UW - Charity distributor

ThrobsBlackHat

Hi everyone.

The charity I work for has been asked if we are interested in becoming a distributor for Utility Warehouse. I think the payments are 5% of whoever you sign up.

The charity is in the faith / community sector.

Having read several controversial threads on here about UW, and having found my own utlity bills were over 150 quid lower when I swithced away from UW, I am decidedly wary of getting involved.

What do you think? What advice do you have?

penrhyn

To me its just a way of a commercial company trying to get some credibility for its company by association, are you that desperate for funds that you are prepared to potentially rip off the people who donate to your charity Most people donating to charities come from the lower earning sections of society.
Why not get EW to give you a donation, no strings instead.

Ebico which offers social tariffs is a not for profit outfit and pays no commision to swapping sites etc..

theblindman

HI there,
We put an appeal in the paper yesterday to raise much needed funds for a small charity and the first person to call said ' a company I am part of offers support in fundraising and would we like thier help' Of course I nearly snapped his hand off and asked so are you professional fundraisers? No I am part of Utilitiy Warehouse who offer support in fundraising, alarm bells ringing, I agree to meet later today in the hope I misunderstood. No I was right in exchange for using our mailing lists, publications etc to reach the public we could get 5% from each persons spend with UW, I expressed my concern that it would appear the charity was endorsing a particular product, though he couldnt see the problem there!! Yes a regular monthly income would be nice but please present it as it is! A business proposition, we would be rewarded for UW using our name to recruit, simply another route to market!
Following that meet we opened the post to find a cheque for £200 Gift Aided, no Strings, but because someone believes that what we are doing is worthwile!!
I would have strong reservations about this scheme

Cardew

It is exactly the sort of scheme you would expect UW to dream up!!!

Age Concern(a respected organisation 'prostituted' themselves in the same way by lending their name to a Powergen tariff that is one of the worst tariffs on the market - even Powergen have much cheaper tariffs.

Steer well clear! or you will risk alienating potential donors.

Terrylw1

At the end of the day they are just trying to "purchase" your client lists so they can contact them and say "your charity has recommended us to you". Thus an immediate trust forms. However, how will you feel when they dupe people into things they don't need as salesmen often do?

Is that how you want them to regard your charity?

I think you need to be more concerned with your reputation and credibility than the 5%. There is nothing wrong with earning some extra cash for the charity but the question is how far do you trust these people? Do you know about their credibility? Have you seen their impact on customers i.e. how many complaints do they get?

Mike_by_the_Sea

Dear All

What a cynical bunch some of you are.

The offer that UW have just launched is a "community fundraiser" package.

The concept is to provide a very simple way for a group to raise funds by offering their donors the opportunity to save money on their utility bills and, at the same time, provide much needed funds for the group without loads of administration effort for the group. I have personally run a number of "distributor" roles for charities and this has, and does require a significant amount of time and resources - something that these groups do not have readily available.

There is NO hard sell involved and the donors are able to phone a freephone number to see if they would save money. If they will, that's great, if they won't, then nothing lost.

In spite of the great job that MSE is doing, there are still millions of people in the UK who are paying far too much for their utilities and would welcome the opportunity to save some money and feel that they are helping out their favourite cause.

Also, UW do not "purchase" the clients list - it is the group that contact their donors directly.

Also, UW will not pay commission to swaping sites etc.

As regards credibility - this has to be something that the group can decide on themselves. I am not going to list the creditations here as I will be accused of "selling" - but if anybody is interested they can e-mail me and I will provide independent reviews of UW and how they compare in the market.

I am not looking for a fight here, just adding a positive response to the question asked.

All the best

Mike

Terrylw1

Hi Mike, my comment on "purchasing" client lists was in regard to post #3 where they have asked for access to the charities mailing lists.

My point is that this industry is also full of commission grabbing dodgy salesmen e.g. the door knocking ones that you frequently hear complaints about. So, vulnerable people are more open to believe what people may say if their charity has pointed them that way as they would have confidence in the charity.

I agree with you in principle, the charity needs to check it out to see if it will work for them.

A lot of people are paying too much but a lot of people are also being duped into deals due to poor salesmen. So, worth thoroughly checking out first.

Mike_by_the_Sea

Hi Terrrylw1

Absolutely right about checking it out first. As for access to the mailing lists, this has nothing to do with the UW offer and it sounds like a miscommunication somewhere. As an advocate of this new system, I am grateful to UW for taking some of the work off my shoulders.

PS I love your posts on MSE - so many and such quality - keep up the great work

Quentin

Mike_by_the_Sea_(a_distributor_for_Utility_Warehouse)_ wrote: »

What a cynical bunch some of you are.

Got to be quote of the year.

How dare a UW rep accuse us of being cynical.

This is the company that has compared it's prices (excluding VAT) with its competitors inclusive VAT prices to make it appear cheaper.

This is the company that never includes its monthly "membership fee" when comparing prices, again to try and make it seem cheaper.

This is the company that lied in its adverts that it supplied the "cheapest" gas and electricity, and then just ignored the ASA when they told them to stop making the misleading claim.

This is the company that spammed this board about its "free" laptop for broadband customers without telling us it cost more than their standard broadband, had to be a 24 month contract AND in order to get it you had to not only also pay the monthly membership fee but had to take at least one energy product from them as well.

This is the company whose reps used to post on here posing as customers who had just "found this great new discount club where you get the cheapest guaranteed gas and electricity services"

This is the company with a rep who regularly posts defences here, yet on a separate forum used by their reps posted to grumble about experiencing "atrocious" service from UW.

This is the company who store customers debit/credit card numbers so that should there be any dispute over a bill, and the customer stops the direct debit to prevent payment being taken till the dispute is settled they can still get their money - by taking it via the stored credit or debit card number.

etc etc etc

theblindman

Just wanted to clarify my earlier post.
As a charity we are not set up to trade, in my view recieving commission for introducing customers is trading and is something for a charity to be very cautious about.
There would be a clear association with our charity and UW, however hard the rep says they are not trading on our name.
Could I reccomend UW to people? having put our charities gas & electricity consumption figures into price comparison services we could save 3% with UW and 16% with the best price, on that basis the answer is no.
Would we sell, Avon, Tupperware etc. in the office No! Why would we then sell utilities?
The UW rep couldnt believe i wasnt snapping his hand off, I think he had been to to many motivational seminars.
I dont think I am stupid so please dont present the offer as the answer to our financial woes, but tell me there is a business proposition that could bring in an income for the centre and it can be judged on that basis and each charity organisation can make it's own mind up.

Terrylw1

One question for the charity people on this thread which may need answering in relation to the commissions.

To qualify for 5% VAT a charity must be declared. The definition really is that you must be a non profit making association of some kind. Your accountant (or you) must sign a declaration to cover the Supplier with customs.

So, the fact that you are receiving the commissions could affect your ability to prove yourself as non profit making. Is that the case? It would be interesting to know if customs allow for this?