Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

1carminestocky

Mon, Apr 28 2008, 11:04 AM

Peter Koye


Joined on Mon, Apr 28 2008

Window Shopper
Points 50

Re: Utility Warehouse
Locked Spam
Hi - apols for the long post.

I am certainly NOT a UW distributor or customer, and I am not a "jealous rival" working for any other similar firm but however I did go along to their sell-out networking recruitment conference show in Northampton yesterday, with an elderly neighbour who was interested in becoming a distributor.

So I have some inside information about this company and it's odd methods of selling a pretty poor product.

1200 people packing a theatre, it was an impressive turnout, there were video crews there and big screens plus one of their ugly branded yellow Minis on the stage, which you get to drive as a company car if you sell enough. Whoopee!

It's all very strange indeed, and more than a little crass.

Needless to say my neighbour has no interest in joining the ranks of the distributors any more.

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.

Trouble is - as this site has shown, you're not!

UW/T+ prices are not really very competitive, they're only buying from the same place as everyone else after all, and are subject to the same rises in costs.
A three minute comparison with other providers will result in a far better deal.

Raising the prices without warning is a mean trick - not one I'd like them to pull on my friends and family.

And as for having to get up on stage and recieve a public pat on the back for using your treasured social circles as a commodity for making the poshos at the top of the chain richer - no, definitely not for me.

By the way - none of this could be construed as disclosing private business information - as I have a feeling a lot of the UW distributors will read this post in horror and try to get it deleted for breaching company privacy - which is nonsense.

It was a public show in a public theatre, and this post is genuinely warning people to avoid the cult-like behaviour and virtual brainwashing that is going on at these things - it's deep level marketing dressed up as charity work.

It left a very nasty taste in my mouth.


I would urge potential customers to check out independent price comparison sites before entering into any kind of contract with this weird and startlingly cynical company.


Utilities Warehouse/Telecom Plus?

Like the poster above said - Avoid!!

He only made the one post on moneysupermarket as well.

1carminestocky

jimexbox wrote: »

Carmine, ever thought about using 'T internet to make phone calls? Obviously I have unlimited worldwide call plan:rolleyes:, so would be worthless to myself, but its worth a look. Although your particular fetish for 0845/0870 numbers are an expensive extra, so maybe its for normal folk.;)

No, I'm thinking of working where you work, mate.

Quentin

keggs wrote: »

More utter garbage

Are you referring to this:

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

It speaks for itself, doesn't it?

And no-one from uw has come here to dispute conmenot's report of what went on!

1carminestocky

Yorkshire region.

Gas 15000
Electric 4800
Phone line Rental
Up to 24mb broadband
40gb monthly download allowance (I note that Sky have reduced their Mid BB package's download allowance from this figure to 10gb!!)
Free router (they apparently want this back if I ever leave the service)
24/7 inclusive calls to 01, 02, 03, 0845, 0870, plus 10 of the most popular international destinations
Silver club membership fee (this gives £10,000 accidental death insurance and, hopefully more importantly free calls to UW's CS and BB helpline!)
100% UK-based call centre (let's be honest, if it wasn't for fear of being called racist, wouldn't more people be willing to admit that the Indian call centres are a disaster for the punter but obviously lovely for the company's balance sheet?)
Prospero Discount Mag (note to Cardew, this can be discounted in any alternative deal and isn't a deal breaker, lol, so no silly claims about this)
Monthly, fully itemised paper bill detailing all the services I take.
One direct debit no matter how many services I take.
No minimum contracts on any of the services (subject to a £50 admin/exit fee should you leave the broadband within the first 12 months)
Cashback pre-payment card.
Option to derive further discounts by recommending friends who will benefit as much as us from this deal (there are some that will get an even better deal!). This can be as much as 100% discount (not including club fees)
Have I missed anything/got anything wrong?

Based on our current level of spending at the retailers included in the cashback card's '5% list' we spend £500 per month (this will increase a lot leading up to Xmas, plus there's a possibility of major electrical purchases during the year but we'll leave it at a conservative £500 per month). That currently equates to a monthly discount off the UW bill of £25 gross, £23.65 net.

Yearly cost to us for all this = £1104. £92 per month.

Cheapest deal for our gas and leccy is currently BG Websaver 3 at £975. That means we have to get the phone line, broadband and 24/7 inclusive calls for £128. Can it be done??

kippen_noedel

1carminestocky wrote: »

kippen, you've got a lot to say for yourself, perhaps you can take up the challenge?

I'd love to carmine but there are too many things on your list I have no idea on pricing for.

Only reason I know anything about energy companies is because I own a few properties & spent a fair bit of time researching which companies for supply.Also which were best for short term investment in an unsettled market ..

Other than that my real area of expertise is wireless & network security (sold my company last year) I now write articles for ZDnet and TechRadar amongst a few others, they are probably the best known.

1carminestocky

kippen_noedel wrote: »

I'd love to carmine but there are too many things on your list I have no idea on pricing for.

