Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

Miss_Moppet

While I was posting the above, I see Carmine sneaked in another post but do my eyes deceive me? Is Carmine definitely telling us he is not a UW customer after all? What, not even after all that guff about shopping at Sainsburys and the cash card? The word hypocrite comes to mind.

Plushchris

As the Artfuldodger said, Denial.


Its not a river in Egypt carmine

Cardew

1carminestocky wrote: »

Seriously, if I was a distributor for UW do you honestly think I'd spend so much time arguing the toss with you negative internet randoms when I could be out there adding to my 'pile'?

We live in hope!

MikeM

Just found this thread and thought I'd add a few comments. I came across some UW 'agents' at a Farmer's Market in Petersfield a few months ago. They were both persuasive and persistent in their sales techniques and after a some heated discussion I declined their offer of 'saving me money'. On my return home I had a look at their website where I learned that agents received a £35.00 sign up fee and then a continuing 7% of all payments received from their customers. I can no longer find this on the website nor the 'news' that the company directors had made handsome payments to their family trusts.

These people seem to do very little apart from handling the billing and taking the money and of course, their commissions. No power stations, no distribution network, no maintenance, no meter readers etc.

I fail to see how paying ANY such middlemen can, in the long term save anybody money ?

Cardew

MikeM wrote: »

Just found this thread and thought I'd add a few comments. I came across some UW 'agents' at a Farmer's Market in Petersfield a few months ago. They were both persuasive and persistent in their sales techniques and after a some heated discussion I declined their offer of 'saving me money'. On my return home I had a look at their website where I learned that agents received a £35.00 sign up fee and then a continuing 7% of all payments received from their customers. I can no longer find this on the website nor the 'news' that the company directors had made handsome payments to their family trusts.

These people seem to do very little apart from handling the billing and taking the money and of course, their commissions. No power stations, no distribution network, no maintenance, no meter readers etc.

I fail to see how paying ANY such middlemen can, in the long term save anybody money ?

It would be nice if they could even do it in the short term.

The reason the company is successful is that the charge very high prices and have 26,000 Distributors for whom they pay no wages(just commission) no NI contributions, sick pay provision, pension contributions etc etc. These people have paid UW £200 for that honour!

As the product clearly doesn't sell on value, they have to seek victims when the have run out of friends and family.

1carminestocky

Cardew wrote: »

We live in hope!

I'm sure you do. You could then get back to your 'old self', like your ridiculous claim about being 'in profit' after 12 months with your BG Fixed tariff that would have gone unchallenged. That sort of blew up in your face, didn't it? Not forgetting the 'what are French & Saunders doing on TV most nights, then'? You're a strange mix. You definitely possess knowledge but then go and spoil the effect by fabricating things when pressed...

jimexbox

1carminestocky wrote: »

As per usual, PC, you've totally missed my point regarding jimexbox so I unfortunately have to spell it out, lol. My point is he is clearly sticking with Eon because, for him, they are the cheapest. Meaning he has no regard for the way they operate as the deal is best (financially) for him. Similarly, it has already been established that the UW deal is the CHEAPEST for some people. So why should he be so worried about the 'way' they operate on their behalf? It makes no sense but TBH neither do vast swathes of this thread...

I stick with Eon because they are the cheapest, far far cheaper than UW. My finger starts to hurt scrolling down the list looking for the best UW have to offer.

Carmine what is particularly sad is that I can see the failings of Eon, although they would deny these. Their pricing policy is one of creating deliberate confusion for the lay customer. Having said that Ive always found their customer support excellent and like I said their prices knock UW for six. You on the other hand are blind to any failings of UW, you see only good, even their tactics and use of language to entice customers are not a concern to you. Ive always believed in recognising the pros's and cons of any company you do business with, then make an informed decision. I do, do you?

Disingenuous sales aids, such as the much vaunted 'triple guarantee' which rule out dual fuel and online tariffs, even though the vast majority of UW take both gas and electric with UW. We even see in the video sales pitch a UW salesman pushing online billing to save the planet. I find this a paradox I just cannot reconcile without coming to the conclusion that its an outright blatant attempt to hood wink potential customers. Its tactics like this that I find disturbing, than a salesman trying to turn every customer into another salesman because basically they get a slice of their pie in the future.

I enjoy reading your posts because I see a person who passionately believes what they write (although doesn't avail themselves of this opportunity, odd), but who obviously is so blinkered to the reality that this undermines their very argument.

Quentin

keggs wrote: »

they start spouting claptrap saying things like 'all their meetings are like a cult meeting.' I'm surprised they don't go the whole hog and accuse us all of being satan worshippers and ready to do all manner of obscene things to recruit people.

Don't think anyone has said that "all their meetings are like a cult meeting".

But we have seen the reps lapping up big al at the rally:

http://www.networkerplus.co.uk/videos/rejection-free-presentation-big-al.html

And another insight into a "motivational" lecture at a uw reps rally:

http://www.networkerplus.co.uk/videos/stephan-longworth-oct-2006.html

And we have had the report posted here by conmenot who attended an 8 hour rally along with 1200 others:

conmenot wrote:

A quick summary of this conference:

Two fairly high level execs tried to compere the 8 hour (!) show with an attempt at comedy which was pitiful at best and downright embarrassing at worse, especially when the audience had better punchlines to their "jokes" than they had written.

