Feedback on Utility Point

MABLE

Cannot rate them highly enough. Excellent company.

PennineAcute

After being with Utility Point since Jan last year and singing their praises, I have now started a move away from them.

Two reasons:

1) I now have my eligibilty back for Warm Home Discount and so it is cheaper for me to return back to a WHD providor. (Not by much, but every penny counts)

2) I was going to leave my gas with UP, so phoned them to renew. The person who answered the phone did not have a clue. I had my monthly payments worked out, so first of all asked for my DD payments to be amended. I went through security and then he asked me for my bank details. I thought the bank deatils was part of security. He then said that he had amended my details, was there anything else I wanted. Told him that I did not want to amend my details, only the payments. I then heard a tut. He then asked me what I wanted to change my payments to, messed around for a few minutes and said he had done the amendment.

I was not amused at this point - mainly the tut and his mannerism. He then asked if he could help any further - decided that if he could not do a simple amendment correctly, God only knows what would happen when I asked to renew my gas.

Told him no thanks - and have moved my electricity back to EON and gas back to ZOG.

It's a shame, as UP started out brilliantly. Now, for me anyway, I can see a decline.

Benight

PennineAcute wrote: »

After being with Utility Point since Jan last year and singing their praises, I have now started a move away from them.

Two reasons:

1) I now have my eligibilty back for Warm Home Discount and so it is cheaper for me to return back to a WHD providor. (Not by much, but every penny counts)

2) I was going to leave my gas with UP, so phoned them to renew. The person who answered the phone did not have a clue. I had my monthly payments worked out, so first of all asked for my DD payments to be amended. I went through security and then he asked me for my bank details. I thought the bank deatils was part of security. He then said that he had amended my details, was there anything else I wanted. Told him that I did not want to amend my details, only the payments. I then heard a tut. He then asked me what I wanted to change my payments to, messed around for a few minutes and said he had done the amendment.

I was not amused at this point - mainly the tut and his mannerism. He then asked if he could help any further - decided that if he could not do a simple amendment correctly, God only knows what would happen when I asked to renew my gas.

Told him no thanks - and have moved my electricity back to EON and gas back to ZOG.

It's a shame, as UP started out brilliantly. Now, for me anyway, I can see a decline.

That'll cost you, just because you had a poor experience with one phone jockey :cool:

I personally wouldn't be moving to Zog at this time - they are far too expensive as they haven't lowered their gas prices for ages, despite most other suppliers dropping theirs in the face of lower wholesale prices.

If you hadn't gone to UP in the first place, you could still be enjoying a super low 2 year fixed tariff that Zog used to offer (with no exit fees either :money:)

They've now corrected the anomoly of zero exit fee tariffs being cheaper than the equivient tariffs with exit fees (but I can't blame them for that)

I'm not sure what Zog are up to recently? Perhaps they are building up their war chest to lauch an electricity supply that they had originally threatened to lauch last year, but beginning of this year said it might be end of this year now.

Zog need to remember why most of their customers went to them i.e. low cost.
If they lose that vision, they will lose most of their existing customers come the end of the cheap deals that most are on.

For an average user, the cheapest Zog tariff is coming in at about 5% more expensive the cheapest UP tariff (this may vary by region, but I suspect Zog are currently more expensive than UP in all regions for gas)
As you said "every penny counts" :money:
MSEers should consult a comparison site to find the best deal for them.

I have noticed that the growth in customer numbers at Zog has stalled over recent months which speaks volumes.
Perhaps this is part of their business planning in anticipation of lauching their electricity suppy too ... but it needs to be cheap to attract customers.

And, of course there are no kick backs available with Zog.

PennineAcute

Zog's two year, for me, is £12 more expensive than new UP's 15 months and my current. Compared to my current UP rate and their current new tariff. Same UP, SC is 3p a day more.

UP's new electric tariff is £387, compared to £303 what I am paying now. EON is £403. Yes, I took a hit on exit fees £36, but I am not being spoken to, or treat in that manner. Distance customer sevice is the same as face to face customer service. Pleasant and polite, even if you think the customer is a ... If I get treated badly in a shop, I take my custom elsewhere, even if it means paying that bit more.

I was with EON and Zog before I moved to UP, so it is not a new venture - although past experiences do not mean good new experiences.

PennineAcute

And yes, I consulted the comparison site - hence going with the second cheapest Gas supplier and the cheapest electricity that offered WHD. As I said, every penny counts.