Only reason I know anything about energy companies is because I own a few properties & spent a fair bit of time researching which companies for supply.Also which were best for short term investment in an unsettled market ..

Other than that my real area of expertise is wireless & network security (sold my company last year) I now write articles for ZDnet and TechRadar amongst a few others, they are probably the best known.

That's an absolute cop out and very disappointing, TBH. This is the internet, ALL the info is available at the touch of a button. You've clearly researched the market enough to claim your tenants are on the best possible utility deals. Yes? Just price me up the cheapest for:

Yorkshire Region.

Gas 15000
Leccy 4800
Up to 24mb BB
24/7 inclusive calls (01. 02, 03, 0845/0870 and France & Oz will do out of the Int destinations).

Get it to less than £1108 for the year and I'll apologise.

You can go with online, paper, tie ins, exit fees, whichever company etc etc. No problem. Not bothered about comparing like with like.

penrhyn

Though I'd have a go Mr C's challenge, daughters BBQ has gone and we've ate all the food.

Data from Energyhelpline, UW website and Sky.using a York postcode (think thats right), UW standard user tariff.

Utility Warehouse
Gas 15000/Electricity4000 Annual Cost £ 1174
Telephone and Broadband (40Gb) £239.88

Total Cost £1413.88.

British Gas Websaver 3 Annual Cost £995
Sky Talk £0.0
Sky Line rental £132
Sky Broadband Unlimited Up to 20Mbps £120

Total Cost £ 1247.

This does assume that you keep your Sky TV.

Saving £ 166.88.

If you get 5% discount on the UW cash card you'll have to spend around £3337.60 to break even, more and you are in profit.

PS I'm not recommending Sky as they have p'd me off cutting my download from 40G to 10G, thats why I costed in the unlimited package, save another£60 if 10G is OK.

kippen_noedel

I don't use the type of internet service you do, mine is SDSL 8Mbps £115pm.

I don't have a phone landline, mobile and skype for my calls, mobile £65pm. skype I never pay for.

Sorry but if you don't mind I'll stick to the things I know.

1carminestocky

kippen_noedel wrote: »

I don't use the type of internet service you do, mine is SDSL 8Mbps £115pm.

I don't have a phone landline, mobile and skype for my calls, mobile £65pm. skype I never pay for.

Sorry but if you don't mind I'll stick to the things I know.

Don't mind at all. How about getting me a better deal on just the fuel, then:

Gas 15000
Leccy 4800

Yorkshire region. My price would be £864 for the year with UW.

1carminestocky

penrhyn wrote: »

Though I'd have a go Mr C's challenge, daughters BBQ has gone and we've ate all the food.

Data from Energyhelpline, UW website and Sky.using a York postcode (think thats right), UW standard user tariff.

Utility Warehouse
Gas 15000/Electricity4000 Annual Cost £ 1174
Telephone and Broadband (40Gb) £239.88

Total Cost £1413.88.

British Gas Websaver 3 Annual Cost £995
Sky Talk £0.0
Sky Line rental £132
Sky Broadband Unlimited Up to 20Mbps £120

Total Cost £ 1247.

This does assume that you keep your Sky TV.

Saving £ 166.88.

If you get 5% discount on the UW cash card you'll have to spend around £3337.60 to break even, more and you are in profit.

PS I'm not recommending Sky as they have p'd me off cutting my download from 40G to 10G, thats why I costed in the unlimited package, save another£60 if 10G is OK.

Thanks for that, Penrhyn. Another result of all this is we are going to cancel Sky completely now we won't be getting broadband from them. Currently paying God knows how much (I genuinely daren't look as we have 2 Sky+s and the now overpriced Max BB). And if I was on the Mid package I would be slightly more than p'd off - seriously, to reduce the download allowance like that is frankly disgraceful. That makes it the same as BTs pathetic Option 1 allowance IIRC.

PS Does the Sky deal include inclusive 0845/0870 numbers also? Can't see mention of them.

¹ UK calls are to 01, 02 & 03 numbers only. 'Free' and 'unlimited' calls last up to an hour, after which 4.5p per minute rates apply for UK calls and Sky Talk standard international rates apply, or you can hang up and redial as often as you like. Unlimited international landline calls to 20 countries including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Rep, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and USA and calls to international mobiles in Canada and USA. Subject to Acceptable Use Policy. See sky.com/skytalk.

http://www.sky.com/portal/site/skycom/skyproducts/skytalk/pricesandoptions/unlimited

Local NTS (0845 numbers) Daytime 6.00p Evening 6.00p (per minute)
National NTS (most 0870 numbers) Daytime 10.00p Evening 8.00p (per minute)
An 8p connection fee applies to all calls.

:eek::eek:

http://www.sky.com/Assets/PDF/StaticFiles/5434510.pdf


So, a one minute and 1 sec call to an 0870 number during the day would cost 28p??