Lots of "motivational speakers" who turned out to be execs at the top of the pyramid imploring the audience to find more customers/distributors.

They then dragged a hearing impaired man on the stage and a visually impaired woman, both of whom got a standing ovation for some unknown reason, as if the ability to sell utilities is somehow an incredible achievement for the disabled, which was patronising to say the least.

There were three signers eagerly translating all the sales pitches in BSL to what appeared to be only one deaf man, so they were definitely going down the "we love the disabled" route, and indeed much of their pitch was to do with helping communities.

I was rather hoping the blind lady would win the Mini Cooper just to see how the comperes would get out of that one without a script.

A senior level exec from Liverpool dragged his young family onstage and actually started crying (with his back to the crowd) when telling the audience about his nice new house. Then recovered his composure immediately.
His kids didn't look remotely concerned their dad was crying, because he was clearly putting it on... the son was looking at the crowd dead pleased with his dad's acting abilities.
At that point it really did resemble an American evangelist church meeting, with all the appalling emotional play-acting that goes with it.

There was a reasonably funny guy with a dry sense of humour with a guide to failure, how not to succeed, that kind of thing, but even he was being pretty patronising and even insulting - implying that people who work for a boss and have a small house are losers, that sort of nonsense.

Then they wheeled out their "celeb", who was - wait for it - an Olympic Gold Medallist!!
Turned out he rowed in Sydney 8 years ago as part of an 8 man team and won a gold medal - he's now their commercial director.
Seemed like a nice guy, though very posh (like all their top brass) unlike the mainly Northern middle class aspirational audience, then spent a painful amount of time describing the minutae of winning, before showing his successful rowing team win the gold. Then showing a replay. It was pretty sad by then.
You would think with all the money made from a sell out theatre show they could have afforded a decent celebrity endorsement.

The whole day was peppered with personal testimonials from people (an unusual amount of them were former police officers) who had achieved "SE Gold" which means they have roped in a minimum of 10 personal
customers and a minimum total of 50 customers within two months and get a mere £500 for bringing in what would potentially amount to tens of thousands for the company.

The comperes summed it up at the end most aptly by describing the whole day (and it was a very long day!) as being "an emotional rollercoaster".

Which is of course true - emotions were being manipulated all day, to make those who were not selling enough feel guilty, and to massage the egos of those who were doing OK.

It's very much an American style set-up, and seemingly has found popularity in the north of England, where social networking is somehow easier and more practical with smaller communities and the pub and sport culture that isn't so prevalent in London.

To be fair, the people we spoke to during the break (only one 45 minute break in 8 hours!) were really nice people, but had been hyped up to the point of obsession and were purely motivated to try and sell to us once they realised we hadn't become customers yet.

Which is the fundamental problem I have with this company and others like it: the onus is on you to sell these utilities to your friends and family as if you're doing them a huge favour

We don't have the evidence about what goes on at all your meetings, but how would you describe the general impression we are picking up?

arteta1878

Hi, I have been reading this thread with interest for a while so thought I would join in! I need to declare immediately that I signed up to be a UW distributor a while back, so thought I would offer my findings since doing this.

My first point is to say that the only way in my opinion that you are likely to make subsantial savings with UW, is if you sign up to all of their services, gas, electricity, landline, broadband and the cashback card.

If you just go with them for gas and electric, the chances are you will not save a bean! But what I have found when visiting customers and signing them up, is that it's a complete numbers game and lots of different people are on different tariffs with the same companies.

It is undisputable that you can save money IMO if you go with all of their services.

Negatives are the triple value guarantee looking a bit flawed to me, I cannot honestly say that it means very little and is not actually worth much!
"we guarantee to beat your local electricity supplier" so what!? I can use any company out there, not just my local regional supplier!

As for the promise to beat British Gas wherever you are in the UK, they really should add that this is subject to small print, but they don't! Which makes me think it is a bit dis-ingenuous.

Some people are very cautious and wary of UW, and reading this thread some people are just ignorant and tend to pick holes in everything!

I would like to state that IMO UW are a very reputable company, but like every other company have their flaws. If it is not for you then don't use them, simple as that! Look at all the other utility companies on here, every one of them has complaints about them, it's the nature of the game unfortunately, and I can honestly say I have found them to be no better, or worst than any of the others that I have used in the past.

Quentin

arteta1878 wrote: »

I would like to state that IMO UW are a very reputable company....

A major problem between the "ignorant" ones you refer to and the uw supporters is that in our "ignorance" we don't see the way uw is prepared to lie and use deceit to get customers to sign up as being reputable.

How low do they have to stoop for you to consider them disreputable?

eg: The salesman explaining away the switch sites showing uw as expensive because they are corrupt, and because uw won't pay them they artificially make them look expensive.

The claim on your sales video that although other companies provide cheaper energy, the problem is they tie you up for a 3 year contract, then after a few months bump up the price but you cannot get out of it.

The reps using a worthless survey to cold call.

The reps encouraged to take advantage of their friendships/pretend to be lost/park their cars in a special place in order to pretend the drivers next to them have parked with consideration

etc etc

All this is apart from the first hand evidence we get of reps coming here and attempting to mislead us all with their false claims/false identities etc.