Some guy convinced my parents to sign up for 4 services including Broadcall and i have to say it is one of the WORST internet providers i've ever been on.

  First of all: its supposed to be cheaper, we're paying for the 40gb limit one which includes (downloads, uploads 24:7) Whereas other ISPs tend to give you 40gb download only during peak hours and unlimited during the night. Which resulted in us going a bit over and getting charged an extra 12.50 for an additional 10gb download package. What a scam, getting charged for something we wont even use.

 Second: I used to get around 6-7mbps download speeds and 0.4mbps upload at any time of the day, now i get around 0.5mbps-2mbps download dependent on time of day with upload speeds of around 0.1mbps-0.3mbps

 Third: Ping times, absolutely terrible... ill be playing a FPS game on my PC or XBOX360 and ill get spikes of pings of around 200-2000ms.

Fourth: Customer service, you're charged 5p a month and left waiting around 15minutes until someone can get through to you (any time of day, obviously to squeeze a bit of cash from you) whereas my old ISP it was average wait of about 1-2minutes. Ok its not as bad as BT where you can be waiting anything to 4hours waiting but still. Then we get through to ask about the speed problems and he tells us something that was entirely wrong to try and keep me happy.

Rang up again and he tells me that the previous person was wrong to tell me to "do bt speedtests and we'll get the results through you dont need to do anything" whereas i need to actually take speedtests, pingtimes and email them back

And its the same with any company that ties you down to a 12 month contract, they've obviously got something to hide when they force you to stay with them. Reel you in and then provide terrible service cutting all corners possible and not being bothered because your stuck in a lengthy contract.

 Sidenote: Actually i just remembered another thing to add. Too many times has the internet gone completely down for about an hour. (obviously not an exchange problem as all friends in the area have fine internet)

 

I WOULD AVOID AT ALL COSTS

Hi - apols for the long post.

I am certainly NOT a UW distributor or customer, and I am not a "jealous rival" working for any other similar firm but however I did go along to their sell-out networking recruitment conference show in Northampton yesterday, with an elderly neighbour who was interested in becoming a distributor.

So I have some inside information about this company and it's odd methods of selling a pretty poor product.

1200 people packing a theatre, it was an impressive turnout, there were video crews there and big screens plus one of their ugly branded yellow Minis on the stage, which you get to drive as a company car if you sell enough. Whoopee!

It's all very strange indeed, and more than a little crass.

Needless to say my neighbour has no interest in joining the ranks of the distributors any more.

A quick summary of this conference:

Two fairly high level execs tried to compere the 8 hour (!) show with an attempt at comedy which was pitiful at best and downright embarrassing at worse, especially when the audience had better punchlines to their "jokes" than they had written.

Lots of "motivational speakers" who turned out to be execs at the top of the pyramid imploring the audience to find more customers/distributors.

They then dragged a hearing impaired man on the stage and a visually impaired woman, both of whom got a standing ovation for some unknown reason, as if the ability to sell utilities is somehow an incredible achievement for the disabled, which was patronising to say the least.

There were three signers eagerly translating all the sales pitches in BSL to what appeared to be only one deaf man, so they were definitely going down the "we love the disabled" route, and indeed much of their pitch was to do with helping communities.

I was rather hoping the blind lady would win the Mini Cooper just to see how the comperes would get out of that one without a script.

A senior level exec from Liverpool dragged his young family onstage and actually started crying (with his back to the crowd) when telling the audience about his nice new house. Then recovered his composure immediately.
His kids didn't look remotely concerned their dad was crying, because he was clearly putting it on... the son was looking at the crowd dead pleased with his dad's acting abilities.
At that point it really did resemble an American evangelist church meeting, with all the appalling emotional play-acting that goes with it.

There was a reasonably funny guy with a dry sense of humour with a guide to failure, how not to succeed, that kind of thing, but even he was being pretty patronising and even insulting - implying that people who work for a boss and have a small house are losers, that sort of nonsense.

