Hi
I cannot understand why the Utility Warehouse is not on this site? Great deals for Broadband,home phone, mobile phones, and gas and electricity. All on one single monthly bill.

Hi Kevin

Thanks for your email.

We are currently in discussion with The Utility Warehouse about them coming on board and are at quite an advanced stage.

Kind Regards

Jason

---

Jason Lloyd
moneysupermarket.com
0800 298 5770

" We're here to help you find the best deal and avoid the pitfalls through sharing knowledge and experiences."

From what I believe Utiltiy Warehouse won't pay fees to have a site promote them. They believe their Service sells itself via 'word of mouth' and I'd have to agree - it does!

We are still in discussions about Utility Warehouse coming on board but it's not as easy as saying they won't pay to be listed so they're not listed.

It was more down to integration issues more than anything else, with the forhcoming Ofocm regulation I'm sure we'll see Utility Warehouse products listed across many site very soon as a matter of compulsion anyway.

Cheers

Jason

---

Jason Lloyd
moneysupermarket.com
0800 298 5770

" We're here to help you find the best deal and avoid the pitfalls through sharing knowledge and experiences."

Nigel is correct. Utility Warehouse will not appear on any comparison sites as they refuse to pay a commission to any of them. This therefore shows how good a comparison site is at finding the best prices for customers. I helped to set up a Utility comparison site and was dismayed at the way some companies tried to buy there way to the top spot. I hope this site has held strong and agreed a level fee from all its companies. It would be nice to know exactly what commission you get from each referral, just for the sake of transparency.

Remember that any information that a comparison site gives out is only their opinion and everyone should check out other options to be sure that they get the best deal.

I personally prefer to spent time on the internet checking out options for myself.

Phil Yeomans

Business Consultant

In actual fact Phil/Nigel, Utility Warehouse HAD agreed to pay a commission to appear on Moneysupermarket.com.

We decided against listing them for several reasons, the main ones being their management structure and their utility products are not Energywatch accredited.

The way that Utility Warehouse operates is almost like a pyramid selling structure, individuals earn a small, regular commission off customers, sellers usually target their friends, family and local neighbours - i.e. it's in their interests to keep them on as customers.

But if you actually track the company back they have no physical offices in the UK - the majority of the directors of the company are based abroad and still earn very large sums from the 3,000 agents who work for them.

We can't work with an organisation of this nature because there is no accountability.

On the subject of comparison sites, if you tried to run a Utility comparison site was it Energywatch accredited?

---

Jason Lloyd
moneysupermarket.com
0800 298 5770

" We're here to help you find the best deal and avoid the pitfalls through sharing knowledge and experiences."

Jason

 What absolute hogwash!!  The Utility Warehouse are a PLC trading on the London Stock Exchange. Do you think that they would indulge in anything as illegal as Pyramid selling??  As for offices, they are based in North London and if you care to check out the background of the CEO and the management structure you will find they are totally ethical.

Please check your facts.

Hi Kevin

First of all I want to apologise for what I said in relation to Utility Warehouse. It's parent company Telecom Plus are a listed company, and for that I was mistaken, I'm sorry. Telecom Plus have a UK office, is this the same office as Utility Warehouse? Are Utility Warehouse a UK plc?

I actually said the way Utility Warehouse is structured is 'almost' like pyramid selling. When I say this I mean that there are people at the top of the chain of 3,000+ agents who receive commission payments for sales from their agents and so on and so on. If this is now different again I'm sorry for the mistake.

Ultimately we don't feel comfortable working with a company that is structured in this way because the company 'shares' the relationship with their agents who are motivated to retain customers for yearly commission payments based on that customer's usage. It's not a question of implying they're illegal, we just don't like to work with a company whose sales function isn't centralised.

We asked 2-3 agents from Utility Warehouse we were in dialogue with about the company and asked them to forward us the details of their company HQ and relevant commercial contact so we could do a nationwide deal. They told us that there wasn't an office but they could put us in contact with a Director who was based in Spain.

Kevin - my intention is not to annoy or mislead you in relation to this, I'm only going on what the discussions were that we had with two agents from Utility Warehouse and a Spain-based Director who offered us a deal for sales of their product(s).

If you want me to give you specifics in terms of who I spoke to at Utility Warehouse and the their details I'm more than happy to do this.

Kind Regards

Jason

---

Jason Lloyd
moneysupermarket.com
0800 298 5770

" We're here to help you find the best deal and avoid the pitfalls through sharing knowledge and experiences."

Hi Jason

 The Utility Warehouse is a trading name of Telecom Plus plc. There are no director's based in Spain as far as I am aware.  I can only assume these people are referring to an Independent Distributor.  Also, the figure of 3000 "agents" is wildly wrong.  May I suggest you speak to someone in Head Office who will give you the facts:

 TELECOM PLUS PLC

THE EDGE BUSINESS CENTRE

HUMBER ROAD

LONDON NW2 6EW

TEL: 0208 955 5000

All I'm going on is info passed to me from the people we spoke to, (ie the 3,000 agents was told to me by so-called representatives of The Utility Warehouse).

