Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

1carminestocky

Cardew wrote: »

Whenever criticism is made of the company, UW employees resort to personal attacks rather than answer the points raised.

The points I made in post #1232 still stand.



No further comment needed!

Only problem being the point you made earlier in post 1155 sort of told us all we need to know about your integrity when you are in an argument. You simply make things up.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=20040135&postcount=1155

Yesterday, 2:01 PM #1155
Cardew
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Originally Posted by vinnyph
They don't advertise,

So what are French and Saunders doing on TV most nights?

You can watch their video here.

http://www.utilitywarehouseherts.co.uk/

Care to withdraw that remark as well?

Ditto remark on paying commission to comparison websites?

Still, it gave me a laugh.

Quentin

vinnyph wrote: »

Look as I told you before, why don't you just ring CEO Charles Wigoder to find out for sure yourself.

More sensibly, why don't you ask why there is no mention of this not paying to be on comparison sites on your website?

And maybe earn yourself some brownie points by alerting him to what is being said, as no doubt your CEO will want to take legal action against the sites which are saying join up to uw through us, we'll get paid a commission by them and will pass on a chunk to you as cashback!

Decado23

Quentin wrote: »

You have the proof in writing - visit the two sites mentioned (ukpower & energylinx) and see for yourself. Are you saying they are lying?

hmm.. just had a dig around ukpower - if you want to switch to utility warehouse through UK power you need to visit the utility warehouse website (actually an independent distributor's hosted website, similar to mine or any other distributor's). The hosted site is in the name of Richard Eden, who appear's to be a (the?) company director for ukpower (google search "richard eden ukpower" he has an ecademy page I just checked out).

So, what can we read into this?
some thoughts -
---
perhaps the 'commercial agreement' ukpower claims to have with utility warehouse does not in fact exist. The agreement would appear to be between UW and Richard Eden as an individual.

UK power does not earn commission for signups as there is no direct signup capability - richard eden may earn commission under the same terms as any other authorised distributor.

UW is not paying to 'advertise' through UKpower - Mr Eden has created the link on the ukpower site on his own initiative.

Mr Eden is possibly in breach of his distributor agreement with UW for a number of reasons.
---

now, the above is supposition at best - I have no wish to accuse anyone of anything, but there is certainly room for doubt as to your claim of 'proof' that utility warehouse are paying a comparison site for advertising.

Quentin

You clutch at straws.

Should all this be the case (for ukpower), then they are getting paid by this Mr Eden who you say is actually doing this under an "agreement between himself and the uw".

Are you saying that the uw policy can be circumvented like this, and a deal like this can be done by a rep, apparently contrary to your unpublished policy of not using any comparison site except Energylinx which also pays cashback to anyone signing up via their site?

1carminestocky

Methinks there's only one person clutching at straws here. I can't understand why Quentin just doesn't email UW himself if this is so important to him. It's not as if he won't know all the director's email addresses (and probably home addresses AND what they have for lunch) as he seems to spend an inaordinate amount of his 'working' week (thank God I don't employ him if indeed he DOES work) trawling UW's site discovering new angles of attack.

Cardew

Decado23 wrote: »

hmm.. just had a dig around ukpower - if you want to switch to utility warehouse through UK power you need to visit the utility warehouse website (actually an independent distributor's hosted website, similar to mine or any other distributor's). The hosted site is in the name of Richard Eden, who appear's to be a (the?) company director for ukpower (google search "richard eden ukpower" he has an ecademy page I just checked out).

So, what can we read into this?
some thoughts -
---
perhaps the 'commercial agreement' ukpower claims to have with utility warehouse does not in fact exist. The agreement would appear to be between UW and Richard Eden as an individual.

UK power does not earn commission for signups as there is no direct signup capability - richard eden may earn commission under the same terms as any other authorised distributor.

UW is not paying to 'advertise' through UKpower - Mr Eden has created the link on the ukpower site on his own initiative.

Mr Eden is possibly in breach of his distributor agreement with UW for a number of reasons.
---

now, the above is supposition at best - I have no wish to accuse anyone of anything, but there is certainly room for doubt as to your claim of 'proof' that utility warehouse are paying a comparison site for advertising.

Interesting possibility.

This is what I mused in an earlier post might be happening with Energylinx:

I apply for a switch to UW via energylinx and I am allocated to a distributor????

Are you saying that UW don't pay Energylinx, but UW pay their distributors who in turn pay Energylinx?

I simply cannot see Energylinx paying £34 to anyone switching to UW via their site and getting no commission for that service.

