► Household Bills

Scroll down to find a list of organisations and services relating to home utility bills. Alternatively you can select the quick links below.

Quick Links

Glide - Manage your bills easily

Complain About Your Energy Supplier

Having Difficulty Paying Your Energy Bills?

Grants for Utility Bills

Ofcom

Switching Suppliers

TV Licence

NUS Discounts

Glide - Manage your bills easily

Are you worried about how you are going to budget for your bills and chasing your housemates for money?

We recommend using Glide as a student friendly, simple way of managing your household bills.

Glide benefits
• One fixed payment per tenant
• No more chasing housemates for money
• No individual is responsible for any bills
• All utilities is one bill

Find out more
Drop into the SU to speak to the Student Advisor who can let you know how much the service will cost and get you signed up.

http://worcsu.com/files/minisites/19045/tenant-brochure-glide.pdf

Complain About Your Energy Supplier

If you have a complaint it is important to contact your energy supplier first.

Suppliers have to accept complaints made by:

Telephone

Writing (both letters and email)

Submitted via their website

If you need help complaining by any of these methods please get in touch with the Student Advisor.

If at any point you are unsure of your rights the Student Advice Service or Consumer Direct can help 08454 04 05 06 www.consumerdirect.gov.uk

Consumer Focus

Consumer Focus produce a simple leaflet How to complain about your energy supplier click here for more information.

Having Difficulty Paying Your Energy Bills?

It is possible to find yourself in energy arrears on your gas and/electricy accounts for a number of reasons. However, it is important that you deal with the problem as soon as possible, if you delay you could be disconnected. If you need help speak to the Student Advisor.

Consumer Focus produce a leaflet giving advice on what you can do if you find yourself unable to pay your bills, click here for more information.

Grants for Utility Bills

Severn Trent Water

The Severn Trent Trust Fund is a charity established to help people experiencing difficulty in meeting their water charges.

The trust issues grants to help people clear or reduce their water debt. To be able to apply you must receive your water or sewerage services from Severn Trent Water Ltd.

To apply online visit www.sttf.org.uk

Other Water, Gas and Electricity Grants

Charis Grants offer support to domestic customers of nPower, British Gas, EDF Energy, South East Water and Anglian Water.

To apply visit www.charisgrants.com

Ofcom

Ofcom an independent regulator. They regulate the TV and radio sectors, fixed line telecoms and mobiles, plus the airwaves over which wireless devices operate.

Ofcom make sure that people in the UK get the best from their communications services and are protected from scams.

Ofcom produce a number of useful guides including advice for students on keeping connected at university, click here to read the guide.

Switching Suppliers

An easy way to reduce your bills is to consider switching supplier for your utilities or communications suppliers. Before switching please remember to check if your are contracted for a minimum period with your current supplier.

Ofcom accredits and recommends the following comparison sites for communications:

Bill Monitor - www.billmonitor.com

Home Phone Choices - www.homephonechoices.co.uk

Broadband Choices - www.broadbandchoices.co.uk

Broadband.co.uk - www.broadband.co.uk

Cable - www.cable.co.uk

Mobilife - www.mobilife.com

Simplify Digital - www.simplifydigital.co.uk

View Ofcom's video for advice on price comparison calculators

Consumer Focus accredits sites to compare utilities, money, insurance and communications

uSwitch - www.uswitch.com

If you need help to switch suppliers please contact the Student Advisor. You might also like to consider Glide as an alternative way to deal with your utility bills.

TV Licence

A colour TV licence currently costs £145.50 for 12 months, what students are often unaware of is that they may be able to claim a refund for the summer period.

TV licensing have a special information section for students on their website www.tvlicensing.co.uk

If you are in halls of residence check first with the Accommodation Department that you need to purchase a licence, as it may be included with your rent.

NUS Discount

NUS Extra Card Discount

Virgin Media Broadband 9 month contract - perfect for students

The following information is taken from the NUS Extra website, Worcester Students' Union does not recommend or endorse any particular utility suppliers.

When it comes to broadband it’s all about speed and Virgin Media’s officially superfast! Say bye-bye to buffering with up to 30Mb fibre optic broadband in your shared house – according to Ofcom it’s 4 x faster than the UK average†

Here’s why Virgin Media broadband’s just perfect for students;

9 month contracts so you’ll only pay for what you need- why pay bills over the summer when you’re not even around?
Go online all at the same time without slowing each other down
Download and browse as much as you like – no caps, no hidden charges††
Relax knowing that if anything should go wrong, we’ll give you free servicing and repairs**
Don’t want a landline? With Virgin Media you don’t need one!
Want more? Fancy taking TV? No problem! You can take TV on our 9 month contract too!
Get a house of 5 online for just £4.50 a month each* – superfast broadband doesn’t have to cost the earth!

And NUS extra cardholders can get a self install kits absolutely FREE when you sign up to our 9 month contract (standard price £20) to get you online and ready to go straight away!

Contact Us

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