Please help with a bit of advice
andrewlya
Forumite 37 Posts
Hi, we have been with Utility Warehouse for a long time now and, to be honest, have never really had a problem with them until recently come across these two issues. I hope you can give me a bit of guidance on this.
1.We, recently & purely by chance when speaking to one of their advisors on the phone, found out that we have been paying for Bill Protector insurance since around 2013/14. This insurance is supposedly there to protect nonpayments if the bills, the bill payments will be subsidised should the clients struggle to pay them. I never knew about this at all, never noticed it on any of the bills as we had signed up for the broadband, landline, gas, and electricity. We had never realsied we had been paying this insurance all these years. Basically, they explained when we had joined UW originally, had to pay a compulsory membership fee, which was abolished in 2013 and replaced by NONcompulsory Bill Protector insurance. They alleged that they had sent us a letter informing us about abolishing of the membership fee and asking if we wished to proceed to pay for this insurance instead. Apparently, because we did not respond to say No to this, they automatically signed us up for this insurance. I had never read the letter, I never even knew about this insurance offer, which we would not have signed up for as it's not suitable for us.
Is it legal at all? I thought insurance is something that a company had to discuss with us in order to ascertain a need for it before selling it to us rather than doing it in this sneaky way? One of us is retired so we don't need this insurance, it is not appropriate to us at all.
Is there any way of having all these premiums refunded? We honestly did not know about this at all as we signed up for utilities and not insurance, which we did not even know they provided insurance products.
What can we do about this, please? Was it proper the way they had signed us up for this? We never agreed nor signed anything to take this offer of insurance.
2. Recently, they also sent us a letter renewal about the broadband, which stated that we are on a rolling contract and our premium will be £48 a month, however, if we wished to upgrade to a fixed contract it will be £24 a month for the same internet speed, so I had rung up to sign up for this and they said that it is a glitch and wrong letters sent out to customers, they were working on this to rectify & we should not have received a letter offering us this deal for £24. I thought the companies have to honor the price to consumers that they had advertised according to Consumer Rights? Is it something that we can pursue and have them honoured it to us? The difference in payments is huge.
Thank you for all of your advice.
1.We, recently & purely by chance when speaking to one of their advisors on the phone, found out that we have been paying for Bill Protector insurance since around 2013/14. This insurance is supposedly there to protect nonpayments if the bills, the bill payments will be subsidised should the clients struggle to pay them. I never knew about this at all, never noticed it on any of the bills as we had signed up for the broadband, landline, gas, and electricity. We had never realsied we had been paying this insurance all these years. Basically, they explained when we had joined UW originally, had to pay a compulsory membership fee, which was abolished in 2013 and replaced by NONcompulsory Bill Protector insurance. They alleged that they had sent us a letter informing us about abolishing of the membership fee and asking if we wished to proceed to pay for this insurance instead. Apparently, because we did not respond to say No to this, they automatically signed us up for this insurance. I had never read the letter, I never even knew about this insurance offer, which we would not have signed up for as it's not suitable for us.
Is it legal at all? I thought insurance is something that a company had to discuss with us in order to ascertain a need for it before selling it to us rather than doing it in this sneaky way? One of us is retired so we don't need this insurance, it is not appropriate to us at all.
Is there any way of having all these premiums refunded? We honestly did not know about this at all as we signed up for utilities and not insurance, which we did not even know they provided insurance products.
What can we do about this, please? Was it proper the way they had signed us up for this? We never agreed nor signed anything to take this offer of insurance.
2. Recently, they also sent us a letter renewal about the broadband, which stated that we are on a rolling contract and our premium will be £48 a month, however, if we wished to upgrade to a fixed contract it will be £24 a month for the same internet speed, so I had rung up to sign up for this and they said that it is a glitch and wrong letters sent out to customers, they were working on this to rectify & we should not have received a letter offering us this deal for £24. I thought the companies have to honor the price to consumers that they had advertised according to Consumer Rights? Is it something that we can pursue and have them honoured it to us? The difference in payments is huge.
Thank you for all of your advice.
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No they don't have to honour it as there hasn't been a contact made.
What you could be thinking of if you had phoned up and both parties agreed the the £24 a month fixed contract, then they have would to honour that unless they could prove there had been a clear pricing error. (and them saying there was a system glitch could cover that)
I recall it's classed as an invitation to treat (but I could be corrected)
Ask then to provide a signed agreement. Odds on they will have something.
Is it not shown on your bills?
If the insurance isn't suitable then I would have thought you can make a claim as it being mis-sold, as I thought there were regs governing insurance (so even if you did sign it wouldn't matter).
If that is the case you would need to show why isn't suitable (eg payment protection from losing a job when you don't actually work).
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/pdf.utilitywarehouse.co.uk/utility-warehouse-evidence-of-cover-new-bill-protector-product-final-2022.pdf
Bill protector ins should also show in Ins section of your bill (from looking at the below, as it is listed as a ins product)
https://help.uw.co.uk/category/insurance
Your bill.
https://assets.ctfassets.net/tfl1esjc1yqn/6UkhCNnUz1Ue36NI9wwO6h/b4463c128f274dffc2025884fde8d504/Jan2022_residential_bill_guide_V9.pdf
TBH, remembering you had not received a letter 10 years ago is very good going.