Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

Plushchris

uptomyeyeballs wrote: »

That is irrelevent really. You are advocating that the full offers should only bother to be explained if the supplier is at the top of the list. The difference between my tariff and the UW one for my usage is only £138. With the £100 it would be £38. If I made my phone calls primarily during the day, that £38 difference would disappear altogether. Therefore yes, it might make a difference.

You're trying very hard to exclude the company from the listings. Why? People must make up their own minds and comparisons must be allowed to made, with ALL of the information available, otherwise they may make a choice that they might not otherwise have made if it wasn't. A one-off discount of £100 IS relevant, you can't just brush it under the carpet because the company is not to your taste and there are certain caveats for it's payment.

What I said was the comparison sites compare gas and electricity, if you take just gas and electricty from UW you will not get the discount.

If the £100 was taken into account (either included or excluded) it wouldnt be a like for like comaprison as you have to take out other utilities in order to get it.

If you go with southern electric and take out a homephone package you can get money off your bills (up to £40 annually, not one off) but that isnt included on comparison sites either. I dont hear SE salesman on here whining about that though...

Cardew

The big cry used to be that UW were not on some comparison site(they are!) because they didn't pay commission.

Now they want UW off the comparison sites, because they all show that without dispute that UW have just about the most expensive gas and electricity in UK.

All of the above is a smokescreen!

UW charge most people hundreds of pounds extra for their gas and electricty - about 30% more.

Plushchris

uptomyeyeballs wrote: »

Which is exactly the point! Why are UW on Gas & Electric comparison sites when Gas & Electric are only part of their portfolio and package discounts are therefore excluded from information that may be pertinent to the consumer, and may make their package look less competitive in the circumstances? The playing field is not level.

I'm sure they could always ask to be removed from comparison sites if they wished?

And as I pointed out, SE do a package deal with homephone and thats not listed either.

UW are the only supplier that offers the "all in one" package which makes a comparison impossible, thats not the comparison sites fault that no other suppliers do this.

Its been pointed out on here many times before that comparison sites dont include any kind of discounts that rely on the consumer doing certain things as they cant say for sure that the customer will do them (such as prompt payment discounts) so in just the same way, they cant say about discounts that depend on the customer taking out other services because they just dont know if the customer will or not.

The other way to look at it is that UW refuse to deal with comparison sites, why is that? They say its so they can pass the savings onto the customer, but their prices suggest otherwise. Why dont they just offer cheap prices instead of making their customers jump through hoops to get those savings?

If UW changed their business model today to have the cheapest unit rates around and no having to shop in certain shops or take out homephone packages etc. I would gladly sign up with them immediately, even paying a "club membership" to do so. The fact is they make the customer pay a membership fee, charge extortionate rates, make you take out other services and then dictate where you have to shop in order to get those rates down.

EssexMum_3

Cardew wrote: »

Also didn't UW introduce a £100 bonus(after 12 months of paying very high prices for new customers) but their 'loyal' customers get nothing!!

I didn't know about this! Now I'm even more disgruntled about being a loyal customer! And I would happily submit 3 meter readings a year if it meant cashback or extra savings. Jannine's right - it's an incentive that would benefit a lot of people; no-one I know reads their meter as often as they should.

janninew

EssexMum wrote: »

I didn't know about this! Now I'm even more disgruntled about being a loyal customer! And I would happily submit 3 meter readings a year if it meant cashback or extra savings. Jannine's right - it's an incentive that would benefit a lot of people; no-one I know reads their meter as often as they should.

UW can't do anything right on here, some people wouldn't use them if they gave their energy away!!! Not one other person has commented (apart from you!) that making people read their meters is infact a good thing and I think all suppliers should add this term and condition to their annual discounts. I bet there would be a lot less folk getting stuck in the situations we see so often on here.

Quentin

janninew wrote: »

I think all suppliers should add this term and condition to their annual discounts.

The uw £100 so called discount (not so, as you would have to pay them far more than £100 more than the cheapest alternative, unless you are a very low user) isn't an annual discount at all!

It's purely a marketing exercise to help reps recruit more guillibles to sign up for 3 services including their expensive energy!

janninew

Quentin wrote: »

The uw £100 so called discount (not so, as you would have to pay them far more than £100 more than the cheapest alternative, unless you are a very low user) isn't an annual discount at all!

It's purely a marketing exercise to help reps recruit more guillibles to sign up for 3 services including their expensive energy!

What has the above got to do with other suppliers asking their customers to submit readings every few months.

You can't possibly argue that it wouldn't be a good idea can you? Have you see the number of threads started by people in trouble due to estimated readings being used for years.

Quentin

It's a good uw marketing idea! It allows the reps who manage to sign up gullibles with the carrot of a "free" £100 three more excuses to contact them during the year to pester them to sign up for more services/pass on the contact details of their friends etc so that the rep has more people to sell the expensive energy to!

(Two of the 3 readings have to be given 9 months apart, so hardly designed as a social aid to those who get in a mess with estimated readings! And the last of the three cannot be given till the first 12 months are up for both gas and electricity, so it is clear you have to stay longer than 12 months to get the offer, which isn't paid out, but credited to the account)

janninew

Quentin wrote: »

It's a good uw marketing idea! It allows the reps who manage to sign up gullibles with the carrot of a "free" £100 three more excuses to contact them during the year to pester them to sign up for more services/pass on the contact details of their friends etc so that the rep has more people to sell the expensive energy to!

(Two of the 3 readings have to be given 9 months apart, so hardly designed as a social aid to those who get in a mess with estimated readings!)

So you are going to argue that it isn't a good idea!! What a surprise! I've read some posts on here where people haven't given readings in years! So I disagree, UW encouraging customers to give readings at any time in the first year can only be a good thing. There is no greater incentive for people than money. I strongly believe if other companies followed suit less people would get in trouble, though I suppose some companies like customers getting in trouble with their bills, then they are stuck with that same supplier until they have paid it back. Quite similar to energy companies setting direct debits far to low (EDF set mine for gas at 8.00 per month! :eek:)

EssexMum_3

Quentin wrote: »

Two of the 3 readings have to be given 9 months apart, so hardly designed as a social aid to those who get in a mess with estimated readings! And the last of the three cannot be given till the first 12 months are up for both gas and electricity, so it is clear you have to stay longer than 12 months to get the offer, which isn't paid out, but credited to the account

Mmm. I see. While this is clearly a trick to ensure loyalty, the principle of getting an incentive for submitting readings can't be a bad thing? There are so many different offers and deals, and a lot of them depend upon 12 month contracts etc. The UW example is all too easy to fall foul of though, if you're an average (imperfect) consumer, but it is a good marketing idea.