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Union "member benefits"

RubyToogood

RubyToogood

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I'm a Unite member. God knows why, they've never given me much help when I've needed it but anyway. The whole thing feels increasingly like a ploy to sell my data for marketing purposes. There was a phase where people kept calling me purporting to be from Unite and actually trying to sell me life insurance.

I've just been looking through the supposed member benefits on the site and they look shonky as hell. Like the "free financial advice" is actually an hour with an advisor from some large chain. I can imagine what sort of advice they'd be likely to give. Discounts on household items that take you to a very dodgy looking website. That sort of thing.

Am I overly suspicious? Would I be safe taking up the free will-writing thing or would I find myself leaving the contents of my piggy bank to Sue, Grabbit and Runne?
 
RubyToogood said:
I'm a Unite member. God knows why, they've never given me much help when I've needed it but anyway. The whole thing feels increasingly like a ploy to sell my data for marketing purposes. There was a phase where people kept calling me purporting to be from Unite and actually trying to sell me life insurance.

I've just been looking through the supposed member benefits on the site and they look shonky as hell. Like the "free financial advice" is actually an hour with an advisor from some large chain. I can imagine what sort of advice they'd be likely to give. Discounts on household items that take you to a very dodgy looking website. That sort of thing.

Am I overly suspicious? Would I be safe taking up the free will-writing thing or would I find myself leaving the contents of my piggy bank to Sue, Grabbit and Runne?
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My partner did her will through unite, and there wasn't anything shonky about it. I did mine through the unison people and having reread it in the light of your post the money does go to who I want it to
 
I used their house insurance people and they turned out a lot cheaper than my previous one so I changed (mind you I've learned that the only time you find out how cheap is your insurance when you come to claim).

I checked their will writing service, although I've already done mine with the Co-op. I do want to make a couple of small changes but am postponing them. I asked how much it would be to have them as executors and it looked a LOT more expensive than with the Co-op.

Eta: I'd be pretty sure their free will writing service is good. Co-op cost £100 or so which wasn't bad.
 
There are a few sites that do this sort of shopping discount schemes - I have access to one via my employers, one via my professional body (woo) and one via my union. have had similar one way or another for a few years now.

generally around 3 to 5 % or less off (but adds up over a while if you get a discount for wherever you do your regular food shopping) and sometimes there's a special offer this week where the discount is doubled.

most work on the basis of paying up front, so you pay - say - 48 quid and get 50 quid put on your shop gift card. guess they make their money from people forgetting to use them...

Would have thought anything via a big trade union isn't going to be dodgy.
 
It's pretty off if they're selling your details on. They should be abiding by the data protection act. Have you raised this locally? I'd be livid.
 
RubyToogood said:
I'm a Unite member. God knows why, they've never given me much help when I've needed it but anyway. The whole thing feels increasingly like a ploy to sell my data for marketing purposes. There was a phase where people kept calling me purporting to be from Unite and actually trying to sell me life insurance.

I've just been looking through the supposed member benefits on the site and they look shonky as hell. Like the "free financial advice" is actually an hour with an advisor from some large chain. I can imagine what sort of advice they'd be likely to give. Discounts on household items that take you to a very dodgy looking website. That sort of thing.

Am I overly suspicious? Would I be safe taking up the free will-writing thing or would I find myself leaving the contents of my piggy bank to Sue, Grabbit and Runne?
Click to expand...

I think the free will-writing thing is one of the main benefits, but that's partly because it's generally really easy if your situation is fairly straightforward.
 
Never had anyone selling to me direct, but have used a few union services - free legal advice (was helpful), energy switch (got a good deal), insurance (switched since), free will writing service. This is over many years mind.
 
Puddy_Tat said:
There are a few sites that do this sort of shopping discount schemes - I have access to one via my employers, one via my professional body (woo) and one via my union. have had similar one way or another for a few years now.

generally around 3 to 5 % or less off (but adds up over a while if you get a discount for wherever you do your regular food shopping) and sometimes there's a special offer this week where the discount is doubled.

most work on the basis of paying up front, so you pay - say - 48 quid and get 50 quid put on your shop gift card. guess they make their money from people forgetting to use them...

Would have thought anything via a big trade union isn't going to be dodgy.
Click to expand...
Same as the CSMA, Bluelight card, Perks at work - it’s all basically the same platform giving you discounts / cashback.

They can be useful if you take the time to look into it. I’m not sure if its really what a union should necessarily be offering though.
 
Elpenor said:
Same as the CSMA, Bluelight card, Perks at work - it’s all basically the same platform giving you discounts / cashback.

They can be useful if you take the time to look into it. I’m not sure if its really what a union should necessarily be offering though.
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Well they're essentially bartering for discounts in return for a large captive consumer base. Playing at capitalism but not necessarily bad. I'd draw the line at my details being sold on though if that's what's happened.
 
Elpenor said:
They can be useful if you take the time to look into it. I’m not sure if its really what a union should necessarily be offering though.
Click to expand...

Magnus McGinty said:
Well they're essentially bartering for discounts in return for a large captive consumer base. Playing at capitalism but not necessarily bad. I'd draw the line at my details being sold on though if that's what's happened.
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dunno really - i see it as very much a fringe part of union membership

and yes, would agree that if they have actively sold contact details on (the sort of discount scheme i'm thinking of is opt in)

may have been one of those things on an online form where by taking the tick out of this box you are not agreeing that they won't contact you (or something like that)

or could have been a data leak somewhere. one place i worked, you started getting calls from recruitcunts within a few days of ordering business cards which suggests something dodgy going on (that was before GDPR)
 
unite used to contact me for stuff but I think I unticked a box somewhere and they don't any more.
 
I note that it says existing problems aren't covered though (as with all medical-type insurance I presume).

Eta - and I think you'd still need to visit the same dentist. It's only NHS isn't it?
 
Elpenor said:
Is it Denplan?

I have mixed views on this. I currently make a 300 mile round trip to visit my NHS dentist. I might be better off shelling out for Denplan tbh but the real solution should be better access to NHS dentistry not a private insurance policy.
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Dunno, I bin most Union comms unread
 

My NHS dentist charges me privately for some treatments. Will this be covered?​


No. The Unite NHS Patient Plan pays the charges for the three standard NHS bands according to the NHS England scale of charges therefore any claim for Private maintenance or treatment would not be covered.
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Unite Dental

www.union-benefits.co.uk

As Elpenor says there should be available NHS dentists, fucking disgusting that there aren't.
 
Ok, so it’s a way to spread the cost of NHS treatment over a year. But if you go twice a year and have a Band 1 treatment it’s not worth it. If you have a band 2 treatment as well - hygienist? - then it starts to break even.

You still have to pay for the treatment yourself and claim back the cost - which is the same way Denplan works with NHS dentists.
 
People only tend to go to the dentists when summat’s up, so it wouldn’t be worth it, would it? Paying that much each month just in case you may or may not have to have a tooth pulled
 
I’ve just joined Unison and have received details of a member discount for car insurance, some sort of dentist plan, accidental death cover etc,their shopping platform etc. I’ve got mixed views on this as mentioned up thread.

On the one hand a lot of non-unionised companies I worked at offered this sort of thing via a flexible benefits platform so Unison are in effect filling the gap here as it tends to be bigger corporates who offer these benefits IME (and it’s probably a white label third party website so no real cost to unison) but what

However is it really what they should be doing, they probably get a commission for the sales which they can put to positive use.

As for the shopping portal it’s probably no different from Airtime Rewards / TopCashback etc and frankly who needs to register for another website!
 
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