Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

Wig

aiminghigh wrote:

Some of the information on the switching site is wrong.
The £10 deposit coming off the 1st bill does not apply to energy only applications.

So do you get the 10 pounds back or not?

They also quote us as having a price of 2.99p per kwh for gas instead of 2.77p and their electricity prices and standing charges are not correct but higher than in our latest brochure - I wrote to uswitch a month ago asking them to put the correct costings in but never received a reply from them.

Us? I can't be bovvered to read all your posts to find out who you are, does this mean you work for the company as a paid employee or are you a distributor agent? Or what?

I just checked energyhelpline who have the gas down for 2.909p kwh not 2.99p. I also checked Uswitch as you mentioned them it is 2.909p on Uswitch aswell not 2.99p BOTH are correct.

You said 2.77p If you are a customer/agent I can see why you are confused
2.77 +VAT = 2.909 what appears on the bill is the pre VAT price then they add on VAT. I also just went to UW home page looked at their tariffs and confirmed the gas price is 2.909 inc VAT they only mention in the small print the price is ex VAT.

I hope you are not informing your customers of the possible savings using the figure of 2.77p without telling them it does not include VAT.

bendtoy_2

aiminghigh is a T-Plus Distributor, but chooses not to declare it regularly in his posts ,despite MSE rules on posting if you have a vested interest.

bendtoy_2

NigeWick wrote:

I declare an interest as I am a T+ Distributor.

Basically, the utilities can often be beaten on price. They can be good value in the right circumstances and it is for you to decide what you want. The idea of the club is to offer all your utilities on one bill and pay by direct debit. If you take four offerings, say broadband & phone line package, plus electricity , gas and/or mobile phone, you will qualify to get all phone calls to "locational" numbers free for up to 75 minutes, other than T+ customers which will be free anyway. As I said,you need four services to qualify. The 0845, 0870 etc numbers are charged at the usual rates.

Nigel.

As your see here one of their own people admit they can often be beaten on price. More often then not in fact.

The calls are not FREE because you have to pay for other services to get them.

They charge more then BT to call 0845/0870 numbers i think your find.Perhaps Nigel can post what they actually charge now to call them.

Wig

I don't really want to read this whole thread or their website. If someone knowledgeable can dish the dirt I'd be grateful.

I have just found for someone that UW is the cheapest for electric using a prepayment meter (£732), they beat Ebico (the second best @ £774) by £42 per year. What can you say might be some of the pitfalls of UW in this case?

Prepayment so late bills not really a problem
Prepayment so DD issues not a problem
What about this £10 sign up fee/deposit? Is it a fee or a deposit that you get back customer only has Electricity.

Please highlight some issues which might come up. Maybe there will be another price increase?

hurrah

Their Energy is supplied by N Power now ,they act as an agent for them billing,customer service etc.

When taking into account cost you need to add another £21 a year for club membership if you havent already done so.This is is usually collected by monthly d/d of £1.76p a month.

This is what they say about their prices.


"Our unique "Triple Value" guarantee
1. For your gas, we guarantee our prices will always be cheaper than British Gas, wherever you live in the UK.
2. For your electricity, we guarantee our prices will always be cheaper than the prices charged by the regional electricity supplier for the area where you live.
3. And for your complete peace of mind, we guarantee our prices will always remain competitive compared with the cheapest tariffs available from the “Big 6” suppliers (see below).


“Big 6” means the six major energy companies who currently supply over 98% of UK households, comprising British Gas, Powergen, npower, EDF (London Electricity, Seeboard and SWEB), Scottish Power and Scottish & Southern Energy.
Guarantees and price comparisons are based on the standard domestic usage profiles published by energywatch for low, medium and high users on a like-for-like basis, and exclude Club Membership fee, Multi-Service “Cashback”, surcharge for gas customers using an Independent Gas Transporter, Dual-Fuel discounts and online tariffs. Only applies to direct debit customers. "

Wig

As per my last post I was looking for the possible drawbacks (based on what people have said in this thread) of UW for prepayment customers.

I looked at the T&C for prepayment meters they say they will (possibly) make a charge to rectify any problems of cards not being loaded with credit (in error) this sounds like a bad clause, you go to the post office pay your amount, the card is not charged and UW charges you a fee to sort it out!

If they guarantee to be lower than the local supplier, thet means if the local supplier ups the charges, UW may feel more comfortable raising it's prices.

Also, I went to the UW website looking for tariff information. They have a price comparison service which does not give prepayment price comparisons. I looked for a schedule of their prices, and only found prices for normal meters no prices illustrated for prepayment meters!

lisyloo

As per my last post I was looking for the possible drawbacks

In the recent past UW have raised prices regularly (along withmost companies).
Ebico have only raised prices once per year making it often better to be with Ebico.

As we are not entering an arena of FALLING prices (from about spring) then this could actually work the other way (no-one knows for sure).

But worth bearing in mind.

Claretsumo

I have finally left our friends at utility warehouse after experiencing the most infuriating lack of customer service and care i though possible.
Please be warned that they are terrible if anything needs queryin on your account.
Originallly they applied someone elses readings to our account which put a large credit on our electricity account. Subsequently it took them 3 months to correct this and we ended up with a £450 electricity bill and £250 gas credit which after spending over 3 hours on phone calls they finally agreed to realease the gas plan (25-35 mins average wait to speak to an operator) not to mention leaving several messages on the complaints line for someone to call us back.
Our next bill came and there was a line of text saying we were being charged interest on an outstanding balance of £xx. Another couple of calls later and i was told i would get a revised bill and would then be able to pay the arrears (which i was quite happy to do once i had been given an account of the amounts). The revised bill never arrived, a normal monthly invoice came and was paid as usual. Meanwhile on returning from work one evening i tried to make a phone call, and guess what - they had cut my phone off for outgoing calls. There had been no warnings, no conversations and no attempt to contact me at all. All i was waiting for was a revised bill (not difficult i thought!). The following day i called them from work and was told i would not get a revised bill (although i had been told one was on the way). I agreed to make a debit card payment and told them to reconnect the phone immediately. That evening (no surprise really) the phone was still disconnected and of course i don't get home until 6pm, guess when there phone lines close - 5:30pm!! Brilliant service. Finally i got my phone back on day 4. And all this because they messed up my bills.
I can't wait to bid such a poor company farewell, the way they treated us you would think they didn't want the custom.

Wig

Thanks Claretsumo,

And that was an 0871 number for customer service, right? Do they offer a geographic alternative? I say 0871 because it gives an 0871 number on their website.

Claretsumo

It was indeed an 0871 number at an over inflated rate!