spoke to family members who said they had the same experience with them - stay away, they are a joke Show details
Very dodgy. I signed up for a single-rate, non-demand tariff with a daily supply charge of 98c. However, when I checked the agreement, the daily supply charge was 124c plus a demand charge of 31c/kWh! I cancelled within the cooling off period. Show details
When you can get through, the Australian-based staff are pleasant and helpful. While the rates were competitive when I joined, they’ve increased twice within a year, making them uncompetitive. The biggest frustration is the online portal—despite multiple calls, staff have been unable to help me log in. I’m now stuck trying to update payment… Read more
details the day before a public holiday, just as I’m about to travel overseas. It highlights how critical a reliable digital experience is. I’ve had no such issues with other providers, and once I return, I’ll be switching due to repeated failures in pricing and customer experience.
AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!!! 47% above the regulator's reference price as at August 2025 ... that should tell you all you need to know! (see attached) Others are 7 ... 8 ... 13 ... 14% LOWER! Also ... TERRIBLE customer service ... IF you can get through to them!!! I'm ABSOLUTELY convinced they're TRAINED to confuse and manipulate customers! Big business at its finest! Ugh! Show details
We joined Sumo, they raised their prices pretty much a day after we joined. I like their billing system. You can actually receive a proper meter read bill quarterly which seems to be becoming a rare option. But our first bill was $300 higher than several competitors for the quarter and that's not really able to be justified. Currently preparing to move on yet again. Show details
When I signed up I specifically asked for my bills to come via email or post so I could pay at the post office! My first bill arrived via txt message with only links to pay via direct debit from my bank account! Nothing else! No due date! No bar code! No email! No letter! I sent them 4 emails with screen shots of my plan distinctly showing… Read more
bills to be sent by post and 3 days later not 1 reply? I've tried calling them since 9.50am, waited for an hour and then agreed for a call back! It's now 2pm and no call back! I'm just going to change from sumo to Red energy!
Who do these people think they are? They think people can sit around all day waiting hours for a call back? Then I went online and read their awful reviews! Now I've learned that they are a scam company!
Chose Sumo becuase they offered the best rates. Only 6 months in and they have hiked prices over 30% 3 times. I've switched to another provider now for less than half what they're charging. After I've switched they've billed me twice for the same period, and after paying the first bill, they're now even trying to charge me $100 for 3 days of… Read more
electricity. Avoid these scammers like the plauge. Can't even get in touch with a human to discuss this joke of a bill.
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Got a call back and person was prompt, knowledgeable, and helpful and solved my problem. Once I got the call all was good