Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

Quentin

coatesoutlet wrote: »

If you do not wish to join then do not join.

Its a free world and a free country and people should be allowed to choose which company they join.

The problem seen both in posts by uw reps here and the videos of the reps at work is that often customers are mislead about the savings that are going to be made. The uw

There is no argument uw energy prices are expensive. But we have seen the UW rep mislead prospects by telling them not to trust the comparison sites (alleging they are corrupt, and somehow artificially make it look that the uw is more expensive than it is), and to be reassured by the (actually worthless) price guarantee.

Now the UW uses its "Savings Calculator" to show the great savings that are going to be made, but anomalies have been pointed out that no uw rep has been able to explain.

How does exposing these tactics here interfere with the "free world", (and what exactly do you mean by that expression?)

It's a shame the gullibles don't get a chance to read this thread prior to getting a misleading presentation from someone they know and don't expect to mislead them!

1carminestocky

I must be gullible because I believe UW are the cheapest for me and my family. I'm so glad we have Quentin here to save gullibles like me from damnation. We as a family are spending approx £600 per month at the stores included in the UW cashback card 5% scheme (it will obviously increase around Xmas time). My calculator tells me that is £28.65 net discount off my UW monthly bill. On my usage (15000 gas, 4800 electric, Yorkshire area), that would mean my yearly gas and electric bill will be £804. Is this beatable? I can't find a comparison site that says it is but I haven't tried https://www.quentinhatesuwwithapassion.com yet. We'll forget about the £19.99 phone line/24mb BB/24/7 inclusive calls if you like and the fact that I would be getting 12 monthly paper bills....

NigeWick

Cardew wrote: »

For years UW have supplied gas and electricity at a considerably higher price than all of their rivals.

An outright lie as you well know. Utility Warehouse are not the cheapest, but, there are others whose unit costs are higher.

I am an Independent Distributor with Utility Warehouse and any opinions expressed here are my own and may not be shared by the company.

Miss_Moppet

Carmine, your post number 2724 is very persuasive to me as a potential customer.

Since I first read your post I’ve had a look at the energyhelpline comparison site, and it looks as though on the gas and electricity annual consumptions you’ve quoted (15000 gas, 4800 electric) I could get a dual fuel deal with npower at £990, British Gas at £991 and Eon at £1005.

The difference between your net figure of £804 and (take for instance) npower’s of £990 is £186, and on the face of it things look quite good. I’m not sure why you use the net figure of £28.65 rather than the gross of £30 but I’ve followed suit and used 12 x £28.65 which comes to £343.80.I presume from your post that the gross G & E figure from UW would be £1147.80 from which you’ve deducted your 5% cash back (£343.80) from your annual shopping bill of £7200 to arrive at £804.

So out of the net cash back of £343.80 in this illustration £186 of it goes towards paying for the higher energy costs at UW. Happily, that still leaves me better off by £157 or does it?

From what I gather, to get the cash back on my groceries I would need to do all my shopping at Sainsburys. I do some of my shopping with Sainsburys but just as convenient for me are branches of Tescos and Morrisons. To be honest I believe the savings I make by selectively shopping at each of these supermarkets saves me a lot more than 5% as compared with doing all my shopping at Sainsbury’s.

I do get Nectar points at Sainsburys, Clubcard and vouchers from Tescos, and at Christmas I got vouchers from Morrisons which bought the whole of the Christmas food. I even go into M&S and get bargains there and I haven’t even ventured into Asda, Lidl or Aldi etc yet so no doubt I could save a lot more.

I know I could also get a 5% discount on other goods from stores listed by the scheme but I usually expect to get at least 10% off list prices either by competitive shopping (aided by the internet) or simply by a little bit of gentle haggling. Unfortunately, I can’t say that I’m all that impressed with just 5%.

So as far as I can see (at the moment) there seems little reason for me to switch to UW. Of course, I could be missing something.

NigeWick

Quentin wrote: »

this is a moneysaving website. It's for folk who like savings.

I pay Utility Warehouse less for my utilities than with any other company by using the cashback card to good effect. My saving was shown to be about £4.50 per month including all fees and subscriptions, before the 2%(ish) price reduction.

