Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

vinnyph

I don't always get time to look into all the questions people ask. It takes a lot of time formulating an answer. Doesn't mean I don't have a good answer though. It's just that there is usually need to write a long winded answer to cover all the points, I get bored and start writing poetry instead, I find it more interesting. I do have a life outside of this forum as well

Cardew

vinnyph wrote: »

Yorkshire region 6000 elec, 15000 gas at new prices would be £1248 with UW, the old rates would give £1295

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Vinnyph,

You are missing the point I was making, and carmine is of course deliberately avoiding any answer.

He issued a challenge to me, and you obliged by posting that challenge, on how his package could be beaten.

I have clearly demonstrated that by getting his gas and electricity from a cheaper supplier, and keeping either his phone or broadband(or possibly both) he would still have his UW card for his £6,000 annual spend.

Let us not worry about how much cheaper he can get his gas and electricity; there is absolutely no dispute that he can get it cheaper.

Now neither the UW Phone or Broadband are the cheapest packages - so get rid of one and still have the card.

Incidentally, you will note that carmine has me on 'ignore' because of my 'aggressive' posts. There really is a delicious irony in that comment. If you go back to when he joined MSE in July you will find a number of regular posters, long before I, had him on 'ignore' for his aggression and rudeness. Complaints were made(not by I) to the moderators for his posts and a number were removed. - and he believes he is humourous!

Now he has seen and quoted my post about having just one UW service to save money - but true to form, and as I predicted , he found a way of avoiding the issue.

SwanJon

Came on this evening and though not mmuch had been happening as the pages hadn't gone up much. Then I noticed this

vinnyph wrote: »

Actually not, I deleted them myself. I just don't take misrepresentation seriously myself. I suggest taking down any messages that could be deemed slander in any way.

Also a rather impressive 'thanked in more posts than made' scenario:
vinnyph
MoneySaving Newbie
Join Date: Mar 2009
Post Count: 17
Thanked 21 Times in 18 Posts

Anyway, the SwanJon pendulum swings..

Looks like we are circling the drain still

• UW are more expensive than most other energy tariffs (pending updates on switching sites - 50ish out of 60)
• Making UW cheaper than many (all?) energy tariffs is totally reliant on using the cashback card
• Other cashback cards are available, just not linked to an energy supplier
• So it comes down to how you want to run it - one bill for all, including the cashback card, or different (possibly online) bills for different services, and the cashback card

Anyone from either side disagree with the above?

Mike_by_the_Sea

penrhyn wrote: »

You can see the way the TP MLM is structure in their business opportunity brochure here,
http://www.businessopportunityplus.co.uk/success.pdf

I'm not a customer but was approached by my pension members club to join, hence my interest.
I will admit to being a bit wary of such schemes having been to a couple of Amway presentations in the past.

Hi penryhn

Nice to see a new poster every 10 pages or so.

Just a couple of quick comments re: your link.

1. This link is taken from a T+ (UW) distributor site, so presumably would need to be deleted so as not to break MSE rules re: advertising etc.

2. The presentation is also not in use anymore and goes back to 2006, so anything in the presentation will be out of date and would not be useable by distributors today.

3, As regards aspects which will be used to "whip" us distributors, like the Gas and Electricity quotes, they were relevant at the time the presentation was originally available and are now out of date. As is the wording of the TVG which had to change once T+ transferred the responsibility for gas and electricity to NPower after having made substantial losses on those products when they did offer to be cheaper than the "big 6" direct debit comparisons.

I hope that helps

Mike

Mike_by_the_Sea

Cardew wrote: »

Penrhyn,

In that link for UW it states the following:

Now given everyone, even the most hardened UW representative, accepts that all the Big 6 have much cheaper tariffs than UW for gas and electricity.

The only way I can think of that UW can claim that statement is true, is that none of the big 6 are their competitors.

So who are their competitors?

Hi Cardew

Re: my response to penrhyn, this is not a current presentation and therefore should not be referenced.

Mike

Mike_by_the_Sea

Plushchris wrote: »

I wonder how long it will be until I get a reply from a UW rep as to what the term "Standard tariff" refers to?

And what are companies "Cheapest" standard tariffs, when as far as I was aware, the big 6 only had one standard tariff each?

Hi plushchris

In principle you are right about only having one each, but some of the "Big 6" have a couple of standard tariff options, things like with or without standing charge etc. and as such there can be more than one. Therefore the "cheapest" would cover these variants.

I hope that clarifies the "cheapest" bit.

Mike

vinnyph

Cardew wrote: »

Vinnyph,

You are missing the point I was making, and carmine is of course deliberately avoiding any answer.

He issued a challenge to me, and you obliged by posting that challenge, on how his package could be beaten.

I have clearly demonstrated that by getting his gas and electricity from a cheaper supplier, and keeping either his phone or broadband(or possibly both) he would still have his UW card for his £6,000 annual spend.

Let us not worry about how much cheaper he can get his gas and electricity; there is absolutely no dispute that he can get it cheaper.

