Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

lisyloo

The membership benefits you quote from the site are extremely misleading.

Well at least I have the skills to be able to find them :-))

Obviously you need to read the terms and conditions attached (which I provided for those with a lack of web skills) and not just read the headlines in isolation.
In my opinion it's only as misleading as many other adverts e.g. "Ryanair flights for 1p" (when there are £50 worth of taxes) and no worse than many other companies that quote headlines with terms and conditions attached.
If you chose to only read headlines then you will be well and truly ripped-off but by many companies not just this particular one.

Ardent moneysavers would surely not be using them anymore,as you can get cheaper elsewhere on all their products.

In general I agree with you.
Martin made his comments when they were quite a bit more competitve (pre-takeover).
I would not personally claim that you can get cheaper in ALL parts on the country for ALL levels of consumption.
I don't think you should make this claim although I would agree that in general they have become a great deal less competitive and a lot of people should be able to get cheaper elsewhere.

My tip would be to try EBICO - certainly for gas.
They will not necessarily be the cheapest for all levels of consumption but they have a good offering.

Quentin

lisyloo wrote:

Membership Benefits:
• Unlimited free UK calls to anyone, anytime.
• Cheaper gas and electricity with our unique “Triple Value”
guarantee.
• Guaranteed savings compared to BT’s best prices with our
Home Phone service.
• Huge mobile savings.
• Great value internet services.

If these aren't applicable to you then I think you just have to look at it as a sort of "standing charge" which is quite common across the industry.

Whatever the "club membership fee" is, it's not quite right to describe it as a "sort" of standing charge common in the industry when the UW does make standing charges as well. Unlike the rest of the industry, they make their members pay their energy standing charges in advance in addition to the monthly club fees.

Their advertising continues to be misleading at best and lies at worst.

This is now on their website:

For almost 5 years we provided our customers with the cheapest domestic energy in the UK

We know that claim is false, and UW know it too - the ASA have hauled them over the coals for making it, yet they have never taken any notice of the ASA.

mike_br26

In line with forum rules: I am a distributor for telecom plus

The membership fee is £1.76 and is on the tariff booklet and other literature you get when you sign up to telecom plus or are left with to look at, it is no way hidden at all, I would not class it as a standing charge but a MEMBERSHIP FEE to a Discount Club.

I have personally worked in the industry for a few major suppliers and know what goes on with them to get customers, I will not state this here for obvious legal reasons!

Many of my customers are friends and family, I personally would not reccomend UWDC to these people if it was nto a good deal, while there may be better deals out there there are a few things I prefer about UWDC as a customer.

When I moved into my current house I changed all utilities over and recieved calls first from southern electric (supplied gas and electric to previous house owner) it went like this.

SE: Hi we have had notice you wish to change supplier is this correct and can you confirm your supplier
Self: Yes and it is the utility warehouse I am moving to.
SE: are you aware of the membership charge?
Self: Yes, can you compete with them?
SE: yes we are slightly cheaper.
Self: I get my home phone, mobile, Gas and Electric with them though.
SE: ahhh we can not compete with the deal you will get, the combined savings are hard to compete with over the products you get.
Self: ok what can you offer me then?
SE: thanks for your time and please come back if you have problems.
Self: Thank you

My mother signed up to a mobile phone deal with them through myself before virgin contacted her to persuade her to stay, I believe it went along the lines of:

Virgin: Hello, we are contacting you regarding a new phone deal we would like to offer you.
My Mother: I am signing up to a phone deal at the moment, can you compete with 8p per minute calls and 7p texts?
Virgin: have a good day (conversation ended)

I am not here to advertise myself as a distributor and sign customers up, but to back up a company I personally believe is the best in the business, while no one can ever claim to be the cheapest look around at how other companies have increased over the past year or two, BG boast about record profits yet increase their prices more times than I care to count, I am yet to find a supplier that answers their calls in 18 seconds, yes it is longer at peak times, but whos aren't?

Bt contacted me offering me a better deal than I had with them before, well why weren't I offered this when I was with them? do they care about current customers or just those that leave them?? I know with UWDC I get the best possible deal they can offer and I know over the year it will work out very good against others, they all increase and to change every month to get the best deal at the time would be time consuming and cause many problems.

With regards customer service if any of my customers have a problem they are free to call me (0800 number and direct to myself) and I personally contact UWDC and personally ensure my customers are well looked after.

