Utility Warehouse?? A great deal or pyramid scheme ?

BlackSwan83

Hi All.

Was talking to a lady at my toddlers group today who seemed very positive and almost sales like about a company called Utility Warehouse!
She said all bills including sim cards, gas and electric etc are covered for a much cheaper price but am sceptical about this given the deals i currently have and also how happy I am with service from the various providers.

Can anyone give me some feedback on Utility Warehouse as reviews either seem negative or very positive and am confused as word of mouth and recommendations seem how sign ups are done.

Thanks in advance 

MSE_James

The main MSE site has a bit of info about how UW works which you can find here: 
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/does-utility-warehouse-stack-up-/#marketing 

EssexHebridean

You will find that a lot of people who are wildly enthusiastic about UW are those who have something to gain from that enthusiasm. In the case of your contact today, she seemingly also threw a bit of downright untruth into the mix however - the savings on energy bills are fairly small, and there will only be any savings at all if you take other services with them as well. Those other services are likely to cost you more than you could get them from elsewhere, negating any savings on the energy side of things! 

On a personal level, my experience with UW has also been that while things are running smoothly they just about cope, but when you encounter any form of issue the customer service is dreadful bordering on totally incompetant, their billing is dubious, and their accounting processes questionable at best. If you are happy with the customer service from your current suppliers, for goodness sake don’t leave them to go to UW! (If you’re interested to know a bit more about my experience with them, I have a thread on the subject on this board.) 

HampshireH

Never been with them but had their salesperson round once trying to sign me up. They advised me everything was cheaper etc etc 

I worked it all out and I would have been far worse off - including on my energy tariff at the time. The broadband was more expensive as was the phone deal 

It wasn't worth it for us. They continued to send Xmas cards for 2 years after which was nice but odd for people we had met twice. 

Magnitio

Their "sales people" are often customers who are incentivised to sign people up. I encountered a couple trying to sell UW earlier this year at a showground and they told me that their gas and electric was the cheapest on the market; this was quite clearly a lie, but they attracted a lot of attention.

SAC2334

Magnitio said:

Their "sales people" are often customers who are incentivised to sign people up. I encountered a couple trying to sell UW earlier this year at a showground and they told me that their gas and electric was the cheapest on the market; this was quite clearly a lie, but they attracted a lot of attention.

That is probably the only truth these agents say..I think they are a whisker within being the cheapest but only in fractions of a penny ..Certainly not cheapest home or mobile broadband though .The 3% cashback with Sainsbury's is tempting though and if I was a big spender there I think UW would be worth a shout ,even be better is the 5% cashback at M and S..Woeful customer service as you d expect with such diverse offerings .Prob ok if you can manage it yourself and never need CS..MSE do not knock them too much 

strawb_shortcake

I know a representative, they came round to try and offer us a deal, they couldn't beat any of our services. Even their cashback card wasn't beating my staff discount card.

When they realised we wouldn't move over to UW, they tried to recruit us. Promised us fancy holidays, an eternal pay packet as no one ever leaves UW, oh and that also works as their pension fund?
To be fair, they do have lots of foreign holidays, but not sure 2 weeks in Mexico during the wet season and 20+ hours of travelling on 3 planes is truly representative of a 5* holiday. 

EssexHebridean

The energy prices only come up cheaper than anyone else if the customer takes other services I believe - and those other services are likely to be costlier than competitor products. On that basis I’d call their claims of “cheapest energy prices” disingenuous at best! 

thegentleway

I’m with UW as it’s who previous owner was with when we bought the property. I don’t use any of their other services as it doesn’t work out cheaper. I agree that the customer service is dreadful. 

Mstty

They did appear on the MSE worth fixing deals when we were all playing the energy price gamble.

I am not saying MSE were absolving them of all their "issues" but they did at one stage appear as the top fix deal with the purchase of other products so they could rightly claim that status at that time.

I wouldn't personally chose them as we always shop around for the best mobile SIM only deals and insurance's regularly. 

Barring probably one company I think all energy companies customer service has gone down the pan.