Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

Cardew

Well no UW salesman is going to admit on this forum that UW gas and electricity is much higher in price - often to the tune of £hundreds, currently £250+ for average UK consumption.


The rules on commission for customers apparently change regularly and NigeWick(an ex UW salesman) might know the latest position. As I understand it you can earn commission if you recommend someone who becomes a customer. You can also become a UW salesman(you pay for the privilege!) and then get a percentage of your recruited customer's bills. The person who recruited you also gets a small slice and so on up the pyramid! (It is not pyramid selling which is illegal)


All the rather silly claims of low bills with UW - as above - are usually based on the rebate you get from using the UW cash card for spending at selected stores.


People have reported getting rid of all the expensive UW products like gas and electricity and just keeping a PAYG mobile and still being able to retain the card.

Meeper

Yawn......

Meatloaf1981

Cardew wrote: »

Well no UW salesman is going to admit on this forum that UW gas and electricity is much higher in price - often to the tune of £hundreds, currently £250+ for average UK consumption.


The rules on commission for customers apparently change regularly and NigeWick(an ex UW salesman) might know the latest position. As I understand it you can earn commission if you recommend someone who becomes a customer. You can also become a UW salesman(you pay for the privilege!) and then get a percentage of your recruited customer's bills. The person who recruited you also gets a small slice and so on up the pyramid! (It is not pyramid selling which is illegal)


All the rather silly claims of low bills with UW - as above - are usually based on the rebate you get from using the UW cash card for spending at selected stores.


People have reported getting rid of all the expensive UW products like gas and electricity and just keeping a PAYG mobile and still being able to retain the card.

This is pretty much the position. The fuel costs vary by region but I found them to be very much middle-of-the-road in terms of the unit costs and standing charges. Where you save money at UW is by making massive use of the Cashback Card to reduce your monthly bill. I suspect Meeper is achieving the bill amount that he/she has stated by using the Cashback Card to maximum effect.

Now what I will say is that this approach is absolutely fine and dandy if you find that the Cashback Card works for you and your spending styles. If it doesn't, then you're unlikely to save much, if anything if you have your energy with them. The other aspects of the company are what some people find appealing - UK based call centres, a single monthly bill, easy to switch (So long as you read the small print to avoid cancellation charges) and the like. It is sold as a "Discount Club" rather than an energy provider.

What I don't like is the blanket of "optimism" they drape over the figures to suggest to you that you're getting a great deal. I went to the training and in it they said when speaking to people about their energy prices to ask if they want the "cheap, cheaper or cheapest rate". Obviously no one is going to say anything except the cheapest and you only ever get that rate if you take out ALL the services. And it still isn't cheaper on unit price and standing charge than many other companies. That's by the by. If you use the cashback card well, you can get 4 to 7% cashback generally from some of the retailers and this comes directly off your bill.

Commission wise, they get 3.5% of their customers monthly bill as a monthly residual income (Typically around £5.00), plus a sign-up cash amount for each service the customer signs up to (£2.50, £5.00, £10.00, £20.00, £40.00 or £50.00 if ultra fast broadband also signed up to). There are incentives to sign up "Gold" customers as quickly as you can called "Fast Start" bonuses which is upto £1000 in the first year if you sign up 50 customers (25 of which must be Gold or Double Gold). You also can earn bonuses for "promotions" based on becoming Team leaders, Senior Team Leaders and the like upto £2000 within 18 months which relies on you signing up other distributors below you. In terms of commission on junior distributors, you would earn 50p for every customer they sign up on a monthly residual income basis.

Hence the need to sign up as many people as you can to make it worth your while. This is not a career you can pursue in your spare time unless you plan on doing so over the next ten years.

Meatloaf1981

Oh, and I should add that if you want to become a distributor, they charge you £100 for the privilege, apparently to pay for your "training". When I joined it was during a £50 sign-up fee promotion. I quit outside the 14-day full refund guarantee or the 45-day 75% refund guarantee. My bad.

Meatloaf1981

I signed up with my broadband and home phone and mobile phone. Helpfully they did buy me out of my O2 phone contract at the time for £200 and now if I wish to leave their service for broadband and home phone before July this year, I would need to repay that money. Added to that, even though I am not technically in contract with them, they state that if I left it until after July to cancel my home phone and broadband with them, I would have to pay a cancellation fee of £12, according to the small print. How can that even be legal given that there is no physical contract as such? Seems a bit unfair to get charged to cancel after being with them for 12 months and there would be no minimum term. Thoughts?

macman

But if you joined in July '14 then you are in minimum term contract until July '15-12 months. Another 3-4 months to go. After that you are on 30 days notice.
No 'physical' (i.e. paper) contract or signature is required, a verbal or online contract has exactly the same validity. So you do have a contract-if not, you would not have a service.

Meatloaf1981

I'm happy to be with them for the 12 months, I understand that. What I don't think is on is that I would be expected to pay a disconnection fee of £12 if I leave AFTER that.

MillicentBystander

I can't believe you haven't thought about such a simple solution to this. Simply get your next BB/mobile provider to re-imburse you all out of pocket expenses you incur in leaving UW up to the tune of £200 and leave immediately. I'm sure they all do it the same as UW do it....don't they?;)

Cardew

Meatloaf1981 wrote: »

I signed up with my broadband and home phone and mobile phone. Helpfully they did buy me out of my O2 phone contract at the time for £200 and now if I wish to leave their service for broadband and home phone before July this year, I would need to repay that money. Added to that, even though I am not technically in contract with them, they state that if I left it until after July to cancel my home phone and broadband with them, I would have to pay a cancellation fee of £12, according to the small print. How can that even be legal given that there is no physical contract as such? Seems a bit unfair to get charged to cancel after being with them for 12 months and there would be no minimum term. Thoughts?

Hardly anyone signs a 'physical contract' these days for any Utility. If you take a service, knowing the conditions, you can be held to those conditions - unless you can prove in a court of law that they were unreasonable.

Meatloaf1981

Thanks for the snarky comment, Millicent, very helpful. I'm not trying to switch before I would need to repay the £200. As I said, that is fair enough. What I'm getting at, and ignoring the "physical contract" part which is irrelevant to the point I am making, is that for a company purporting to have "no contracts" to make it easier to switch, charging people £12 disconnection fee to leave at any point after the 12 months is up is effectively penalising you for leaving anyway!