Then they wheeled out their "celeb", who was - wait for it - an Olympic Gold Medallist!!
Turned out he rowed in Sydney 8 years ago as part of an 8 man team and won a gold medal - he's now their commercial director.
Seemed like a nice guy, though very posh (like all their top brass) unlike the mainly Northern middle class aspirational audience, then spent a painful amount of time describing the minutae of winning, before showing his successful rowing team win the gold. Then showing a replay. It was pretty sad by then.
You would think with all the money made from a sell out theatre show they could have afforded a decent celebrity endorsement.

The whole day was peppered with personal testimonials from people (an unusual amount of them were former police officers) who had achieved "SE Gold" which means they have roped in a minimum of 10 personal
customers and a minimum total of 50 customers within two months and get a mere £500 for bringing in what would potentially amount to tens of thousands for the company.

The comperes summed it up at the end most aptly by describing the whole day (and it was a very long day!) as being "an emotional rollercoaster".

Which is of course true - emotions were being manipulated all day, to make those who were not selling enough feel guilty, and to massage the egos of those who were doing OK.

It's very much an American style set-up, and seemingly has found popularity in the north of England, where social networking is somehow easier and more practical with smaller communities and the pub and sport culture that isn't so prevalent in London.

To be fair, the people we spoke to during the break (only one 45 minute break in 8 hours!) were really nice people, but had been hyped up to the point of obsession and were purely motivated to try and sell to us once they realised we hadn't become customers yet.

Which is the fundamental problem I have with this company and others like it: the onus is on you to sell these utilities to your friends and family as if you're doing them a huge favour.

Trouble is - as this site has shown, you're not!

UW/T+ prices are not really very competitive, they're only buying from the same place as everyone else after all, and are subject to the same rises in costs.
A three minute comparison with other providers will result in a far better deal.

Raising the prices without warning is a mean trick - not one I'd like them to pull on my friends and family.

And as for having to get up on stage and recieve a public pat on the back for using your treasured social circles as a commodity for making the poshos at the top of the chain richer - no, definitely not for me.

By the way - none of this could be construed as disclosing private business information - as I have a feeling a lot of the UW distributors will read this post in horror and try to get it deleted for breaching company privacy - which is nonsense.

It was a public show in a public theatre, and this post is genuinely warning people to avoid the cult-like behaviour and virtual brainwashing that is going on at these things - it's deep level marketing dressed up as charity work.

It left a very nasty taste in my mouth.

I would urge potential customers to check out independent price comparison sites before entering into any kind of contract with this weird and startlingly cynical company.

Utilities Warehouse/Telecom Plus?

Like the poster above said - Avoid!!

Hello and thank you for those of you who take the time to read this message. Looking through this forum it would seem that not only are there some pretty disatisfied people on here but some of them (who are neither customers nor distributors) have done this company its due dilligence in looking at things properly. I have to say I am extremely upset and offended by the post below and my only theory for Peter's blasting this company the way that he did is clearly he has lots of money and is in the perfect job therefore not needing to save or make money in any way, shape or form. Well if that is the case I am truly glad and hope that he is giving as much goodness and happiness back as he himself is receiving. For those of you that do not know, Telecom Plus and the Utility Warehouse Discount Club are one in the same and we are indeed a British PLC company who are based in the UK. It is true that there are people in our company who spend their time in spain but they are just as accessible as distributors who live over here and are in fact distributors themselves. Also, have you noticed that there are only 19 negative emails on here? That's not bad for a company that's been going 10 years. I think you'll find companies such as BT, British Gas and Npower have far more complaints.

My last point is to say that for those of you who are dissatisfied with your service, why don't you just leave. You are not obliged to stay with us (unless of course you are on broadcall and you can always pay back the £50 if you're that bothered) and give your custom to some other company. I assure you I wouldn't be offended at all if you were my customer.

As for our conference in Northampton, the Blind lady that Peter refers to is myself and I can assure you of this. I love this company. They have given me much support and have enabled me to not only earn a decent living for myself and my little girl (people like to put us blind people in call centres for very little pay it would seem( and the mini....I am well on the way to having one of my own and the income to pay someone to drive it for me.

If any of you do wish to talk further about savings or earning extra cash then by all means get back to me. I will not reveal my website address on here as it could be construed as advertising but aI'm sure you can reply to me if you want to.

I'll make the assumption that hes so rich he doesn't want to save money either! Utility Warehouse aren't any cheaper than anyone else and I doubt the corporate side of it actually care about its customers like any other company.

