Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

jimexbox

mech wrote: »

The point I was originally trying to make (and which nobody seems interested in) is that if you use Utility Warehouse for telephone and broadband, there's no need to get electricity and gas from them to get the cashback card.

Excellent point mech.

Why not just do as you suggest? Phone and broadband with UW, then use the discount card. It makes perfect sense does it not? Even for someone as mentally challenged as myself, eh carmine.;)

If you use the discount card as heavily as some posters claim, you could virtually get these products for free, while choosing a cheap online tarrif for your energy needs. I would certaily appreciate the thoughts of the regular UW folk to this concept, that's if they have something more constructive that keggs to say.........

AvengerSeawolf

jimexbox wrote: »

Excellent point mech.

Why not just do as you suggest? Phone and broadband with UW, then use the discount card. It makes perfect sense does it not? Even for someone as mentally challenged as myself, eh carmine.;)

If you use the discount card as heavily as some posters claim, you could virtually get these products for free, while choosing a cheap online tarrif for your energy needs. I would certaily appreciate the thoughts of the regular UW folk to this concept, that's if they have something more constructive that keggs to say.........

Because she would not be getting the full benefit of the cashback!

Let's 'say' that her telephony & bb bill has now gone up from £21.75 (£19.99 broadcall and membership fee) to £35.00 each month (as she's lost her inclusive calls because she moved her energy away). She's getting £52.00/month cashback, so her bill would be £17 in credit - every month. Which adds up to £204 per year.

Where is the benefit to the customer of UW having your cashback money??!

Why not - bundle the energy back in with the phone & BB, reducing it back down to £21.75/month because of the free calls, and use the now £363/year cashback (£52 minus £21.75) to reduce her total costs, whilst having everything on one bill (which the customer wants - you seem to ignore this)...seems more straightforward to me.

NigeWick

jimexbox wrote: »

If you use the discount card as heavily as some posters claim, you could virtually get these products for free, while choosing a cheap online tarrif for your energy needs. I would certaily appreciate the thoughts of the regular UW folk to this concept,

Utility Warehouse G&E prices are not the cheapest, nor are they the most expensive. Cardew keeps banging on about them being "among" the most expensive, so what, they work out fine for a lot of people. Up to last year, I checked prices every now and again and always found that I got a reasonable deal from UW. Last summer when I checked, I found Southern Electric to have the best deal for me and started the switching process. SE then put their prices up and I ended up going back to Utility Warehouse. I am not a committed rate tart and have decided that by using the pre payment card I get the best deal for what I want and am prepared to do to get it. I was challenged to show my figures and did so. By using the pre payment card, including all fees, just for G&E I proved that I paid about £4.50 per month less than I would with the cheapest quoted companies. That was before Utility Warehouse dropped their prices by a couple of percent. I still get my Nectar points at Sainsbury's when I obtain stuff there, and, buy goods in Aldi and Lidl as they are also on my walk home from work. I occasionally buy items in Argos, Boots and the other stores serviced by the card. I also take my phone lines and broadband from Utility Warehouse, the latter just being given a "best buy" label by that independent magazine, without me taking part in the survey.

Utility Warehouse is obviously not for you, Quentin or Cardew. That is fine by me. However, at present it works out well for Carmine, others and myself. Therefore it can work out an excellent choice for lots more people too. That appears to be not fine with Cardew, Quentin and yourself. We can argue the pros and cons till the cows come home, but, the fact remains, and it is a fact, that Utility Warehouse can work out to be best value for a lot of people.

How about showing us your actual gas and electricity usage numbers so that we can see that you are getting your best deal.

I am an independent distributor with Utility Warehouse and the views I express may not be shared by the company.

keggs

This thread is just going over the same old ground. It's ridiculous. The likes of Cardew, Quentin, Jimexbox et al are never going to change the way they feel about the Utility Warehouse. Fine. Let's leave it at that.

To Cardew etc I say. Please have some respect for those here like Janinenew who have made the choice to use the UW instead of criticising that choice simply because you can't convince her that she travel your route.

The thread is repetitive and quite frankly boring now.

Decado23

AvengerSeawolf wrote: »

Because she would not be getting the full benefit of the cashback!

Let's 'say' that her telephony & bb bill has now gone up from £21.75 (£19.99 broadcall and membership fee) to £35.00 each month (as she's lost her inclusive calls because she moved her energy away). She's getting £52.00/month cashback, so her bill would be £17 in credit - every month. Which adds up to £204 per year.

Where is the benefit to the customer of UW having your cashback money??!

Why not - bundle the energy back in with the phone & BB, reducing it back down to £21.75/month because of the free calls, and use the now £363/year cashback (£52 minus £21.75) to reduce her total costs, whilst having everything on one bill (which the customer wants - you seem to ignore this)...seems more straightforward to me.

