TelecomPlus Exposed

System

Smartasss

If it is okay, I will answer on behalf of Jackie as I was looking at this from home this evening as I knew that today she was going to post a reply to some questions asked.

If you follow the thread you will see that in terms of the advance standing charge she was responding to a question re the possibility of having to pay £120 up front, which is clearly not so.

In terms of the billing we have many clients transferred on the basis she quotes. And yes, like any other supplier the rate they charge for this form of payment is different from the monthly direct debit tariffs - you will find the different rates listed quite clearly on our website.

I find your comment regarding clients "finding out the hard way" very odd, to date we are only aware of one complaint from many hundreds of customers we have transferred to Telecom Plus. This was a complaint related to transfer dates and was resolved within a few minutes of being advised to Telecom Plus.

If you are aware of any client that we have transferred being unhappy please ask them to contact us so that we can resolve any issues or questions they might have.

On the whole we have been impressed by Telecom Plus and their service to our clients- as an example when a client signs up via Energylinx for Telecom Plus we send an auto-email to the client immediately on signup to explain in detail the process from that stage forward. Telecom Plus subsequently receive files from us in an electronic format and roughly an hour after receipt of those files, the client receives a welcome email from Telecom Plus thanking them for signing up using Energylinx and again explaining the process from that stage forward.

On a final note, Jackie has spent some twenty years in a regulatory role within the UK energy industry, however if you feel that she should not post here, I will ask her to cease.


Ken Geddes
Energylinx

Smartasss

Hi Ken

With respect, if you follow the thread, you can see that the question on advance payments had been already answered before Jackie's post.

She embellished her answer by saying:

They operate exactly as all other suppliers.

This appeared to be some sort of endorsement for Telecom plus collecting service charges monthly in advance - I am certain that all other suppliers do NOT do this. (I gave chapter and verse on how Telecom Plus operate this up front payment so that their cashflow is enhanced - they actually have customers money from them for standing charges before the month starts!)

You say that you are able to transfer customers on quarterly billing - I have correctly quoted their Ts + Cs which say that the only alternatives are monthly or prepayment. Maybe you have a special arrangement?

You do say on your site that your rates for Telecom Plus dual fuel include the two service discount. Again, I have correctly quoted their 'discount club rules' which state that the annual discount for having two services is only paid to members paying bills monthly and by direct debit. (Rule 6).

My reference to customers discovering that they have to pay up front 'the hard way' was intended to point out that no where can anyone find out that they do in fact make you pay in advance for standing charges until the customer starts to get his bills from them!

My post in answer to Jackies was merely an attempt to corrrect the misconceptions which I felt her post contained.

No doubt she will want to now post the 'chapter and verse' on the areas where her information differs from the Telecom Plus official Ts + Cs (especially how your customers overcome the membership rule that states you only get the annual discount if you pay monthly by DD, as your clients apparently get around this!), as well as their practice of charging in advance for standing charges.

The wager I offered still stands! (It does clearly state that it is in relation to the paying of up front charges monthly in advance!)

Lewis_Gerolemou

Smartasss, Read section 5.5 on the back of Telecom plus application form. Also page 6 "Understanding Your Bill" in the booklet sent to all Telecom Plus energy customers.
Lewis Gerolemou, Independent Distributor for Telecom Plus

mistral_2

Smartass leave off Jackie she was trying to help and her site has been promoted by Martin along with others.

Generally she does answer questions fairly .

It does not pay to scare off the insiders in the industry who have the decency to help us out .

From a personal point of view Enerylinx have been very fair and helpfull and have never tried to sell me anything

Now Chill out tonight and spend some of that £50 on a beer or two !!!

Smartasss

@ Lewis_Gerolemou

I have obtained and read the documents as ordered!

It would have been helpful to this discussion if you had posted the relevant sections here, so that we could all have seen the points you were trying to make.

And, as you are a Rep for T+, presumably you have these documents to hand!

Section 5.5 on the back of Telecom plus application form states:

The monthly line rental will commence 48 hours after we have dispatched the smart box to you irrespective of when you start using it..........

I fail to see the relevance of this as the section only deals with telephony services, and we are discussing gas + electricity!

Page 6 "Understanding Your Bill" in the booklet sent to all Telecom Plus energy customers says:

Each month you will receive a bill for all the services uou receive

and:

Standing charges are always paid monthly in advance

So why did you ask me to read it - it confirms what I have been saying.

