Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

Quentin

missterryshopper wrote: »

No need to buy T Plus expensive utilities and pay their nonsense membership fee to get their prepaid card to get 5% off Sainsburys food and Petrol.

I recently got myself a Babee Prepaid Card which costs me a 0.75p a month fee and i can get 5% off of Sainsburys,Asda,Morrissons, and M & Sshopping vouchers . £100 spend costs me £95. I do what i like with the savings.

UW reps ignore the slightest possibility that there are similar cards available.

In fact the babee card discount club looks better (eg. uw card gives 5% off your bills if you use its partners, but babee discount is often higher used at their partners - eg boots 8%/comet 10%/argos 8%/house of fraser 10%). (Maybe uw get the same deals, but pocket the extra discount for themselves)

And as far as buying fuel at Sainsbury's is concerned there's no need to spend anything instore first to qualify to buy the fuel at 5% off.

Meeper

Interesting responses.

Sorry to burst many bubbles here, but some additional facts:

The quotes that I gave were excluding VAT, you're quite correct.
The figures that I took from my customer's bill were the charges before VAT was added. The comparison was therefore identical.
Nobody has therefore been "misled". Sure, I didn't mention the membership fee. £2.50 per month and £1 per month to have the card. So, take £3.50 per month off the savings I quoted earlier. You are quite right to say that I omitted this, but wrong about my intentions. I thought we were talking about the price of the gas & electricity, which you maintain is expensive. I have shown time and again that it was cheaper than his existing supplier.
Once again, it is irrelevant what you can find as NPower's standard prices for the Manchester area might be, because this guy wasn't paying the standard tariff. No idea why, but he was paying a lot more than he should have been.

The figures that I gave were quoted from his bill, which I held in my hand whilst I did the calculations excluding VAT. When I mentioned, therefore, that he could save £150-odd over that 6-month period that was exclusing the VAT. His total saving therefore would have been something like £157, so thanks for mentioning VAT in order to enhance the extent that I was able to save him money.

Again, nobody has been able to admit that I saved the guy money. You asked for figures, I gave you figures, to the penny. As predicted, it is decreed that I must be lying and something is wrong with the figures, I have doctored them, etc.

So sad.

blunty_2

Just found this on another thread hmm I wonder how often this happens I subscribed last year to First Utility i Save dual fuel package which was competitive and offered a worthwhile discount after a one year contract. 6 months later they increased the gas standing charge by 67% and Electricity standing charge by 20% as well as a sizeable increase in unit price.

They then advertised a new version of the same plan (version 5) at much much lower prices. When I asked to move to the newer version I was told I could not do so before one year without losing the accrued discount.

This is a snide scheme to lock people in at what appear to be competitive prices then raise the price to ensure that any discount is worthless and at the same time introduce a new version of the same thing at much much lower prices to snare the next batch of unsuspecting consumers.

what does every one think of this how commen is it who has experianced this !

Quentin

Meeper wrote:

As predicted, it is decreed that I must be lying and something is wrong with the figures, I have doctored them, etc

You said it!

And we've seen that uw reps are trained not to go into detail, so no wonder you happily admit to not telling the customer about the vat/membership fees/card charges.

But it must be a let down to your customers (especially if they are your close friends/family) if they ever discover that your quotes aren't inclusive of VAT and uw membership fees etc - (and it's probably a sackable offence). At least the comparison sites the uw is so quick to diss do include VAT in their comparisons. Doesn't OFGEM now state that reps must give "a cost estimate" to new prospects (ie not confuse by neglecting to include the VAT and their membership fees)

Meeper wrote: »

Once again, it is irrelevant what you can find as NPower's standard prices for the Manchester area might be, because this guy wasn't paying the standard tariff. No idea why, but he was paying a lot more than he should have been.

Of course you mislead, you have been found out!

Just to remind you of what you told us:

for that 6-month period, his payments to NPower were £523.90 and the exact same usage with UW would have been £449.46, a saving of £74.44 over the 6-month period, or equivalent of £148.88 per year saved. I guess my previous statement of £160 was a bit out.

So you mislead us by telling us how much his "payment" was, as now you have been found out over the VAT, yet you tell us your figures were supposedly "to the penny"

So, you wanted proof, that's as much proof as it's possible to give on here. There's my calculations, to the penny

When you came up with these figures you told us you couldn't tell us the customer's existing tariff (which is highly relevant). Npower are considerably cheaper than uw which we have pointed out to you, and you now (belatedly) come up with this:

this guy wasn't paying the standard tariff.

Strange you previously didn't know what his tariff was! And of course, moneysavers don't go for standard tariffs anyway!

Meeper wrote: »

Afraid I don't have his existing tariff to hand as I gave this back to him post-quotation

(There are no Npower tariffs at all listed for Manchester which charge the figures you gave us. All their tariffs can be viewed via http://www.npower.com/web/At_home/electricity_and_gas/prices_and_discounts/prices_in_your_area/index.htm)

And of course after trying it on by making the ridiculous claim that uw prices are more favourable for 95% of us (good job the ASA don't have any way to control what uw reps claim) you still carry on with this by "reducing" your claim when challenged down to:

I was simply referring to the "vast majority"

Again, good job the ASA cannot do anything, but your company and colleagues must be cringing at your dangerously ridiculous false claims! Were you telling us the truth in your (wildly innacurrate) claims we would all be fighting to sign up - but you are dealing with ordinary punters now, not your "warm" list of friends and family who would (mistakenly) trust you to tell them the truth.

When pointed out something was wrong with your uw figures, your immediate answer was to say that this was proof that the comparison site was "wrong", and that your figures were "indisputable"!

You now admit you have been found out misquoting, but no apology for the slur!

All par for the course when it comes to uw dissing comparison sites as a way of overcoming any questions as why they always come way down the list when comparing prices (including VAT!) from cheapest to most expensive!

bendtoy_2

blunty wrote: »

Just found this

Whats it got to do with UW?

New poster making 11 posts on the same thread. Seeks money saving advice then argues against it.

Sorry I smell a UW plant.Wouldnt be the first time they have done this on this site or the net.

keggs

paranoia methinks

SwanJon

Meeper wrote: »

The quotes that I gave were excluding VAT, you're quite correct.
The figures that I took from my customer's bill were the charges before VAT was added. The comparison was therefore identical. Sure, I didn't mention the membership fee. £2.50 per month and £1 per month to have the card.

I take it if you took the bald pence per kWh you also excluded any DD discount, DF discount etc?

So does that leave anything that you said with a semblance of the truth?

Quentin

keggs wrote: »

paranoia methinks

The dual personality of keggs (vehemently unhappy with uw when posting elsewhere for the benefit of uw management, yet regularly returning here to tell us how happy he is) coming back and giving a psychiatric diagnosis to someone (so as to support yet another uw rep disguising his true status) has got more than a touch of hypocrisy!

keggs

Usual garbage reply

giraffe69

We have this company for gas and electricity. I agree they are nothing like the cheapest now and we are in the process of switching. The "membership fee" whilst not a great sum of money is an irritation. We don't have the cash back card which might make a small difference but in any case I prefer to shop where I want. I know some of the posters here work for UW but the persistent and unpleasant posts by one or two other people don't really help because they are just making the same point 75 times over! Yes salesmen slant the facts but that is not really a brand new discovery. When I wanted to compare I used a site and made sure that things like VAT were common to the comparisons.