Frankly UW paying commission(directly or indirectly via a distributor) or not, is of little consequence. Given that UW always appear toward the bottom of the pricing 'league table' I suspect very few would use that facility.

Decado23

Quentin wrote: »

You clutch at straws.

Hi pot, allow me to introduce kettle. I know you don't like UW but your single minded determination to focus wholely on any negative (real or perceived) is bordering on obsession.

Quentin wrote: »

Should all this be the case (for ukpower), then they are getting paid by this Mr Eden who you say is actually doing this under an "agreement between himself and the uw".

I can't possibly claim to know the internal affairs of ukpower, i don't know how you can claim to. A few possibilities spring to mind (again, no accusaition intended, just possibilities)-

• Mr Eden gains a personal income from signups through his hosted site this is completely independent of ukpower but as a director he is in a position where he can have his personal link on the ukpower site.
• UKPower are getting comission through this agreement, having intentionally decieved UW by registering their distributorship as an individual, despite intentions to act as a company this is hardly UW's fault and if this is the case Id expect the distributor agreement to be terminated when they notice.
• Richard Eden is, as you suggest, personally paying UKpower to list his website.
• UW have utterly disregarded their intention to not pay comission to comparison sites, but are doing it in the most bizarre and round about way they could, not doing it with all comparison sites and in the process ruining any future claim that they don't pay these sites commision. Why they would do this is beyond me, maybe someone in the office was drunk that day.

Quentin wrote: »

Are you saying that the uw policy can be circumvented like this, and a deal like this can be done by a rep, apparently contrary to your unpublished policy of not using any comparison site except Energylinx which also pays cashback to anyone signing up via their site?

Independent distributor's are able to advertise if they so choose, this is not a circumvention of the UW advertising policy, Independent distributor's are just that - Independent. Although I suspect 'advertising' in this manner - ie directly through a comparison site, would be a breach of the agreement. However, I would suggest that the breach is on UKPower's or Richard Eden's part, rather than UWs.
We are self employed sales/recruitment agents. There are a number of restrictions on this which I won't bore you with. Any such advertising is done at the independent distributor's own cost - UW does NOT pay for this advertising (hell, we even have to pay for replacement tariff/service guides when things change).

I'm not sure where the 'except energylinx' claim comes from. I couldn't find any claim on their site regarding a financial agreement with UW.

Quentin

Decado23 wrote: »

I'm not sure where the 'except energylinx' claim comes from. I couldn't find any claim on their site regarding a financial agreement with UW.

Again you clutch at straws.

Your colleague vinnyph told us that uw uses energylinx because:

they are independant of the energy companies

If you have read the exchanges you will have seen that is not true. Energylinx happily inform everyone that they get their money from commissions paid to them for supplying customers to the companies.

They share the commision they get with the customers. If they don't get commission, then they don't have a link from their site to the supplier.

They do pay cashback to anyone signing up to uw.

Maybe they have never signed anyone up to uw, and therefore never been paid any commission by them??

Decado23

Quentin wrote: »

Again you clutch at straws.

(yet) again, you utterly ignore the bulk of my post and 'clutch' at one small straw you feel you can comment on negatively.

While I have no Ill will for vinnyph it is inacurate to refer to us as colleagues - I am an INDEPENDENT distributor. I am self employed. The actions of any other distributor (good or bad) should not reflect on me, as my own actions should not reflect on any other distributor.

With regards to his energylinx comment that you quoted, I am not aware of any agreement between energylinx and UW. I cannot say there isn't one but I'd like to see something official, rather than rely entirely on a statement made by another distributor who, with the best of intentions, may not be in possession of the full facts.

I'm sure I've read posts by you in the past implying (if not claiming outright) that UW distributor's are untrustworthy. Yet you quote a distributor in support of your claims when it suits you?

Cardew

Decado23,
I am a little puzzled over a couple of points.

You refer to UW’s ‘intention not to pay commission to comparison sites’ however according to Quentin(and he is pretty thorough) this is not a published policy???

Presumably the only reason for that policy, and that of not advertising in main stream media, is that it is not cost effective? By that I mean that UW have no ethical stance against comparison websites or indeed any form of advertising. It is simply that their business model finds recruiting by using 25,000 distributors a better option.

Could it be that if it became widely known that cashback can be obtained for transfer to UW, then it would undermine the efforts of distributors to recruit and cause dissention in the ranks?

I suspect that many of the friends and family recruited by a distributor, would be dismayed to find that they could have received cashback for switching to U.W. and that using their friend/relative has denied them that money.