1) Yes im a customer and have experienced the bad service

2) I can't leave because im on broadcall and am tied into a contract length (a way for companies to hold unhappy customers) - if utility warehouse were so good then why not have no contract? so confident that customers are so happy and will never want to leave

3) 19 negative emails but you know other companies such as BT, British Gas and Npower have a much larger customer base than that of Utility Warehouse.

Also in response to the internet problems i've had... since then I've spoke to Utility Warehouse and the first response I got was a phonecall with someone trying to confuse me with aload of terms that I am already familiar with. Its called lag sir! theres nothing we can do... have you even looked into the problem?

Then they ring me up claiming they've found the reason why i'm getting huge pings and lag in online game servers, cause I was playing on a foreign server... they pick one of the furthest away servers and place all the blame on that as though its the only place that has been played at, yet UK servers are still bad.

Then when my ping becomes stable from around 1500ms average, they say that the broadband is working and even though speedtests return extremely poor results. Theres nothing they can do as its obvious that its working and then force me to close the case. Did a few more speedtests and shown them the results but they just ignored and didn't bother emailing back.

So I get around 7mbps on a speedtest before changing ISP, switch to Utility Warehouse and get about 0.5mbps-2mbps and the broadband is working as pings are good?

Don't believe that Utility Warehouse are any cheaper than any other ISP as there is far better out there. They say the bandwidth limit is 30gb which seems fair but this includes download/upload during peak AND offpeak times whereas other ISPs bandwidth limit is DOWNLOAD used in peak times only. This has caused us to get charged around £5-£10 extra a month on additional bandwidth costs that they claimed were the same as our old ISP.

Said it before and i'll say it again. AVOID AT ALL COSTS, Utility Scamhouse

Intellix

If I were you I'd leave UW's Broadcall service, from what I can see if you're paying £5 - £10 a month on busting the download limit, personally if I were you I'd pay the £50 cancellation fee. If you've got more than 10months left to go, you'll save money (£5 @ 10months =£50, any longer and you're paying £5 a month when you don't have too)

Let us know how you get on and any advice regarding a faster ISP who beats UW for "gaming" clients let us know. I'm sure you're not the only gamer who needs high speed and plenty of bandwidth on this site.

Peter,

I guess the conference wasn't your cup of tea? Personally I wouldn't come into your business and slag off your ways of working - different strokes for different folks. If you didn't like the conference I'd of left straight away, wouldn't of waited 8 hours personally - but that's me.

Can't leave, tied into a contract. If i leave now and have 10 months left then thats around 10 x 32.99,

£329.99 to end a bad service. I'd be happy if: over the phone they didn't throw terms at me to try and confuse me and diverge me from the real problem (corners that have been cut, bandwidth that can't handle a full 8mb service so theyre using the good old 8mbps MAX thing, where they know they can tell you, you wont always get the full speed unless your close) Then they try to diverge me from the real problem and in the end the solution (upgrade their systems, hardware and provide a full speed) cannot be solved so they just drop the case on me and pretty much say unlucky mate!

If I get around 6-7mbps on speedtests on an old ISP (Namesco) but on the new ISP (UW) I get around 0.5-2mbps service... its obvious that UW cant handle providing a full service and I wish ofcom could check ISPs that are conning people this way.

Its not about meeting the needs of a gamer, its about providing the full service that is available to the customer.

Just done a speedtest, used to get 6-7mbps any time of the day... and tell me if this is acceptable for 8mbps?

Date19/05/08 17:27:18Speed Down1754.68 Kbps ( 1.7 Mbps )Speed Up357.03 Kbps ( 0.3 Mbps )

with the above performance, how can a company just tell me theres nothing they can do? its obviously NOT working.

Also... you shape/cap p2p downloads until after 00:00 which forces your downloads to go really slow using p2p software or hardware like gaming on the 360 or downloading stuff using the torrent network! even after shaping and capping my service i still only get 1.7mbps download?

Intellix:

Can't leave, tied into a contract. If i leave now and have 10 months left then thats around 10 x 32.99,

£329.99 to end a bad service.

Check your contract, £50 termination fee - full stop. There I saved you just short of £280.

