Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

TwittersPVFC

Firstly, from our perspective there is an undue focus in your proposals on the cost of energy in isolation. For example, some suppliers offer a dual fuel discount which reduces the annual cost of the energy supplied, typically by around £30pa. In contrast, we offer multi-utility customers “Free Global Calls” which are typically worth around £100 as well as a range of other valuable benefits. By including the dual fuel discount from our competitors, but excluding the value of the additional benefits we provide, the headline cost of our energy superficially appears to be higher. This however is misleading, as once the value of all the other benefits we offer is included, our customers are in fact substantially better off.

I think the CEO is missing the point here. With the dual fuel discount, everyone benefits because they all see £30 off their bill each year (or whatever the discount is). However, with benefits such as "Free Global Calls", not everyone will benefit from them. I'm 28, and I've never once needed to call abroad in my life. I have no immediate friends or relatives who live abroad, and those people I do know who live abroad I speak to over the internet. So while "Free Global Calls" may be worth more on paper, for those who don't need the calls it's a worthless benefit and so they'd be better off sticking with the duel fuel discount.

So I think the CEO is wrong to have these kind of benefits included, because they are not across the board benefits. Everyone benefits with duel fuel discount, but only a small percentage benefit with the global calls.

The problem is that it is 100% certain this will not in fact be the amount the new supplier will charge (as their tariffs will change over the course of the year, and the actual consumption will differ from the EAC or AQ). And because the old and new suppliers are likely to change their tariffs on different dates going forward, and by different amounts, the customer will end up making either lower or greater savings than the amount your guidelines are suggesting the new supplier should have explicitly told him to expect – in writing!! In reality, the customer will in many cases actually still find himself worse off having switched, because the new supplier has increased their prices by more than the old supplier.

Very true, but that's the risk of switching. The same applies to UW. You could move to them and find their prices have gone up more than the ones you've moved from and so you lose money. Nobody's claiming that switching is 100% perfect and 100% accurate. I knew the risks when I switched but I found the switching site invaluable.

Plus, if he doesn't like advertising savings, why does his site claim that I could save £4 a year by switching to UW? Bit of a flaw in his argument.

in particular, it will do nothing to stop the sharp practice by certain suppliers of offering “loss leading” tariffs to attract customers to switch in the short-term, only to increase them subsequently to a less competitive level.

Which I believe is done by only one company (and I don't mean UW).

Finally, I would make the observation that the biggest culprits when it comes to mis-selling, for the reasons set out above, are in fact the various comparison web-sites. In many cases this is a deliberate tactic they adopt, as demonstrated by their policy of advertising long term savings based on exploiting short-term timing differences between suppliers announcing their price changes. The reality is that these are commercial businesses, whose objective is to drive switching in order to generate commissions rather than to actually generate savings for their users, and in many cases they have structured their sites in such a way as to ensure that the suppliers which generate the highest commissions are presented in the most favourable way. Future action to promote confidence in these sites as being “impartial” is in our view misconceived.

The comparison websites I've been on don't mis-sell. I know when I used it exactly what I was getting and what the tariffs were, with the risk prices may go up. I certainly didn't see any evidence of uSwitch weighting any offer based on commission, unless he's referring to items like NPower masking their £100 duel fuel discount in the overall price?

He may not like comparison websites but that's only because his company lose out. That's his problem. He needs to adapt to compete in the market and not try and change the market to suit his company.

johnjames1

Twitters I agree its like the cash back card you have to work at it to get savings and I have never seen a T+ ID wash their bill of personal details and place it for all to see. They also tell there ID's to only go for certain customers as well, I have the email. I note though deadly silence from the ID's who haunt this post next must be the withdrawl of the electric licence text, I wonder how they are trying to get over that.

Grandmasu

Hello, I have trawled through this thread trying to pick out the hype and the criticisms. I work for a charity which has been approached with suggestions about raising funds and saving money. I would be grateful for some balanced views on th ethics of this. Thanks

MillicentBystander

I really don't think this is the place to view balanced views etc. It all gets a bit petty on both sides, TBH. Which is a shame.

On the subject of Mr W, I half see where he's coming from, I suppose. Even UW's die-hard fans would be hard-pressed to say their gas and electric prices taken in isolation are cheap when compared to the various online only deals, no question about that. In comparison to the tariffs the majority of the GB public are on UW are usually very competitive, though (then the added benefits really do make a difference). I suppose they really could compete with online deals if they sourced their fuel directly on the wholesale market but in effect they are actually a reseller for npower. But I do agree with him about the switching sites ignoring the added benefits that a package deal could bring. And their refusal to even mention the cash back card is pretty pathetic, TBH, when they seem happy to mention things like Tesco points and Argos discounts with other tariffs etc.

PS I've been having a look through johnjames1's previous posts on here and I think it wise to view his posts with a certain degree of care. There's plainly something going on between him and UW which has left him with somewhat of a grudge?

billsavings

Grandmasu wrote: »

Hello, I have trawled through this thread trying to pick out the hype and the criticisms. I work for a charity which has been approached with suggestions about raising funds and saving money. I would be grateful for some balanced views on th ethics of this. Thanks

Why not ask them to give you the names of some existing charities that use the fund raising scheme, and see if it has been worth their while.

TwittersPVFC

It's not really pathetic though Milli to be fair. If you had say the EDF package, you would herbs fixed amount of points per amount spent built into your policy. Nothing else to sign up to, nothing variable, just one fixed rate which is a policy benefit. The cashback card UW use though is not a benefit of the policy. It's variable, something extra you need to sign up for and you will never be able to provide a fixed benefit.

Quentin

billsavings wrote: »

Why not ask them to give you the names of some existing charities that use the fund raising scheme, and see if it has been worth their while.

We know this is worthwhile for uw - their reps still get their commission from any charity schemes they set up - one tried it on here, encouraging us to sign up with him to help his charity and save money at the same time.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/2200593#Comment_2200593

Despite being asked by the Board Guide to tell us how we would save, and to provide non affiliate links, the rep refused. This resulted in the thread being closed and uw reps being confined to this thread only to discuss the uw!

Grandmasu would have less hassle for the supporters and save them money (and get more charity funds) by just asking them to stay with their present suppliers and give a £5/month donation to the charity!

Quentin

Grandmasu wrote: »

Hello, I have trawled through this thread trying to pick out the hype and the criticisms. I work for a charity which has been approached with suggestions about raising funds and saving money. I would be grateful for some balanced views on th ethics of this. Thanks

UW has strange ethics (eg. we have seen they train their reps to "use/abuse" their friends and relatives despicably by getting them to ask for their help over a problem at work - they are taught to say they need someone to "practice" their patter on, when really they are wanting to "sign them up as a multi-service customer for at least four services, because that's what the top distributors do.")

By approaching charities like this they again use dubious ethics:

1) By association they get the charity to appear to be recommending uw.

2) Charity supporters won't expect to be mislead by their reputable charity, (just like friends/relatives of uw reps), and may take the money saving/guaranteed low prices etc at face value.

Grandmasu

Thanks

I certainly have doubts and would hate to recommend something which is dubious. Seems like I might have to speak to the volunteer and turn down their offer. Not an easy thing to do when they seem so genuine.

MillicentBystander

Crikey, that's one big list!