FrugalWeasel

I moved to Utility Point as they were the cheapest provider available for gas. I signed up to a fixed tariff for the same reason. Almost immediately my Utility Point gas bills were telling me there was a cheaper tariff available, but with their web site being useless for finding out tariff details it took me a few months (eventually realised it was easier to get the information from MSE comparison than out of Utility Point) to find the necessary information - they told me by email that the cheaper tariff on my bill was no longer available but gave me no information about what was available. They also told me they'd sent me current and prospective tariff info then never sent it. So I just finally rang them to try to change tariff. Here's what I learned through this process:
- If you want to change from one Utility Point fixed tariff to another before the end of the term, the T&C say they may or may not charge you an exit fee. However, they will definitely ALWAYS charge you an exit fee, if it's earlier than 42 days before the end of your term (this 42 days is forced on them by regulations). I've switched between a lot of energy companies over the years, and this is the first one to do this. I would still have saved money by paying the exit fee and moving to their now much cheaper tariff (they seem to bring out new tariffs at least monthly), but I'm not inclined to under the circumstances.
- Their exit fee is £36, not £30. If you look at their price quotes there's small print saying plus 20% VAT, even though they list their other prices inclusive of VAT. They are sneaky enough about this to have fooled MSE, who still list the exit fee as £30 on comparisons.
- If there is a credit balance on your account, they will only refund the difference between this credit balance and your monthly payment. Fair enough, I signed up to a deal which was clear about them taking payments a month in advance, and this will contribute to their cheaper prices since they're taking zero credit risk with anyone. What wasn't clear was that they are allowed to take up to 28 days to make any requested refund, and this means they will ALWAYS take the maximum 28 days before paying it. Again, this is the first company I have encountered who are doing this.

Overall the customer service person I spoke to was pretty rude and argumentative.

ashe

Louis_D. wrote: »

Not sure if this thread is still active. But Utility Point seem to be getting stronger and stronger as they get bigger. We recently joined Utility Point after our old provider recently put up their tariffs. So after a lot of research and price comparisons we discovered Utility Point and were pleased with their competitive rates and generally positive reviews. You can't switch from a price comparison site, but rather have to visit their webpage, but pleased to report the switch has gone extremely smoothly. They answered all our questions during the switch and so far been quite professional, certainly no alarm bells and generally it has been a good experience. So you don't lose out on the extra savings you sometimes get from switching companies. We have discovered they do their own signing up bonus, which we thought was incredible and a lovely, yet unexpected welcome handshake. The best bit is you can also benefit from this and get £25 too when you sign up if you enter Referral Code:
Switching was one of the best decisions we made, and so glad we did not put if off like the millions of others who sit on high tariffs because of the misconception switching is more complicated than it is, Utility Point do it all for you. All it takes is 5 mins (or less) and you can even do it on your phone, and you immediately get a confirmation email and a welcome pack to explore while they take care of everything. Now that is convenience .:beer:

Please don’t spam your affiliate links in a support thread.

ashe

Wow amazing, an hour later you managed to repost the exact same post again, this fills me with confidence that you are a genuine proponent of utility point and not just going round the internet spamming your link everywhere

niktheguru

I've been with utility point for about 8 months and I must say they've been excellent. The website is clear, the bills are accurate (given submitting your meter readings) and if you call them there doesn't seem to be a massive wait to speak to someone. The person I spoke to seemed helpful and knowledgeable (but I have seen others have had variable success in this thread)

Their prices are the best for me from the comparison sites, so I also moved my gas to them recently.
Cant say I have any regrets currently. I tend to move to whoever is the cheapest, have previously been with So energy (who were excellent too)

Overall would definitely recommend utility point to you guys.

Streaky_Bacon

I've been with them since the beginning of the year, and all has been fine so far.

Everything has worked online (billing, meter readings etc) and the two non-urgent emails I have sent them were responded to (albeit they took a couple of weeks to respond both times).

I had a look at CEC today and noticed that their latest tariff (Up & Save Summer 19)
makes them much more expensive for me (jumped from approx £1,600 to £2,000 with the latest change).

Electricity is now 16.2224p (plus 20.3p standing charge) and gas is 3.6264p (plus 23.33p standing charge).

My fixed terms runs until the end of the year, and I had hoped not to move (for the past few months, they have remained within £60 of the cheapest supplier) but this seems like a big rise.

My only hope is that such a sudden big rise is not a red flag for the company.

EDIT: Having dug a bit deeper, it seems that they do have cheaper tariffs which went live on July 19th, but the one I mentioned above is the only one suggested by CEC, and is also the one provided by UP when I got a new quote from their website (I had to find their full list of tariffs elsewhere on the site).