NigeWick

Miss_Moppet wrote: »

So as far as I can see (at the moment) there seems little reason for me to switch to UW.

Simple, Utility Warehouse does not suit you, so stay with your current supplier(s). However, I shop at Sainsbury's because it is on my way home from work and they are best value for certain items that *I* want. So much so that I buy about £250 per month of their products. When necessary, I spend the £50 required in order to get the 5% cash back for fuel taken from my utility bill as well. Because of my spending habits, I pay less for my utilities than with any other company. I also still get my Nectar points too.

I think that all the people who support Utility Warehouse admit that the company will not suit everybody. However, the few detractors on this thread keep trying to say that it will suit nobody and that is obviously wrong.

Quentin

NigeWick wrote: »

I pay Utility Warehouse less for my utilities than with any other company by using the cashback card to good effect. My saving was shown to be about £4.50 per month including all fees and subscriptions, before the 2%(ish) price reduction.

If you use uw purely to make savings, then you aren't shopping properly for your utilities (though you know this, so why do you keep repeating your £4.50 "savings"?).

Your "saving" isn't anything to do with uw prices being cheaper (they aren't), it's actually your risky prepay card "cashback".

Your overall savings would be much greater if you bought your utilities cheaper elsewhere. Then you could shop where you liked, and where necessary use a prepay card to get similar discounts directly off your shopping.

This has been explained to you many times!!

Decado23

Quentin wrote: »

If you use uw purely to make savings, then you aren't shopping properly for your utilities

Um, exactly why do you think you can tell someone else how to shop? If Nigewick is happy with UW then what's it to you?



UW distributor

Decado23

Miss_Moppet wrote: »

So as far as I can see (at the moment) there seems little reason for me to switch to UW.

It may well be that UW is not right for you, only you can decide that.

If you are still unsure, you might find it more informative if you use your own figures rather than Carmine's.

with regards to the 'net' cashback of £28.65, I assume the £1/month + £0.35/top up was included, based on 1 top up per month (using debit card or standing order). Obviously the true amount of cashback varies based on the frequency of top ups and the amount spent in the relevent shops - I tend to do 2-3 top ups each month and have received cashback ranging from £14.63 to £33.40.

Hope that helps.


UW Distributor

Quentin

Over at keggs' forum, an interesting moan from a uw rep.

A prospective gas customer won't sign up because (despite the worthless guarantee) his gas bill is cheaper (from British Gas). This infuriates the rep, who wants his commission, and ongoing monthly cut.

The uw rep points out the wording of the guarantee ("we guarantee our prices will always be lower than British Gas"), and that the prospect meets all the other small print of the guarantee.

The answer he is given doesn't satisfy him (he is advised to "Sell the benefits of the Triple Value Guarantee not the tariff..."), and he shows his principle "I am not prepared to lie to potential customers", and reports the matter to UW HO.

Their answer (which he posts for all to see) takes the biscuit as far as the worthless guarantee goes (by sticking in more small print hitherto never seen, saying you must stay at UW for a year to see if it actually has been broken), and directing the rep how to explain the guarantee:

Thanks for your email.

The Triple Value Guarantee (TVG) still applies.

However, it only applies when compared with a like for like direct debit tariff and does not allow for any duel fuel discounts, non standard or internet tariffs.

If compared with a like for like tariff the Guarantee applies over a period of a year. It is possible at any given point within that year that the companies covered by the TVG may be cheaper. We monitor our prices against their prices to ensure that over the course of a year the customer would pay less with us than with those companies.

I hope this clarifies how the TVG operates and should be interpreted or explained.

The principled rep comments "Personally, I think this is a bit of a fobb-off, but hey-ho"

Keggs tries to motivate him by denigrating the prospect for turning down the (risky) prepay cashcard option:

why wouldn't he want 5% off his bills with the cashcard. Some strange people about I must say.

It seems the UW need one more bit of small print, as what they thought was foolproof just got proofed:

we guarantee our prices will always be lower than British Gas except on those occasions when they are higher