Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

hurrah

Waterways wrote:

I am with the Utility Warehouse and have my land line and gas and electric with them. Tiscali in January will have up 8MB speed on broadband and free UK calls 24/7 nationally and local, and the line rental for £19.99. A great deal.

However The UW now have introduced this Broadcall which is similar for the same price, but you need to be the club which is £1.75 a month.

As prices of gas and electricity are varying with the suppliers, is it worth my while staying with the UW? Is it worth going Broadcall and hstill have the gas and elec with the UW? Is it worth seeing what happens in the next few months? I like the idea of all being on one bill and it is easier that way rather than deal with 3 or 4 companies for gas. elc, broadband, telephone, etc. I don't like the idea of paying hyped up call charges when ringing the UW service either - that stinks of rip-off.

Any thoughts by anyone? Best Gas and elec deals, etc?

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=275088&highlight=broadcall

Waterways_2

hurrah wrote:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=275088&highlight=broadcall

Well I can't have the cheap Broadcall as I am not LLU at the exchange, so this makes UW less attractive. The Tiscali package that is out in Jan that is similar to Talk-talk, with free 24/7 national calls and line rental, and Broadcall is worth going for and dropping the UW land lines.

The uptime rate with Talktalk on broadband was poor - I don't know if that is still the case as there was an intial surge of people using the system. I am with Tiscali on broadband, the £15 deal, which is pretty slow for pictures and the likes, but OK for normal everyday use and the uptime rate is excellent, V good. Tiscali have a really crap and useless news groups server which is very poor for such a big company which advertises the fact you can download news groups with them. What would UW broadband uptime rate be like if many peopel took up their deal? An open question.

With gas and elec I can't see the need to drop UW yet as the market has not settled. I may go to someone else who may raise their prices to UW or above levels, so no gain. A dilema really.

As regards to poor service from UW, I have had good service so far, but nothing has gone wrong so I don't really know, and I'm sure some people have had bad service too. "Which" mag said they were good, so who do I believe? Maybe some people here have an agenda.

Nevertheless advice is welcome on cheap gas/elec at the mo' vs. UW. The posts from a few months ago are probably way out of date by now, so not worth taking too much notice of. I would guess.

BTW, when I first went with UW (Telecom-Plus) they were the cheapest gas and electricity around and with land line I only dealt with one company and one bill. I hope they are still negotiating with suppliers to get cheaper gas and elec deals - soon before I might flit off.

NigeWick

Waterways wrote:

I hope they are still negotiating with suppliers to get cheaper gas and elec deals - soon before I might flit off.

UWDC (T+) hived off their electricity and gas business to Npower because they were making a loss. I therefore doubt there'll be a lot any negotiating with other companies.

Nigel.

jhp

Waterways wrote:

Maybe some people here have an agenda.

Waterways_2

NigeWick wrote:

Can't argue with that. I am disappointed.

Nigel.

Nige, if I do decide to leave UW, do I need to use the expensive phones lines to do it?

Quentin

You don't need to even tell them.

Sign up with new companies and they will inform UW of the situation.

Waterways_2

4_Pete's_Sake wrote:

Please note that the Triple Value guarantee only guarantees that UW will be cheaper than the Standard Tariffs of the Big 6 energy providers and even then it is only fractionally cheaper.

In fact in September UW made a mistake and some of their customers were charged on average 50p more for their gas than the (Really Expensive) British Gas tariffs. As a result UW have new amended their energy tariffs with some reductions in the price of gas but increases in the price of electricity. The new tariffs commence on 1/10/06. They will also be applying a special one off credit to the bills of the affected customers.

The triple value guarantee does NOT make it clear to UW customers that the comparison is against other companies' standard tariffs and as such I feel that many UW customers are being mislead into thinking that they have a good deal. I was one of them until I rang them and found out the truth.

Most UW customers should be able to save £150 - £250 a month by switching to an on-line tariff such as the current one from Npower, however there may even be cheaper ones than that depending on you particular usage.

Is Npower supposed to be the cheapest duel fuel deal on line?

Quentin

Go onto the comparison sites and do some research - you'll soon get the feel of them, and check out using seperate companies - it's often cheaper than doing "dual fuel" deals.

bendtoy_2

Quentin wrote:

You don't need to even tell them.

Sign up with new companies and they will inform UW of the situation.

Normally that would be the case. But when i stopped my CPS to T-Plus and moved to another supplier,T-Plus continued to charge me. So to be on safe side i would e-mail them telling them what you are doing. Unless you wanna call their expensive 0871 5p/10p a minute Customer Service Number.:D

Waterways_2

bendtoy wrote:

Normally that would be the case. But when i stopped my CPS to T-Plus and moved to another supplier,T-Plus continued to charge me. So to be on safe side i would e-mail them telling them what you are doing. Unless you wanna call their expensive 0871 5p/10p a minute Customer Service Number.:D

Did they keep taking money out of your account? I suppose it is best to instruct the bank to stop the DD.