If after one problem you want to call a company poor then every company would be poor, someone will always have a problem, shame you hear more about people having problems than people not.

I am not sure what BT charge for option 3 but I believe its around £10, now as a customer of gas, electric, home phone and internet I get all my landline calls for free with no charge, theres a straight away saving of £120 pa, a loss on my gas and electric of pennies I am told, my internet at £17.99 a month where I believe I could get the same for £14.99 a month so a saving of £120 vs option 3, pennies loss on G&E and £36 loss on internet, total saving ££84 - pennies over the year, I don't have bills coming out of my ears they come on one bill which I like.

Love them or loathe them UWDC offer the best for all utilities and the fact you won't see us on tv before a soap or splashing out millions to sponsor the weather speaks volumes to me and who pays for these ads anyway?? the consumer methinks.

Just my opinion.

lisyloo

Whatever the "club membership fee" is, it's not quite right to describe it as a "sort" of standing charge common in the industry when the UW does make standing charges as well.

Fair comment.
What I meant was that one should regard it as a fixed fee that you have to pay each month.

Personally I couldn't care less if you called it "Rod", "Jane" or "Freddie" as I am interested in the cheapest costs.
It matters not a jot to me how the tarrif is structured and what it is called or whether I get any special benefits in return for part of it.
If you are a genuine money saver you should be concerned about the cheapest costs and not picking over minor points like 10p a year for phone calls.

Unlike the rest of the industry, they make their members pay their energy standing charges in advance in addition to the monthly club fees.

It's true, but it's still a small amount and a minor unimportant point in my view.

We know that claim is false, and UW know it too - the ASA have hauled them over the coals for making it, yet they have never taken any notice of the ASA.

I agree.
Why is it so ineffective?
Why haven't they been stopped?

If you are really aggreived then I suggest you all write to watchdog and try to get them on the TV.

Quentin

lisyloo wrote:

If you are a genuine money saver you should be concerned about the cheapest costs and not picking over minor points like 10p a year for phone calls.

My post was'nt about 10p/year for phone calls was it?

****************************

A UW rep now helpfully answers the original query (what is the membership fee for) and tells us that the membership fee is a MEMBERSHIP FEE. (His shouting, not mine), and entitles you to discounts. But it's compulsory to all their customers.

So it's in effect a stealth charge which could be combined in their tariffs, but isn't presumably to make their tariffs appear cheaper than they really are.

He also tells us his energy costs using UW are merely pennies per year more than going to the cheapest supplier. Sounds incredible (less than £1/year more - or less than around 2p a week), maybe asking him for checkable proof is not too personal.

lisyloo

My post was'nt about 10p/year for phone calls was it?

No, sorry I'll spell out for you what I meant.

I don't care about (relatively) miniscule phone costs.
I don't care about (relatively) small up front standing charges.
I don't care about (relatively) tiny membership fees.
Neither should moneysavers.

What I care about is my (approx) £1400 utility bill.

Let me make it clear that I am not supporting this company.
But I think some people are mud slinging over insignificant points because they have it in for this company. That's not really suprising given that UW have lied for the past 5 years but I would prefer to debate on the current facts.

I am fully prepared to debate on the facts which are that the phone costs, membership fees and even standing charges are pretty small in comparison to the average utility bills.

So it's in effect a stealth charge which could be combined in their tariffs

Please tell me why you think it's a stealth charge when it's made absolutely clear. In what way is it hidden?

Yes they could combine it in with their tarriffs.
I don't work for them so I can't fully explain their pricing model but I would guess that they want to reward customers who take many services.
i.e. The more services you have the more you save.
This sounds like a completely plausible pricing model to me.

Please explain to me what you think is stealthy about it.

but isn't presumably to make their tariffs appear cheaper than they really are.

I don't believe that is the idea as I explained earlier.
But if it were it would be £21.12 which I would argue is fairly insignificant on an average utility bill.
Bear in mind that you only pay this ONCE for all services.
So if you have 2 services it would cost you £10.56 per service.

Besides, it would only make the tarriff appear cheaper to numpty half-wits who either can't see it on the web site or can't add it in to the total costs.
I am quite amazed that people do not appear to be able to obtain and read basic information about this company from the website.