Anyway this a Gas/Electric post, so let's shift any further debate on "www" to the relevant forum in the spirit of MoneySupermarket's rules.

Nice, not sure if its worth it though as we had to pay around £30 to cancel old ISP... guess its worth staying till the end :P dont think there are 10 months left.

Hi,

just joined this forum today. As a Utility Warehouse customer i have been very satisfied with my services, also the UK based customer service centre is the best i have ever dealt with. So much so in January this year i became an I independent Distributor for the company. They are a London based company listed on the stock exchange, and have a open book policy anyone is welcome to view . Were Recognised as Europes Top Performing company in European Business Magazine in 2005 and are still growing strong. They are the ONLY referral-marketing company to be licenced by OFGEM. Also the triple value guarantee mentioned in other areas of this forum,. Plus one bill only for Gas,Electricity, Phone, Broadband and mobile packages.

At the end of the day it will not be for everyone as you can't please all of the people all of the time.SO if you don't like it just switch plenty of people love us and numbers are growing daily.

kind regards, Caroline.

utility warehouse ? never heard of them 'til this posting.

ronbobby:utility warehouse ? never heard of them 'til this posting.

Hi Ronbobby

We don't actively advertise - so no TV, Radio, Paper Media adverts, soley rely on Network Marketing - good old word of mouth/recommendation - then pass on the media savings to the customer. We have about 190,000 customers, mix of business and household. Hope that explains our lack of "billboards".

ronbobby:utility warehouse ? never heard of them 'til this posting.

hi, ronbobby, just as Nigel has said, he could not have put it better. We do not actively advertise these savings are passed on to our Domestic and Business customers.

kind regards.

Caroline

Never heard of them

Well let me ask a few questions.

Why not?

Because they do NOT waste your money advertising!

Because they do not pay MONEYSUPERMARKET.COM loads of your money to be included in Moneysupermarket's comparison sites!

Why not

WELL possibly because you have NOT carried out your own simple research.

I reckon that my electricity bills are 7% cheaper than everyone else in the UK

I reckon that gas is nearly 12% cheaper

(These figures fluctuate but on a rolling year that's the average)

The customer service may be poor BUT that's why you should talk to your distributor He/she is the friendly face and a real person not an offshore call centre

Yes the gasd and electricity come from the same sources BUT the overheads are tiny compared with the big 5

There is no contract on gas and electrics

if you signed a contract for 12 months on broadcall etc then, if you did so without reading the smallprint that's YOUR fault stop whinging and whining and lear to read before putting pen to paper.

All in all over six years I have saved about £13k on my phones, gas and electricity and to earn that money after tax means I have to really earn a lot more.

NO company is perfect BUT the Utility Warehouse IS British and is a whole bunch better than most of the others.

What it boils down to is that those of you who have posted whines and whinges would NEVER be satisfied so why not just go and lie down in a darkened room and stop battering the rest of us with relentless mindless moans

I cannot recommend the Utility warehouse and my Distributor highly enough

Paul

hi, paul i hope you do not class me with some of the folk you mentioned in your post, after logging on to this subject i became intrigued as i genuinely had never heard of utility warehouse, needless to say after reading the posts i will certainly look into it.

I've just been upgraded to LLU after my previous post and have noticed that Utility Warehouse now provide me with TalkTalk broadband for a UW pricing scheme. Opaltelecom provide TalkTalk with the internet that they sell, just as UW do the same for their LLU ADSL.

As for pricing, TalkTalk charge £16.99/month for ADSL + Free Evening and Weekend calls.
Utility Warehouse charge £19.99/month for ADSL + Free weekend calls

Getting all 4 services from UW will give you free calls in the UK all the time
Paying £20.99/month to TalkTalk gets you the same.

But dont forget, UW charge you a "membership" charge and provide absolutely terrible customer service and TalkTalk.

TWO THUMBS DOWN -AVOID- to UW for profitting from someone elses service

Try and justify the above, I bet your going to throw the 'one paper bill' back into my face.

5 47 ms 47 ms 47 ms gig-10-1-rtr001.bre.opaltelecom.net [62.24.254.3]
6 45 ms 46 ms 45 ms gig-9-1-rtr001.hex.opaltelecom.net [62.24.254.10]