Now neither the UW Phone or Broadband are the cheapest packages - so get rid of one and still have the card.

Incidentally, you will note that carmine has me on 'ignore' because of my 'aggressive' posts. There really is a delicious irony in that comment. If you go back to when he joined MSE in July you will find a number of regular posters, long before I, had him on 'ignore' for his aggression and rudeness. Complaints were made(not by I) to the moderators for his posts and a number were removed. - and he believes he is humourous!

Now he has seen and quoted my post about having just one UW service to save money - but true to form, and as I predicted , he found a way of avoiding the issue.

I think the real issue is that it is possible to get a good value if you shop around constantly and keep swapping company. It is also possible to get good value if you go with UW and take the whole package including cashback card where you don't have to keep swapping energy.

I have a number of years of experience and spoken to thousands of people and have found that the more times people swap their energy the more chance of something going wrong and being billed wrongly. Its a single company that handles the change over from company to company. You would think it was quite smooth by now after many years of deregulation. There are however many things that can go wrong. Its not usually the fault of the company you swap to either. Its down to the distribution company/metering company/ maintenance/ previous company etc. There are in fact many channels of communication between these companies that involves many different departments. Most departments cannot be contacted directly but have to be contacted through another department. The changeover is handled by electronic communication only. That's why it takes a few weeks, including a cooling off period. If something goes wrong in the process it can take quite a while to rectify as the department responsible will often not solve the problem diligently. Being a distributor I follow up on what is happening with a customer to try to make sure everything goes smoothly. A door to door knocker only gets the sale and never find what else happens. I've seen cases where the customer has a metric gas meter fitted but is still being billed with imperial units, about 2.83 times more. It was a 8 bedroom house as well. His previous company never got it put right after 3 years of constant telephone calls in total they owed him over £10000. Other cases, for instance where 2 flats had been converted back into a house and there were 2 meters for electric, but the distribution company hadn't contacted the maintenance to get someone to do the check required in order to take one of the NPAM number off the records. There was therefore 1 meter in house but 2 supply numbers. He got two meter readings and so 2 electric bills for the same price as a result. This took him many months to resolve. Another one was where the person had moved into a new house and discovered that they never got a bill for electricity for a year even though he had a meter and was using electricity. It was because the housing developer had rang the maintenance company to register the new house for electricity whereas they should have contacted the distribution company new business number instead. The maintenance company had fitted the meter and given the household an npam number (bottom line of supply number) but the distribution company responsible for billing didn't know it was even there. I contacted a number of places to find the number for the right department so the person could contact and get his meter registered so he could then get a bill. It took me a week to find out what was going wrong. Else he could end up with a bill for a few thousand pounds and possibly a fine as well that he didn't want. I discovered that the regional maintenance npam number creation teams number had in fact been given out to all the billing companies and that it was a common problem for many houses. I reported the region wide problem to ofgem and UW and the different operators to get them to realise the wrong number was being given out. I went to all the people on the new estate and found they had the same problem as well, over 100 houses. So I helped them all to sort it out. These are just a few cases, I have seen many more that people have had.

So there are many things that can go wrong with the changeover/billing process. If people come up with a problem they are reluctant to move. Its often not the energy billing companies fault why these things happen and can take many months to solve because of the way the many departments in the different companies cannot contact each directly but only by an electronic system.

After seeing what can happen for a few years I have found that things do go wrong in transfers however the energy watch team in UW have been voted the best in the industry. They will bombard the different departments with the electronic messages until it gets resolved. Because the team are very experienced and also because they don't change jobs so often than in the rest of the industry in general I have found they resolve the more complicated issues and it doesn't just get left. Obviously I act on the behalf of the customer as well and follow up to make sure it does get sorted. I have an interest to because I usually know the person or know them through someone. I don't like something going wrong for people. I have a lot of trust for the customer service team after dealing with them for many years. Maybe not all distributors are as diligent as me but its because I am very technically able and used to handle very complex projects and don't mind getting my hands dirty so to speak.

People often stop swapping because something goes wrong in swapping from one company to the next in order to get a special rate. I have spoken to a lot of people and know the proportion. Its cases like these that makes me think is it a good idea to suggest for someone to keep swapping company. Eventually something will go wrong. Have the low customer service scores for the big 6 in the recent which magazine reviews got something to do with all the swapping between them eventually causing problems that don't get resolved simply because there are so many departments involved to resolve a problem. People tend to stay with UW and swap less the customer churn ratio is very low compared to the big 6 and that helps it to make sure it can be more efficient both at resolving problems and also in costs as less advertising cost to acquire customers is necessary and support costs go down the longer someone stays. I think thats why people stay with them. I am only going on what the average person says to me. I sometimes get labelled as a rep just like the door knockers by people who don't understand what I do. However when people have been with me for a few years and they know I regularly get in contact to see if everything is ok with them they value that personal support. I think it makes a difference. Sometimes things can go wrong but its how fast they get resolved.

