Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

1973safc

Cardew wrote: »

1. You asked initially what qualifications the 'Anti's' had.

What qualifications do you think are required to be able to read comparison websites? to compare tariffs? to read T & C's of the various tariffs?

2. You asked initially were any of the 'Antis' Energy Consultants?

What do you mean by Energy consultants? Could that be someone who calculates that a property needs XkWh of gas/electricity annually? If so does it matter how that energy is provided, other than its cost.

or

Do you mean a grandly titled energy salesman, who after 'carefully' considering a potential customer's needs, comes to the conclusion that the product they are selling is the most suitable package.

UW have 33,000 such salesmen(all with very impressive titles) - they are encouraged to sell the hugely expensive gas and electricity to trusting family and friends initially.

3. You want to establish that none of the 'Antis' work for rival competitors.

How do you expect us to 'establish' that fact?

After all that, you then change tack and decide that you were not interested in gas and electricity, but telephony; but have asked no questions about telephony.

So you Googled the term UW, to find out about telephony. Spent the first few posts on gas and electricty, the rest of your posts whining about your treatment and attacking the antis for being nasty to you.

Go peddle your wares elsewhere - or change your name, get(again) a new identity for MSE and try a more subtle approach.

Once again, an example of your total paranoia.

Cardew

jellygoodfellow wrote: »

Any coincedence that their buddy Carmine has not joined in the discussion recently ?

I hope the answer lies here:

Apparently their holding their distributors New Year motivational events this weekend and next ,expect them to come back full of enthusiam.:D

I suspect that they have been warned off contributing to this thread as most UW reps score 'own goals'.

Having overuled the boss of UW's objections, the new regulations on selling energy must be a shock.

The 'trumping' of the UW cashcard can't have helped!!

Hopefully we will just get some genuine questions about UW in future, which will(of course) get objective answers - from some contributers at least!

rassman

well, i am not going to read 487 pages of people slagging each other off, i was hoping to come to this thread and see some serious discussion and help on if UW is better or worse.

i just moved over in december, combined my telephone, gas, electricity. I was with scot gas before and they were asking roughly £80 dd each month, i thought this was to high and decided to give UW a chance. So is there any hidden pitfalls to watch out for or are UW a good company.

thanks in advance

Cardew

rassman wrote: »

well, i am not going to read 487 pages of people slagging each other off, i was hoping to come to this thread and see some serious discussion and help on if UW is better or worse.

i just moved over in december, combined my telephone, gas, electricity. I was with scot gas before and they were asking roughly £80 dd each month, i thought this was to high and decided to give UW a chance. So is there any hidden pitfalls to watch out for or are UW a good company.

thanks in advance

I don't blame you for not reading all the pages.

If you post your gas and electricity consumption in kWh, and area(presumably Scotland?), here we will tell you how much extra UW are charging for gas and electricity than the cheapest tariff and how much extra you will be paying than you could have been paying with Scottish Gas.

Paying £80 a month to Scottish gas(assuming you were on the standard tariff) indicates that you use slightly below the UK average.

So it is very probable that you are paying between £200 and £300 a year more with UW for gas and electricity than the cheapest tariff. Someone with average consumption usually pays about £300 more.

What did the UW salesman say to you?

1973safc

Well as you can see rassman, you've already been told you've made the wrong decision, based on the wild assumptions Cardew has already made about you.

kippen_noedel

rassman wrote: »

well, i am not going to read 487 pages of people slagging each other off, i was hoping to come to this thread and see some serious discussion and help on if UW is better or worse.

i just moved over in december, combined my telephone, gas, electricity. I was with scot gas before and they were asking roughly £80 dd each month, i thought this was to high and decided to give UW a chance. So is there any hidden pitfalls to watch out for or are UW a good company.

thanks in advance

I'm afraid it's not a straight forward answer, for the majority of people it will be much cheaper NOT having their energy bills with UW, however there are always exceptions to every rule.

Essentially if you spend a LOT of money on the card each year and make lots of international and 0870 type calls it can be worth while.

Cardew

1973safc wrote: »

Well as you can see rassman, you've already been told you've made the wrong decision, based on the wild assumptions Cardew has already made about you.

What wild assumptions? Are your true colours now showing? Thought you were not interested in gas and electricity!

Rassman has stated he has moved gas and electricity from Scottish Gas to UW.

That means he was on a Scottish Gas dual fuel tariff.

I have asked him to post his consumption figures.

I have surmised that he uses a little less than the UK average if SG were charging £80 a month, so it is "very probable that you are paying between £200 and £300 a year more with UW for gas and electricity than the cheapest tariff."

1973safc

Cardew wrote: »

What wild assumptions? Are your true colours now showing? Thought you were not interested in gas and electricity!

Rassman has stated he has moved gas and electricity from Scottish Gas to UW.

That means he was on a Scottish Gas dual fuel tariff.

I have asked him to post his consumption figures.

I have surmised that he uses a little less than the UK average if SG were charging £80 a month, so it is "very probable that you are paying between £200 and £300 a year more with UW for gas and electricity than the cheapest tariff."

He was in dispute with his supplier in late 2008. At the time you advised him to either agree the demand or pay up and move. He obviously didn't want to stay with them, so has moved elsewhere.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=15880781

He asked whether the company were any good or not, he didn't ask you to post yet more of your propaganda (which you never miss any opportunity to do). kippen noedel's post was the one you should have made.

Why can't you just respect the choice he made without criticising that choice and just using it to peddle your own issues?

OldGreyFox

Cardew wrote: »

I suspect that they have been warned off contributing to this thread

I dont know about that,but i have been told that they have been given new very strict guidelines in what they can and cant say whilst promoting their distributorships to protect UW good name.Failing to complire can apparently result in them being kicked out.

Cardew

OldGreyFox wrote: »

I dont know about that,but i have been told that they have been given new very strict guidelines in what they can and cant say whilst promoting their distributorships to protect UW good name.Failing to complire can apparently result in them being kicked out.

This is presumably because of the new regulations concerning 'doorstep selling'(and virtually all UW selling is classified as 'doorstep selling') see:

http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/MEDIA/FACTSHEETS/Documents1/probefs.pdf

Specifically the requirement to give all customers a written estimate of their gas and electricity costs, will be severly damaging to the 'trust me I am family or a friend' approach adopted by many UW salesmen.

No wonder the boss of UW objected to these regulations, when they were just proposals.


There was more discussion on this point starting from post #9512