A couple of years ago I used to have my phone, gas and electricity with the UWDC but as other companies became for competitive and energy prices went crazy I eventually took all my business elsewhere. Since then the UWDC has actually increased its prices for Broadband whilst others have been reducing theirs, why is this?

Their 2MB broadband with just a 4GB download limit with unlimited calls to Geo no's is a ridiculous £27.99 and their home phone package on its own is £9.50 for unlimited Geo calls. On top of this you have to pay £1.76 a month just to be a member. Surely they are going to have to get competitive if they are going to stay in business?

I have also been quite scathing about U.W. on the MSE Forum (under utilities thread) and I too am one of their distributors who is in voluntary redundancy.

Dolly wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2006 at 10:13pm:


You wouldnt by any chance be the Telecom Plus /Utility Warehouse distributor who owns that domain that goes to an affiliate link,and therefore SPAMMING this site.They do seem to make a habit of doing this on money saving site,s.

They are  not cheaper then BT. Have a read here what people think about this Cowboy Outfit.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=275088&highlight=telecom+p...

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=106377

Edited:

Perhaps they are working it out at 5.5p first sixty minutes then 3p next 15mins if so crafty advertising!

They also compare their D/D price for line rental £11 against BT,s non D/D price of £12.

However they themselves are not that keen to offer non d/d facilities ,if the begrudglingly do they stop you having the free UK calls if entitled,and charge you an extra 10% on your bill each month until you start paying by d/d.

https://www.utilitywarehouse.co.uk/store/tacs/tacs.pdf ; Section 4(c)

Dolly wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2006 at 10:13pm:


Dolly

If you really want to save money then you ought to have left BT for someone else other than UW.

I became a UW distributor at the time that they guaranteed the cheapest energy in the UK. They are now one of the most expensive and their other products can be bettered by many other companies.

Their new Broadcall package which includes home phone appears on the surface to be a good deal but when you look at it closely you realise that it is not. You still have to take 2 other services to get all of your calls free.
Anyone who chooses to pay their extortionate energy prices just to get free calls has clearly been hoodwinked.

If you want cheap phone calls and you have a BT phone line you can use call providers such as 1899 or 18185 or if you make over 125 calls a month, then sign up to Skytalk at £500 per month for unlimited calls.

Okay you dont get onebill (which is UW's unique selling point), but at least you will save yourself lots of money and that is what this message board is all about.

By the way, although I have paid my £199.50 to be a UW distributor, I no longer promote of sell their products as they are so uncompetitive and I do have ethics.

4PetesSake wrote on Nov 25^th, 2006 at 10:09pm:

Peter, missing decimal point typo there - I'm sure you meant £5.00 per month!

Oh my goodness!!   I have been with UWDC for over 18 months & had generally been very pleased with the service, I had found the broadband trouble free (in contrast to the problems experienced with broadband by most people I know who use other servers - I have the unlimited download officially at 256k but which automatically loads at 1mg which is fine for me).   As I have always concentrated on checking the bills, I hadn't noticed the change in the customer service number.   Needless to say, I have now fired off a very angry email to them and will pass my comments to my agent, who as the person whom we have dealt with for all our computer needs for nearly nine years as his son was a friend of our son, may just take some notice.   I did notice that their new package was rubbish.   

Now I also need advice.   As I may well now seek an alternative provider, does anyone know a good broadband service with unlimited download (we don't have cable or satellite, I know AOL and Tiscali are rubbish - the latter charging extra to a relative for what should be unlimited download!) at a reasonable price (currently pay £15.95 per month), together with a good inclusive call package (24/7 as I do most calls during the day and we pay line rental to UWDC as well).   I don't want to be bothered with extra boxes or dialling codes before numbers, I did try OneTel but they were awful.   Ideally I want UK call centres (which UWDC did have last time I called them).   I also use UWDC for electricity (we have no gas and when we changed to them it was the first time we had ever changed), can't remember who we were with previously but they were really rubbish, they were seriously criticised on Look East recently & when we changed I had to report them to the regulator who confirmed their poor reputation.

Any help gratefully received & thanks for alerting members to this issue.