The success rates for swapping have improved with time over the past few years across the industry as more experience has improved the system used but there is still chance of something going wrong. I think its because the customer support people often come and go within the industry. They take their experience with them. They end up getting a better paid job. A lot of the UW customer support team have been there many years because UW pay them a lot more than the industry average so they stay and so become more experienced and so more efficient at what they do. The constant training programme is very good as well.

Don't take energy with UW and you loose the free calls at all times that is worth £60.

Swap energy company regularly and run the risk of getting a problem transfer causing problems. Thats just my experience I have found with speaking to thousands of people.

mech_2

1carminestocky wrote: »

What would 15% equate to in household numbers? 3-4 million? A figure not to be sneezed at if you are a young, fast growing utility supplier.

But how many of the 15% have the right expenditure levels for the UW card to work for them? As I say, most households are not 4 people.

Really? What would you call 'relatively small grocery bills' and where did the info come from?

Relatively small would be proportionally smaller in line with household size.

Average UK household size is usually taken to be 2.4 people. The 2001 census data gives 2.36 for England. 30% being 1 person households, 34% being 2 person households, 15.5% 3-person, 13.5% 4-person, and 7% larger than that. So assuming you need a 3 person or larger household to spend enough on the groceries on the UW card to make it worthwhile for the 15% of households who shop at Sainsburys anyway, that's 5.4% of households. A long way from UW being "cheapest for just about anybody" which I believe Carmine claimed before. And it still assumes they couldn't get a better deal at a nearby Asda or Tesco. Anyway, it's a very specific demographic which is why I gave them a name.

Like I have said, I'll take your 5% and raise you 20%+ and 5% off my UW bill by shopping for OUR shopping at Sainsburys.

Well maybe your nearest Tesco according to mysupermarket's database is a Tesco Metro. Tesco Metros have hiked pricing levels and limited choice. This could be affecting your results. My Tesco certainly has multiple ranges of avocado, for example.

Okiedokie. That gets us to 6 months at a possible 5%. What about the other 6 months of the year? :rolleyes:

Well I'm assuming "good" is still good enough to get some other cashback deals. Even if it isn't there's still 3 months of 1.5% cashback to get. Average being 3.25%. It doesn't have to be 5% to match the UW card as the UW card is offset by the high energy prices. Even for people who can save more than 3.25% on the UW card, they could still just use the Amex card for 3 months and then switch to UW after that if no other cashback deals were possible when the 3 months were up.

You've missed your vocation, mech. With 'reasoning' like that, you could have been a Govt Minister by now. How anyone can call someone who has 2 cars such a derogatory term as you did in your previous post then twist that round into me having a chip on my shoulder deserves high political office.

You're not going to wind me up with that silliness. It was you who said UW was for families with a couple of cars on the drive. I just gave the notional family a name. You clearly feel you have something to prove. No judgement has been made so rest easy. Who says I didn't come from such a family in the first place? We certainly had a lower carbon footprint when we were all under one roof. Now my parents each live on their own in houses big enough for a family each!

Like I said, on your tiny grocery bill there's virtually no scope for big savings no matter what you do, mech.

That doesn't make sense. How would Sainsburys become cheaper if I just buy more of the same goods?

Mike_by_the_Sea

Quentin wrote: »

The videos do give some clues.

That uw martini presentation did mention getting £1000 bonus for just recruiting 3 people. The "contact" was lead down the martini pathway in a few minutes from getting a fiver for finding a new customer to sign up for gas and electricity to supplying 3 names to join his team to get the grand!

Dear Quentin

I would have expected better of you than such a misrepresentative summary of the effort required to achieve "getting the grand".:(

Mike

vinnyph

SwanJon wrote: »

Came on this evening and though not mmuch had been happening as the pages hadn't gone up much. Then I noticed this

Also a rather impressive 'thanked in more posts than made' scenario:
vinnyph
MoneySaving Newbie
Join Date: Mar 2009
Post Count: 17
Thanked 21 Times in 18 Posts

Anyway, the SwanJon pendulum swings..

Looks like we are circling the drain still

• UW are more expensive than most other energy tariffs (pending updates on switching sites - 50ish out of 60)
• Making UW cheaper than many (all?) energy tariffs is totally reliant on using the cashback card
• Other cashback cards are available, just not linked to an energy supplier
• So it comes down to how you want to run it - one bill for all, including the cashback card, or different (possibly online) bills for different services, and the cashback card

Anyone from either side disagree with the above?

I tend to get a lot of thanks. Everyone tends to thank me regularly. I even thank myself just for being me sometimes. Thanks everyone. Thanks to Swanjon for pointing that out as well. Thanks.

UW is still a very good deal at the end of the day though isn't it. People can't go wrong with the UW package overall. It's a keeper rather than a throw away company with questionably bad industry support records.

Did you see the customer numbers were up 789,000 services and 280,000 customers now. 66000 services added last 3 months. People seem to like the customer support I guess.