Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

1carminestocky

Crieky, how embarrassing. Please tell me you aren't a regular reader, PC.

Seriously, if true that's not good enough, frankly.

penrhyn

METER’S MURDER

Energy firms rip-off poor families



By Paul McNamara, 28/06/2009
MILLIONS of the UK's poorest families are being OVER-CHARGED by mega rich energy firms.

Those on pre-pay meters get the WORST deals on the market, the News of the World can reveal.

Over the past five years the excess charges they pay amount to £500m, according to one consumer watchdog.
One of the worst offenders is British Gas. Each year the average family of mum, dad, and two kids on their standard pricing plan, paying by direct debit, will fork out £765 and £682 for electricity.
But low income families, forced to pay by meter because they cannot afford monthly bills, will be stung for an extra £121 in all.
Under strict EU directives, any difference should reflect the supplier's extra costs. But it only costs companies about £20 a year to process cheque or cash payments.
That means firms like British Gas are grabbing more than £100 A YEAR extra from their pre-pay customers.
Others feeling the pinch include pre-pay clients of Scottish Power who charge a yearly surplus of £68 for gas, and £37 for electricity. Southern Electric charge £31 more for gas and £34 for leccy.
Worst offender is on-line firm The Utility Warehouse Discount Club, which over-charges by £140 for gas and £87 for electric. By contrast, E.On and npower did not charge A PENNY extra.

Money saving expert Martin Lewis has described the two-tier charging as an "outrageous disgrace". Experts at the National Housing Federation reckon the over-charges adds up to a wicked £500m.
They urge customers to demand rebates, using format letters which can be downloaded from their website.
Meanwhile, industry regulators Ofgem say the charges are about to be pruned.
Their spokesman said: "We aim to have new, enforceable obligations in place in the summer to address undue price differences."

kippen_noedel

I hate these crazy scare stories from the media, a more honest comparison would be PAYG v Pay on receipt of bill.

based on official usage for doing average comparisons
3300kwh el & 20500kwh gas

electric
BG - 427.30 /
EON - 449.71 /
Ebico - 452.53 /
SPower - 458.44 /
SSE - 459.46 /
nPower - 462.72 /
EDF - 472.44 /
UW - 493.37 /

gas
BG - price promise*** 719.62 /
Ebico - 753.38 /
nPower - 797.29 /
EDF - 803.73 /
EON - 808.86 /
SPower - 826.35 /
BG - 831.02 /
UW - 899.81 /

cheapest PAYG DF is Ebico @ 1205.90 but is cheaper to use a combination of above

most expensive by a considerable mile is Utility Warehouse.

source is uswitch, didn't have time to do more than one

Cardew

Not wishing to question the legendary accuracy of the News of the World!!!, but are not those figures for the Big 6 now out of date?

I understood that the Big 6 had reduced pre-pay tariffs to the same as standard tariff as several employees have reported on this forum. This extract from Martin's article on gas and Electricity seems to confirm that:

Even if you can’t change, you’re not stuck. Although not all the comparison sites include pre-payment tariffs, use either Energyhelpline* or Uswitch* to compare prices. Ebico has historically been competitive on pre-payment tariffs though most of the other major suppliers have now started to charge pre-pay customers the same as other customers.

Also on energyhelpline for a standard 20,500/3300kWh consumption the figures given for BG pre-pay and BG Standard paying quarterly are exactly the same. Using a Key meter BG

UW are £102 more expensive for their quarterly billing over BG Standard or pre-pay tariff. However a lot more expensive than that over the cheaper tariffs available.

kippen_noedel

Cardew wrote: »

UW are £102 more expensive.

Actually if you compare UW to BG above in the live comparison I just did a few minutes ago, remember the company that

guarantees to be cheaper than BG

you can save more than that by going to BG instead & without taking into account any DF discount.

To be fair if we only look at standard PAYG tariffs, you'd have elecric with BG and gas with Ebico

lol, & I thought BG were the most expensive, duh !

