Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

jaybeerex

Ok well i've been having some issues with UW at the moment in regards my billing and wanted opinions. This is my first apartment living alone therefore have no basis for comparison bills wise and would value some advice.

I moved into my apartment in Mid June 2010 and received my first bill the following month addressed to 'the new occupier' i initially called to give my name etc for billing and pay the first bill. this was for the amount of £46.01 OK i thought, welcome to the cost of living alone! incidentally this is a 2 bedroom apartment. device wise i have a fan oven, fridge freezer, ADSL router, flatscreen, xbox laptop, 5.1 system. I work mostly 10 hour days so am only in the apartment in the evenings and weekends.

I continued with billing and invoices came as below

AUG:38.22
SEPT:36.80
OCT:46.72
NOV:62.70
DEC:82.17

Now, when the December bill came i thought, ok, somethings not right here i live alone in a 2 bedroom apartment and literally turn things off as i go from room to room, always being careful not to have things on unecessarily.

When i queried this with UW they said they couldnt find my meter on the system and could i find the serial number details for them. After obtaining a key from the landlord for the meter cupboard i went and checked the meter. The digital display was off..... hmmmm. I contacted UW and gave the serial number and was told it was 'de-energised' meant nothing to me but eventually they agreed they needed to fit a new meter. Because of their inconvenient engineer booking system this took until late February to get a replacement meter fitted. They agreed in the meantime to hold my billing until this situation was resolved. In the interim the following bills came.

JAN:89.34
FEB:94.82

Again, crazy amounts for a single person in a 2 bed appt. Now at this point i had the case escalated with an escalation number from UW and the case was being handled by a very helpful member of their team Chris Wheeler. What we agreed was that with the new meter in now, i would send him exact weekly readings from the new meter for 4-5 weeks and their billing team would estimate back from the period i moved in to generate a correct billing amount for the time i've been in the property. Now it's worth noting that i am now on a dual rate tarrif and the meter has 3 different readings on it T, R1 and R2. these are the 3 figures i provided weekly, god knows if im even on the right tarrif?!

Basically after doing all this i've been told that the estimating they had done previously was basically right and in an email Chris broke it down as per below:

Due to the nature of the billing issues you have been experiencing the most information I can offer other than what is on your invoices is stated below:

Your invoices from July 2010 to February 2011 were for Electric use of £482.82 + Surcharges £13.96 = Total - £496.78
You then received your March 2011 invoice, this invoice credited you back the £482.82 previously invoiced for Electric. It then started the billing again from your start date of 26/05/11 and billed you up to the 28/02/11 for £505.58.
We then sent your April invoice which followed on from the previous and billed for £54.69 in Electric.
The most recent invoice in May bills you back to the 22/02/11 when the meter was exchanged and credits you back £64.63 on the old meter. This means the total amount billed on the old meter from 26/05/11 - 22/02/11 is £495.64.
On the same invoice you will see we have billed from the 23/02/11 to 30/04/11 for £125.84

The total amount we have invoiced for is £635.44. The total amount you have paid is £230.45. The amount outstanding is £404.99.


Now what i need to know is a few things, firstly were do i go from here as i still feel i have been grossly overcharged for electricity. And while i have this escalation open with them, am i able to change supplier to prevent further expensive bills being accrued with UW?

Any help would be appreciated.

Devils-Advocate_3

lynnissa wrote: »

I have read the waffle about what Utility Warehouse is and isnt:o
But will someone please just say if its good:rotfl:or bad :mad: to become a member.
lynnissa cheers:beer:

That's all subjective I'm afraid!! Some people on here (mentioning no names) appear to be continually harping on about how bad UW is and how one must be an idiot to sign up to them, some people on here (mentioning no names) appear to be continually biggin up UW, singing their praises and licking UW's backside.

In short, it can be good and bad, depending on your point of view - get the facts that apply to you, and make a cold calculated decision based on those, and not based on the 'no' team and the 'yes' team on here.

Hope that helped!!! :rotfl:

MillicentBystander

Even if their gas and electricity offerings are no good for you (they aren't for us at the moment) it doesn't mean UW doesn't have other products that won't appeal. We take Broadcall (phone line rental and up to 24mb broadband and 40gb monthly download limit) and the £10 SIM deal that gives us 500 mins talk and 3000 texts per month. We have no use for data so this is perfect for us. That is classed as taking 3 products (broadcall is classed as 2) so this gives us totally inclusive calls to 01, 02, 03 landline prefix numbers, 0870 and some of the top international destinations (incl. US, Oz, Hong Kong, France, Germany, etc) evenings and weekends from the landline. We are saving oodles on this at the moment due to our youngest son's girlfriend moving with her family down South. He's always on the phone to her at nights and weekends!