Thanks Kevin, I will definitely speak to someone at Telecom Plus and get the right facts and report back in this forum.

Kind Regards

Jason

---

Jason Lloyd
moneysupermarket.com
0800 298 5770

" We're here to help you find the best deal and avoid the pitfalls through sharing knowledge and experiences."

Never trust so called experts, they're full of mis-information especially if they have an axe to grind, are jealous or work for a competitor.

Telecom Plus are Pyramid shaped as are Moneysupermarket, big boss at the top, cascading down to the real workers!  That's how business structure themsleves, yes there is a commision structure as there is in any Sales organisation including Financial Services - I should know I work for one not far from Moneysupermarket. 

 
Anyway here's where we all should be looking if we want to find accurate detail on Utility Warehouse the trading name of Telecom Plus Ltd.

www.telecomplus.co.uk' at the bottom of the page is a link to 'corporate information' and within this window is the 'Annual Report' - tells you all you need to know.

Hi Nigel_Rimmer

Thanks for providing the link to the Telecom Plus corporate information.

I do take issue with your assertion that so-called experts are untrustworthy. We might be mis-informed but this is only if we're told something by a company that is later proved not to be the case, I certainly don't have an axe to grind, are jealous about them or work for a competitor.

Can you confirm to me that there are at least several hundred (potentially thousdands) of sales agents for Utility Warehouse spread all over the UK who target their friends, families and neighbours with their range of products?

Can you also confirm that these agents receive commissions when people sign up AND also a trail commission if they stay on as a customer the next year?

Can you also confirm that the people who introduce the agents into the scheme also derive a commission for any sale that is derived via an agent they have introduced into the scheme? If you have a large amount of agents under you from which you receive commission, is this quite lucrative?

If so then their structure is not the same as ours, we provide information to consumers and if they want to apply for any product on the site we introduce them to a company, in return we derive a one off commission fee, that's it. There are also several hundred providers listed where we don't get paid a commission as well - if you look at more established channels such as Mortgages you will see this and this is the way that rest of Moneysupermarket.com is moving - whole of market comparison - which is in part driven by regulatory demands.

I fully appreciate that a lot of people have saved money through Utility Warehouse, and I appreciate the feedback about mis-information and I'm following that up as well but as I said before we don't feel comfortable working with a company that has a structure of this nature where sales is not centralised from one source but rather through a network of sales agents.

I hope that in my forthcoming conversations with Telecom Plus that they can suggest a process by which we can list their products without using the sales agent network - if so we'll be happy to list their products.

That was my basic point really.

Kind Regards

Jason

---

Jason Lloyd
moneysupermarket.com
0800 298 5770

" We're here to help you find the best deal and avoid the pitfalls through sharing knowledge and experiences."

Wasn't suggesting you as an untrustworthy so-called expert - MS have done pretty well for themselves and didn't get there by chancing-it - and I've used you loads for Mortgage, Insurance and CC's and I work for a financial company in Chester!  I meant the UW guys you spoke to who got all their facts wrong i.e the Spain connection, the number of agents etc.  They don't sound very credible to me and my suggestion of a competitor/jealousy was directed to them.

Yes there are thousands of agents and yes we recommend UW services to our families, same as I recommend it to anyone, I'd recommend it to you if we met and you showed interest - I'm a nice guy.

We do receive a customer gathering bonus and ongoing commission, not annual, but monthly based on their usage.  importantly this isn't added to the customer as a charge.  The amount you potentially earn is relative to the effort you put in, treat it as a hobby, get paid as a hobby etc

Can't really comment on your upcoming communications with head-office, I'm only a distributor, I believe they will be fruitful and hope both parties come to some sort of arrangement.

Finally, I'd like to re-iterate my first point, I have no issues with you or MS, you're a great business, we have working practices which get confused/tarnished with an old and illegal way of working, we call it Network Marketing, others don't - I can live with that, there's plenty more choice out there, anyone else out there not interested in Utility Warehouse my recommendation use MS for your search, I've seen their offices and they're not small for a reason!   

Sounds like we're both agreeing here Nigel but thanks for your comments I understand the benefits of Utility Warehouse much better now and I'll take these thoughts with me when I speak to Telecom Plus also.

---

Jason Lloyd
moneysupermarket.com
0800 298 5770

" We're here to help you find the best deal and avoid the pitfalls through sharing knowledge and experiences."

Jason, you wrote: "In actual fact Phil/Nigel, Utility Warehouse HAD agreed to pay a commission to appear on Moneysupermarket.com.

We decided against listing them for several reasons, the main ones being their management structure and their utility products are not Energywatch accredited."

This was followed by posts by yourself explaining that they had no UK offices and you had got this information from one of their distributors. So, who at Utility Wherehouse DID agree to pay commission to appear on Moneysupermarket.com?

I hope the rest of your site is better informed and shows a higher standard of reality to truth, than you have been throughout this thread.