There seems to be a little confusion here which I will try to clarify. If the total cashback generated in any month is higher than that month's bill then the excess is deposited in the customer's bank account - UW do not hold on to it therefore if you have non energy services with UW then gas & electriciy are NOT required to take advantage of the cashback card.*

On the other hand, while UW may be more expensive for energy than the latest "flavour of the month" cheap tarrifs, according to energyhelpline i'd have had to switch at least 3 or 4 times over the last 6 months if I wanted to always be on the "cheapest" tarrif. of course, depending on which company I'd be switching from I may incurr cancellation fees or lose out on discounts, effectively rendering the comparison site advice useless and negating any saving I might have made.
(note: it is of course possible to manually calculate these penalties to determine if a switch is appropriate and therefore optimise the cost - realistically though, what percentage of the UK population is both willing and able to do this on a regular basis to ensure they are paying the least for their services. I'd estimate this is pretty low.**)

Additionally, the upgrade to the inclusive calls package for club members taking a UW home phone package as well as energy may outway (or at least significantly offset) any additional cost for energy sevices.***

Then of course there's the convenience of a single bill, single DD, single customer service number to store, UK call centre with a good record (I don't claim it's perfect - nobody can please all the people all the time).

And a major one for me (although others may not care) is that UW do not have 'new customer only' deals - any customer with the same circumstances and usage will pay the same amount. I wonder how long the cheap big 6 flavour of the month deals would last if there wasn't a massive existing customer base subsidising them.

Now clearly it's not possible to put a cash value on many of the benefits available for UW members but they do significantly increase value for money in my opinion. Obviously any given individual should assess the package for their own cicumstances and preferences.

I find it interesting to note that for the most part UW distributers are happy to admit that the benefits of UW vary from person to person and it may not be right for everyone, whereas the more vocal of the anti UW types seem to insist that UW cannot be the right choice of supplier for anybody. at all. ever.
Yet it is UW distributors that are accused of being 'cult like' and 'blinded by faith/belief'. Funny that.


* My parents are UW members with broadcall (phone&broadband) + cashback card. Over the last 6 months they have made a net profit of approx £25. I can confirm that this money has been paid back to them, not held by UW.

** I have several customers who only used to switch every 2-3 years. 1 customer who had never switched since he bought his property 11 years ago and had been paying BT, BG & regional electricity supplier standard rates all this time.

***One friend that has joined uw for broadcall is now paying approx £40 per month (heavy phone use including some international), compared to areound £80 per month which he used to pay. When the minimum term for his current energy tarrif expires he will switch G & E over as well, bringing his phone/internet/membership costs down to an estimated £26 per month. To offset the upgraded call package an alternative energy supplier would need to be approx £168 cheaper per annum for his quite low usage (bearing in mind any cancellation fees or lost discounts would be worthless to a low tarrif chaser or 'cashback tart'). He makes this saving without using the cashback card.

I have met 2 people recently paying approx £200/quarter and £300/quarter respectively for their home phone. They both make international calls which would be free as part of the UW multi service benefit. How cheap would their G & E need to be to compete?


I am an independent distributor for the utility warehouse discount club.

Perelandra

keggs wrote: »

The thread is repetitive and quite frankly boring now.

True.

I will say this about the thread though- for quite some time (before I joined BG), I had a view (like many others, I guess!) that "All utility companies are the same".

Quite clearly, as I've realised from this thread, they're not. Like them or hate them, UW have an offering which is different enough from the other providers to make them interesting, and worth looking at (although better to swim than to paddle!).

jimexbox

Decado23 wrote: »

* My parents are UW members with broadcall (phone&broadband) + cashback card. Over the last 6 months they have made a net profit of approx £25. I can confirm that this money has been paid back to them, not held by UW.

This is mechs point.

How much is the membership cost if you take just broadcall, and how much are discount card load costs again? Just want to work a few figures out.

Seriously, I may starting shopping at Sainsburys.....

1carminestocky

If you bump into Cardew say hi from me.

jimexbox

1carminestocky wrote: »

If you bump into Cardew say hi from me.

Decado23

Cardew wrote: »

If you really cannot understand how your "UW were in the top 10 - about 3 weeks ago" post was misleading and incorrect information - then there really is not much point in continuing this series of posts.

...

You don't have to take my word for it, just enter your consumption figures(it really does help!!!) into any comparison website and UW is invariably one of the most expensive suppliers in UK.

While we're on the subject of misleading and incorrect information, you fail to mention that the prices given on comparison sites tend to be of the 'best case scenario' for the big 6 ie. including any potential discounts (which may not actually be applicable in some circumstances) and not mentioning any termination fees except in the small print after clicking on a 'more info' link.

Whereas the prices listed for UW are 'worst case scenario' ie no mention of cashback card, no mention of the multi service benefit for members taking UW telephony, no mention of the many other pre-negotiated discounts and special offers available to members and, according to some posts I've read here, incorrectly including the membership fee twice for dual fuel.

Now, it seems to me that this cannot be a fair comparison and that as a regular here you must be aware of these issues and yet you make no mention of them while at the same time accusing someone else of misleading.

Some time ago I quoted your (admittedly old) post where you highlighted the ineffectiveness of comparison sites due to the 'flavour of the month' tendency which most of the utility companies exibit. More recently you criticised comparison sites for making potentially invalid assumptions for customers on fixed rates dues to expire soon and yet here you are using those very same comparison sites to 'prove' that UW are expensive.

Hypocrisy is never pretty.


UW Distributor.

P.S. before I get the accusations of 'stalking' you by researching your posting history, both of the above mentioned threads were front page of this board when I came accross them in the normal course of browsing