He also tells us his energy costs using UW are merely pennies per year more than going to the cheapest supplier. Sounds incredible

Sounds possible to me.
Bear in mind that these things do vary by area and by level of consumption.

maybe asking him for checkable proof is not too personal

Anybody who claims something, should be prepared to back it up.
It possible he could have made a genuine mistake in the maths and someone may be able to point it out.
Some tarriffs add in VAT others don't.
I would be happy to look through the maths as I'm a "detail" person with a maths degree.

So ........bring it on................

mike_br26

I wasn't shouting just making a statement, yes the saving on G&E was pennies, the saving overall though through having multiple services is much greater, charged per second instead of bts minute when I make a call to a mobile so for 2 minutes 10 seconds I pay for that and not 3 minutes. £1.76 a month to make it look cheaper on their tariffs, be realistic.

Mike_by_the_Sea

Hi All

I have been reading the recent posts with interest and thought it was about time I had my two-penneth.

As for the comments, I agree with some and disagree with others, as you would expect.

For information, the history regarding the Membership Fee, as I understand it, is as follows.

From day one, T+ decided to provide itemised billing for every service they would provide (many companies charged £1 to £2.50 for itemized billing and I think some still do). At first T+ charged 1.76 for the telephone discount service (it's really the cost of producing the bill – cost of staff, printing, paper, envelopes, postage etc).

As they developed and expanded into providing more services, they introduced the Club concept and the 1.76 became the club membership.

The reason that this charge isn't absorbed into the tariff costs is that T+ decided that the fairest way was to separate out the 1.76 billing cost, then everyone pays the same for their bill. (For example, if you had five services it works out at 35p per service per month)

For those taking multi services the bills are lower and fairer. For those taking one service they miss the point of the club and consequently miss out on some packaged deals but still get a very informative bill which can have many other services added but do not get subsidised by other customers higher bills because that would not be fair.

As lisyloo states, everybody has a choice and as consumers we can decide how we spend our money.

It is easy to pick at individual elements of the T+ offerings, and, as I have said in previous posts, if you shop around you can find better deals for each service they offer, but what you can't do is get all your services through a single provider on one bill - in that concept, T+ is unique (unless anybody knows otherwise). I believe that their pricing policy is very competitive when compared with the majority of providers and indeed, they would not be in business if they were not.

The standard of support provided by both the customer support team and the distributors is, in the main, very high. This is regularly highlighted in the independent surveys, such as Which. Is there another provider that gives you a single point of contact for any of your support questions? Is there another provider that gives you a named person to contact if you are experiencing issues with any of your services? As a distributor, all my customers have my personal details to enable them to contact me if they have a problem.

I appreciate that this is a money saving site, and as such, it is perfectly reasonable to discuss the best deals that are available. I do think that sometimes there is a feeding frenzy when T+ or Utility Warehouse is mentioned.

As regards misleading information, again as lisyloo mentioned, this is not unique to T+. There are many companies with ASA rulings against them put forward by other providers, this is the nature of the business we are in.

Interestingly, of all the providers, it is only the T+ distributors that are requested to declare their relationship with the company. I am personally very happy to do this as I believe that they are offering the consumer a choice that is unique and the more publicity the better.

I appreciate that there will probably be a few replies to some of the points I have raised, but that is the nature of having a forum where views can be expressed openly.

I look forward to many more healthy debates.

And, finally, a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year to one and all :xmastree:

fastmale

I've been collecting warehouses ever since i was a little girl growing up in skirts. Imagine my surprise and dismay at discovering recently that the Utility Warehouse Discount Club offers not a single warehouse, be that utility or parcel or any kind of storage and distrubution facility, at a discounted price.
As many of you will agree, judging by some of the recents posts regarding the UWDC, this is clearly misrepresentation on a wholesale scale. Should I contact the C.A.B and or the A.S.A concerning my disappointment.
thank you.

yours bored, Jeremy Sandal-Davies Junior
Warrington, England. USA.

ps. my wife recently divorced me despite promising to stay with me till death did us part. Scandalous! It seems that misreprsentation and promises broken are not the monolopy of... continued on page 68 wot no sense of humour ? yours the honourable mr wigoder. PS i dont need to be an independent distributor

bendtoy_2

We agree on two things then Mike by the Sea.

1.The one bill concept is a usp.
2.If you shop around you can find better deals for the services they offer.

PS. Its not just T-Plus distributors who should declare an interest,see MSE original post.

Merry Xmas to you.