Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

mochyn88

Having returned to the UK after living in Hong Kong for 18 years, I found many things had changed and wanting like many to save money I had asked my friends if they had switched energy suppliers but none had. Anyway to cut a long story short, I joined this site to find out more info after I had moved into a newly built house that was not connected to the national grid.
EDF was the supplier of utilities and charged me 3. 861p per unit plus 25.27 per day Standing Charge to connect to the National Grid Gas pipeline network.
Utility Warehouse charge me 3.444p per unit and my standing charge was £3.35 for month of March.
From April the unit price is now 3.093 per unit

Should I not be happy or can someone advise me how to save even more money?

Cardew

mochyn88 wrote: »

Having returned to the UK after living in Hong Kong for 18 years, I found many things had changed and wanting like many to save money I had asked my friends if they had switched energy suppliers but none had. Anyway to cut a long story short, I joined this site to find out more info after I had moved into a newly built house that was not connected to the national grid.
EDF was the supplier of utilities and charged me 3. 861p per unit plus 25.27 per day Standing Charge to connect to the National Grid Gas pipeline network.
Utility Warehouse charge me 3.444p per unit and my standing charge was £3.35 for month of March.
From April the unit price is now 3.093 per unit

Should I not be happy or can someone advise me how to save even more money?

That will be very easy as UW are without doubt just about the most expensive gas and electricty supplier in UK.

You don't say where you live(what area) or your consumption of gas and electricity.

However if you care to post that information, it is absolutely certain that there will be lots of tariffs(in fact almost any tariff available in UK) that will save you money. Average users usually save around 30% with the cheapest tariff. - often £hundreds

P.S.
As a matter of interest were you recruited to UW by a 'friend?'

mochyn88

As I said previously I had asked my friends about switching suppliers, they regaled me with horror stories about Direct debit payments being increased by utility companies and this was my experience.EDF were holding my money as my DD was twice as much as my consumption and every month the amount of money not in my bank but theirs was increasing.I could not lower my DD as I was on minimum DD contract with EDF.I then saw in ''Which'' magazine that Utility Warehouse although not the cheapest utility supplier was rated the best.
I then actively sought out a distributor, listened to his sales pitch, knowing he had a vested interest in my joining and as there was no contract or penalty clause for early termination I thought I would give it a try.
Before starting the service I had visited this site and saw that it had been villified but thought I would still give them a chance for one month.
I was very surprised that my bills were cheaper mainly because I am a low end user and the standing charge was lower than EDF.
I am one very happy Utility Warehouse customer

penrhyn

Your bills will be lower than the standard, non internet or dual fuel tariffs from the local energy supplier, the last time I did a comparison this is around 6%, however as has been pointed out, if you were to go to the cheapest internet dual fuel tariff then potentially you could save around 20% more.
You don't have to take anyone's word for it, just enter your annual consumption figures into a comparison website.

Cardew

Mochyn88

In your previous post you asked "or can someone advise me how to save even more money?"

I am stating that we can find you cheaper tariffs - lots of them, so why not posted your figures and we will demostrate that fact.

With regard to the 'Which' magazine UW have not been 'rated' the best; they have come top in a reader's survey. With over 33,000 UW salesmen(and families) all with a vested interest in UW doing well, that is not surprising. Despite having without question just about the highest prices in UK(as Which confirmed) they were voted top for value.

Similarly I can predict with certainty that in this year's Eurovision Song contest that Cyprus will give the Greek entry top marks.

You may be a very happy UW customer, but in that case money-saving is not high on your list of priorities.

So a challenge - post your consumption figures and we will find you a cheaper tariff.(and you won't even have to pay a monthly membership fee!) We will even use the Which comparison website to demonstrate how much extra you are paying.

mochyn88

My gas consumption is around 200(two hundred) units annually and my electricity consumption is 2000(two thousand) units.

As I have mentioned before I have to pay a standing charge daily for connection to the National grids so while I accept that many suppliers can offer me better rates per unit, I have to take into account the daily standing charge which I have no idea .

If you can supply daily standing charges with comparative suppliers and then prove that another is cheaper then I will accept your findings

mochyn88

penrhyn wrote: »

Your bills will be lower than the standard, non internet or dual fuel tariffs from the local energy supplier, the last time I did a comparison this is around 6%, however as has been pointed out, if you were to go to the cheapest internet dual fuel tariff then potentially you could save around 20% more.
You don't have to take anyone's word for it, just enter your annual consumption figures into a comparison website.

If I go to the cheapest internet dual fuel tariff then I am back to paying by DD and paying more than I consume and the electricity company holding my money instead of being in my bank account

Quentin

mochyn88 wrote: »

If I go to the cheapest internet dual fuel tariff then I am back to paying by DD ......

If you aren't paying UW by DD, then on top of their expensive energy prices you will be being surcharged another 10% on top!

And when you talk of the standing charges others make for connecting you, bear in mind that on top of any standing charges you are paying to UW, they also have their compulsory membership fee to pay every month (which seems just an added standing charge)

mochyn88

Quentin wrote: »

If you aren't paying UW by DD, then on top of their expensive energy prices you will be being surcharged another 10% on top!

And when you talk of the standing charges others make for connecting you, bear in mind that on top of any standing charges you are paying to UW, they also have their compulsory membership fee to pay every month (which seems just an added standing charge)

My savings of £10.00 by changing from EDF to UW far outweighs the £1.50 membership charge

Cardew

mochyn88 wrote: »

My gas consumption is around 200(two hundred) units annually and my electricity consumption is 2000(two thousand) units.

As I have mentioned before I have to pay a standing charge daily for connection to the National grids so while I accept that many suppliers can offer me better rates per unit, I have to take into account the daily standing charge which I have no idea .

If you can supply daily standing charges with comparative suppliers and then prove that another is cheaper then I will accept your findings

I am assuming that you have an Imperial gas meter so you use approx 6,300kWh per year. This is very low consumption - about 30% of the UK average of 20,500kWh

Your electricity consumption is also low; 2000kWh is approx 60% of the UK average consumption of 3,300kWh.

You don't give your area so I have taken prices for the Midlands.

According to Which the cheapest Tariff for your consumption is Scottish Power at £368.03.

For the same consumption(again according to Which) the cheapest UW tariff is £510.40

So UW is £142.37 more expensive - that is 38.7% more expensive.