1carminestocky

Is there any chance of reducing your bill with all these other companies without reducing your consumption, though? I think we have all established that UW's 'bald' prices are more expensive than many but the difference is they do offer the *chance* to reduce their prices considerably. Should you choose to accept this mission it's entirely possible to get the bill down to at least the level of the cheapest tariff (and in some cases much less but I'll leave that line of reasoning for a minute, lol). Be honest now (are you off your rocker? - Ed. Clearly - carmine), if UW was the very same price as the cheapest tariff on the market, EXACTLY, to the penny, I mean, wouldn't you choose to have 12 monthly paper bills each month, plus the other innovations etc, instead of exlusively online billing?

kippen_noedel

OK, using the cheapest tariffs above, UW would have to find around an extra £250 to compete.

just exactly how much do you think the average customer on PAYG have available to spend at Sainsburys' ??

this takes me back to a post I made a few days ago
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=22626363&postcount=3500

the above confirms why I use BG for electric and Ebico for gas
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=22625995&postcount=5

Ypaymore

I understood they dont in fact actively sell prepayment and non direct debit tariffs,and that they are only available on request.

vinnyph

kippen_noedel wrote: »

I hate these crazy scare stories from the media, a more honest comparison would be PAYG v Pay on receipt of bill.

based on official usage for doing average comparisons
3300kwh el & 20500kwh gas

electric
BG - 427.30 /
EON - 449.71 /
Ebico - 452.53 /
SPower - 458.44 /
SSE - 459.46 /
nPower - 462.72 /
EDF - 472.44 /
UW - 493.37 /

gas
BG - price promise*** 719.62 /
Ebico - 753.38 /
nPower - 797.29 /
EDF - 803.73 /
EON - 808.86 /
SPower - 826.35 /
BG - 831.02 /
UW - 899.81 /

cheapest PAYG DF is Ebico @ 1205.90 but is cheaper to use a combination of above

most expensive by a considerable mile is Utility Warehouse.

source is uswitch, didn't have time to do more than one

the prices inc VAT @ 5% for UW for prepayment meters are

Gas
first 2680 units 8.34p per kWh
and thereafter 3.41p per kWH

these are the same in all regions of country

so 20500 units would cost
2680 * 8.34p = £223.51
17820 {20500-2680}* 3.41p = £607.66
total = £831.17

So the actual values for UW are much less than quoted on uswitch or News of the World

not sure which region the electricity is talking about so cannot give values for electricity as they vary from region to region.

Lesson no 1 can be learnt from this.

Don't read the News of the World if you want actual news. They actually charge people to be misinformed with stories designed to sell newspapers. There have been many cases of slander taken to court and the News of the World charged for misrepresentation and deformation of character. Seems strange why members of cardews anti UW faction read the News of the World.



As UW distributors we are told to not sign prepayment customers because as a company UW do not make a profit from it. The amount charged is passed directly to the energy distribution company who takes all the profit. The usage is actually charged directly to the regional energy distribution company but uses UW customer support so actually UW make a loss if someone is a prepayment customer. Because UW makes no profit from it then the distributor doesn't get paid either. So UW has very few Prepayment meter customers. UW distributors are told to tell the potential customer to get normal meters installed by their existing company if they want to take energy with UW.

1carminestocky

kippen_noedel wrote: »

OK, using the cheapest tariffs above, UW would have to find around an extra £250 to compete.

just exactly how much do you think the average customer on PAYG have available to spend at Sainsburys' ??

this takes me back to a post I made a few days ago
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=22626363&postcount=3500

the above confirms why I use BG for electric and Ebico for gas
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=22625995&postcount=5

Would you label me unfeeling if I said I didn't actually care? I'm talking about me here and the best deal for me. Want an example of me going anywhere for the best price? I've even darkened BGs door when they were offering £80 to switch! :eek: A truly awful company with awful CS. IME. I have personally never been on a pre-pay meter and, hopefully, never will. And if someone is on a pre-payment meter and UW is very expensive then I would say avoid like the plague. Similarly if I had less than 4 years NCB I would avoid companies like esure like the plague. There's enough choice out there for everybody to get the best deal for their needs after all.