We make excellent use of the cashback card to reduce our monthly payment to UW (often reducing it from approx £34/month to an average of half that). We do nothing differently to what we did before getting the cash back card, just pay on that instead of paying by our regular debit card. Simples.

We love the fact that UW's customer service centre is UK based and in our limited experience of having to call them, they really do pick the phone up mighty quick. Because we pay their silver membership (£2.50/mth) all our calls to UW are free and I believe £10,000 worth of accidental death insurance is given free with this membership level. Oh, and a monthly paper bill through the post detailing all the services we take and the monthly cost (comes out as one DD even though we have 3 services).

Very happy so far. But we are customers as opposed to most of the detractors on here who have never been customers (and I'm sure pay more for their own services than we pay but wouldn't admit to it!). Just do your research on all the deals out there before deciding either way.

jaybeerex

Can anyone assist with my earlier post?

Cardew

jaybeerex wrote: »

Can anyone assist with my earlier post?

As you asked for opinions!

I can't see why you feel that £89 and £94 are 'crazy' amounts for Jan and Feb respectively(assuming you use electricity for heating)

Or indeed why you feel a total of £635.44 for almost a year is being 'grossly overcharged.'

If it were double that amount for an all electric flat, over one of the coldest winters for years, it would still be below average.

penrhyn

Are you on an economy 7 tarriff? The three readings on you meter would be day rate, night rate and total.
Are your bills based on actual readings or estimates?

How is your property heated?

jaybeerex

all reading are based on estimates as from June 10 until february 11 there was no working meter installed at the property, i am on economy 7 as per the readings stated, as you say theres 3 different ones. The property has electrical storage heaters, although these havent been on since January, so readings of 94 a month since are based on very little usage.

Am i able to switch providers while i try to get to the bottom of all this?

cardew, do you feel bills of 90quid for a single person in a 2 bedroom apartment are reasonable? not a single other person ive spoken to agrees.

Cardew

jaybeerex wrote: »

Am i able to switch providers while i try to get to the bottom of all this?

cardew, do you feel bills of 90quid for a single person in a 2 bedroom apartment are reasonable? not a single other person ive spoken to agrees.

UW can, and probably would, block your switch with that outstanding balance.

Not only do I feel £90 a month for a 2 bed flat in winter reasonable, it seems very low indeed. A single person does not use that much less electricity - heating, fridges, routers, TV etc cost the same.

Bear in mind that the average bill in UK for those heating with gas is approx £1,300 a year. With electricity it is much more expensive.

Read posts in MSE and people are paying £200 and £300 a month in winter.

You also need to bear in mind:

1. That on an Economy 7 tariff you pay a premium for daytime electricity.

2. With UW you pay a monthly membership fee.

3. UW are very expensive for Economy 7 electricity - in my area approx 25% more than the cheapest tariff.

I am no fan of UW, but I cannot see you have any grounds for complaint on an annual bill of £635.

MillicentBystander

Can any distributor throw any light on what affect (if any) the new agreement with npower will have on gas and electricity prices? I was reading on an investment bulletin board the other day that the new agreement comes into effect in August and the poster was told by a CS at UW that it will have a beneficial effect on prices? The market certainly seems to like the look of it!!

I'm already thinking about taking gas from UW to add to the broadcall and mobile sim so as to give me the full set of 24/7 inclusive landline calls. With our gas consumption going down considerably over the last year, one look at UKPower tells me I will be paying £11 extra per year to transfer compared to the cheapest deal so a bit of a no-brainer, I suppose. Is their offer of paying any exit penalty (up to £50) applicable in this instant or is that only when you sign up for 4 services all at once?

I have to say I've been absolutely appalled at the CS (or lack of) during my time with EDF. I haven't managed to get thru on the phone to them for a couple of months (probably because I set a limit of TWENTY FIVE minutes on hold before hanging up). Shocking.

PS talking of SIMs, we have just got our eldest the £10 SIM that I have been using for a while. I really like the Budget Control feature whereby he can't use more than the allotted 500 mins and 3000 texts. OK, it's £1.50/mth extra but seeing as we are paying for the SIM out of our account, a great idea to stop kids getting carried away!

Premier_2

According to Which?

...Which? energy expert Sylvia Baron says: '...our latest energy satisfaction survey saw smaller players like Utility Warehouse, Ovo and Ebico score better than the major energy companies for their customer service and how they dealt with queries. So do look at smaller firms if good service is a priority to you.'...

http://www.which.co.uk/news/2011/06/revealed-the-energy-firms-getting-the-most-and-least-complaints-255393/

More salt please! ...