Number stolen by BT

A_Nice_Englishman

Forgive me for bumping the thread but I'd love to find out what compensation UW and BT paid to their respective customers.

With so little difference in line rental and call charges, things like the amount of compensation for loss of service become significant when trying to choose between phone companies.

bbb_uk

A_Nice_Englishman wrote:

Forgive me for bumping the thread but I'd love to find out what compensation UW and BT paid to their respective customers

I'd be surprised if UW paid their customer because going by the post by Quentin earlier, you are only entitled to compensation if you constantly keep ringing them once every 48hours.

This I believe is a disgrace and possibly just a cop-out as few people would keep constantly ringing to report the same problem. If I were to ring and complain to BT about loss of service and they said it would be something like 4 days or something I'd be annoyed (obviously) but wouldn't keep ringing until the 4days were up.

mobilegossip

A_Nice_Englishman wrote:

Forgive me for bumping the thread but I'd love to find out what compensation UW and BT paid to their respective customers.

With so little difference in line rental and call charges, things like the amount of compensation for loss of service become significant when trying to choose between phone companies.

See post 3 in this thread re BT Compensation plan.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=273524

Mike_by_the_Sea

peterlittleton wrote:

Hurrah

Just one correction to the above:

As of 1st October 2006 UW are putting up their Line Rental to £11.00 a month, (Same as BT) I'm amazed that Mike by the Sea failed to spot this.

With the increase in their line rental, UW are now clearly more expensive than BT if you just take their phone service.
BT Unlimited Calls = £11 + £9.95 = £20.95
UW Unlimited Calls = £11 + £9.50 + £1.76 = £22.26
or
BT E+W Package = £11 + £3.95 = £14.95
UW E+W Package = £11 + £3.75 + £1.76 = £16.51

UW's Dial-up internet charges have also increase by 100% from 1p a minute to 2p a minute.

UW's unique selling point was that one bill for all your utilities made them cheaper.
Now you have to pay extra just for the privilege of having one bill.
There are some customers, (who have more money than sense) who like the idea of one bill, but there are not many of them on this forum, well perhaps one!!!

Hi Peter

As above, UW are "cheaper" than BT for both examples when the membership fee is discounted. The other important factors to take into account are the minimum call charge (BT 5.5p and UW 4.7p) and BT now bills per minute and UW still bill per second.

UW's Dial-up internet charges have increased from 1p a minute to 2p a minute as the company was losing money on the dial-up service following a substantial reduction in monthly volumes due to the increasing popularity of broadband.

One of UW's unique selling points is the single bill for all your utilities, this doesn't directly imply that this on it's own makes it cheaper, but it is more convenient than separate bills for each utility.

A_Nice_Englishman

Mike_by_the_Sea wrote:

As above, UW are "cheaper" than BT for both examples when the membership fee is discounted. The other important factors to take into account are the minimum call charge (BT 5.5p and UW 4.7p) and BT now bills per minute and UW still bill per second.

Assuming the membership fee is compulsory how can it be discounted?

The minimum call charge and per second billing are irrelevant if there is no 'per call' charge.

Mike_by_the_Sea wrote:

UW's Dial-up internet charges have increased from 1p a minute to 2p a minute as the company was losing money on the dial-up service following a substantial reduction in monthly volumes due to the increasing popularity of broadband.

Thanks for explaining the reason, but its still a doubling in charge for those who pay it.

Mike_by_the_Sea wrote:

One of UW's unique selling points is the single bill for all your utilities, this doesn't directly imply that this on it's own makes it cheaper, but it is more convenient than separate bills for each utility.

I would have thought sending one bill would be cheaper than sending several and this would be reflected in the prices charged

An analogy might be shopping in Tesco, ASDA and Morrisons to find the cheapest groceries. For most people the time and inconvenience probably doesn't make this worthwhile. However there doesn't seem to be too much inconvenience involved in seeing three DD's go through your bank account instead of one.

I'm afraid I don't understand why anyone would want to use UW if buying seperately was cheaper.

bbb_uk

Mike_by_the_Sea wrote:

As above, UW are "cheaper" than BT for both examples when the membership fee is discounted.

If I remember correctly I think UW were told off by an ASA adjudication when UW were comparing services between themselves and other similar providers and didn't mention the additional monthly fee.

Therefore, I agree with A Nice Englishman, that you can't exclude the UW monthly fee and still make it a fair comparison.

other important factors to take into account are the minimum call charge (BT 5.5p and UW 4.7p)

Technically from today, BT charge a 3p connection fee instead of minimum call charge to all chargable calls.

UW's Dial-up internet charges have increased from 1p a minute to 2p a minute as the company was losing money on the dial-up service following a substantial reduction in monthly volumes due to the increasing popularity of broadband.

Dial-up seems to be uneconomical compared to broadband.

One of UW's unique selling points is the single bill for all your utilities, this doesn't directly imply that this on it's own makes it cheaper, but it is more convenient than separate bills for each utility.

I agree some people may find it convenient but as there are many other cheaper options around I'm sure if your customers were fully informed of the many other cheaper (free in some cases) alternative call providers they could well be inclined to move away from yourselves. In today's direct debit scheme this makes paying all bills from different providers very easily without worrying and thus can benefit from the many other utility providers.

Is the monthly charge compulsory and if so, what benefits does the compulsory monthly charge bring that other similar companies don't have?

The fact that you may supply most utilities doesn't really mean that your customers should then have to pay an additional fee for the 'convenience' of being billed by the same company. This should actually be cheaper for you but you seem to actually charge for this facility.

More utility providers are starting to branch out as well and british gas comes to mind that does telephony as well but without an additional monthly fee for such 'convenience'.

mobilegossip

The ASA ruling is here
http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/non_broadcast/Adjudication+Details.htm?Adjudication_id=40701