(There is no mention of quarterly bills in it)

With respect, perhaps it is Energylinx who should be reading this document!

Smartasss

Mistral Custom wrote:

Smartass leave off Jackie

There is nothing personal intended in my reply to Jackie.

Remember she posted in her capacity as "Jackie Welsh Regulation Energylinx"

i.e. she posted on behalf of a commercial organisation.

It is reasonable for us to expect that such a post from an organisation will be factually correct.

Apart from the incorrect statements on standing charges etc, she claimed that T+ "operate exactly as all other suppliers", and we do know that just isn't the case!

It does not pay to scare off the insiders in the industry who have the decency to help us out

I doubt if their motives are entirely altruistic.

No doubt they receive some reward - (quite rightly) - for getting new customers for T+.

(We know that T+ is a MLM operation, who pay 'residual' income to their agents - it may be that Energylinx also benefit from these ongoing commissions as well, based on a cut of customers spending).

In another thread on this forum, Energylinx encourages us to use them to transfer to T+ (rather than going to them directly) on the grounds they (Energylinx) will save us paying "a £10 admin deposit to set up an account", but this is untrue. T+ do not charge a £10 admin fee to gas or electric customers who join them directly. (This Board asks all commercial ventures touting for business to place their ads in the Referrer's forum, and I wonder why Energylinx don't adhere to this rule?)

(If T+ did charge to open an account, wouldn't that be at odds with Jackie's assertion that they are the same as all other suppliers? Which other suppliers charge you an admin fee just to open an account with them? And on that topic, which other supplier apart from Telecom + makes join a club at a cost of over £21 a year before they will supply you?)

lisyloo

I can only speak from personal experience.
My invoice for February was dated 14th Feb and the payment was actioned on my bank account on 27th Feb.

I don't yet have any standing charges on it as I haven't been connected, but it looks to me that if they follow this pattern, then they will be collecting in arrears.

lisyloo

which other supplier apart from telecom + makes join a club at a cost of over £21 a year before they will supply you?

and why exactly should I (or other moneysavers) care??

To be honest I couldn't care if they charged me £21 over a year to fund their representative wearing Telecom Plus underpants !!

All I am concerned about is that they work out cheaper in the long run.

I must admit that I find their system more complex than it needs to be and certainly the words non-standard are appropriate.
However if I end up better off and the savings outweigh any of the non-standard charges then I simply just don't really think it's a very important issue and very much over emphasised by the opponents of Tplus in it's importance.

Who cares ???

Jackie_Welsh

Please accept our apologies we had not intended to start any type of debate, only to comment on our experience to date with the supplier in question.

What we have quoted is exactly what has happened with any client using our services.

Incidentally we are advised that anyone contacting Telecom Plus to set up a single gas contract (with no other services) is asked for a refundable £50 deposit. We have attempted to find this written in the terms and conditions but this is what we have been advised and also confirmed via a call to the Telecom Plus energy sales desk this morning.

In terms of commercial advantage, we are neither seeking nor are we receiving one by posting to this site. My posts were simply an attempt to provide some clarity in regard to how this particular supplier operate.

Whilst our company is listed within Martin's guide we do not offer a cashback so are not one of the company's who are actively promoted.

As a company we do however list every single domestic contract available and allow consumers to sign up to any of the low cost tariffs such as being discussed here.

In terms of the annual utility club charge, we treat this as a standing charge and add it into the actual quoted standing charge, as regardless of its name it is in fact a standing charge. So any calculation using our services includes this charge any discounts appropriate for the payment profile the client selects.

Finally, given that we have no intention of offending anyone or for that matter wish to be seen as touting for business we will not post further messages to this section.

Smartasss

Lisyloo wrote:

I don't yet have any standing charges on it as I haven't been connected

With respect, this is not really relevant, then.

The situation is as I have stated - they do charge for gas + electricity standing charges in advance.

This quote is from their document "Understanding Your Bill", which I quoted from above in my reply to Lewis_Gerolemou:

Standing charges are always paid monthly in advance. Your first energy bill will contain a pro-rata calculation from your connection date to the end of the following month. It will therefore cover a period of more than 1 month. Future bills will contain a single month's charge to cover the following month's standing charge.

Had I posted over this incorrectly, don't you think that their reps would have delighted in posting a correction?