Virgin Media - Retention Deals?

[anonymoususer]

r1ch said:

Had a bit of a nightmare with Virgin media today.

Broadband contract ends, £47.99 per month now I’m out of contract. Call up, get offered it for £30 per month over 18 months, then get cut off.

Call back only to be told they couldn’t offer me any discounts and £47.99 was the best they’d offer.

Will be cancelling the contract once I have another deal lined up elsewhere. The lack of negotiation on their part was surprising, I’ll happily switch though.

Folk above will tell you so once again
You only get offered the decent deals if you actually cancel;
i

[vindaloo79]

anonymoususer said:

r1ch said:

Had a bit of a nightmare with Virgin media today.

Broadband contract ends, £47.99 per month now I’m out of contract. Call up, get offered it for £30 per month over 18 months, then get cut off.

Call back only to be told they couldn’t offer me any discounts and £47.99 was the best they’d offer.

Will be cancelling the contract once I have another deal lined up elsewhere. The lack of negotiation on their part was surprising, I’ll happily switch though.

Folk above will tell you so once again
You only get offered the decent deals if you actually cancel;
i

Log into your account online and see what the best deals are showing to upgrade now out of curiosity. I had a similar chat and was cut off. They never called me back.

Buy online was the chance to pay 55p more to switch to 30 day rolling contract amongst better offers to boost speed and service. I chose the 30 days one as it buys me time, but the offers on the phone call we’re rubbish and I asked him to close it three times before he hung up after a 30 minute waste of time negotiating.

[r1ch]

vindaloo79 said:

anonymoususer said:

r1ch said:

Had a bit of a nightmare with Virgin media today.

Broadband contract ends, £47.99 per month now I’m out of contract. Call up, get offered it for £30 per month over 18 months, then get cut off.

Call back only to be told they couldn’t offer me any discounts and £47.99 was the best they’d offer.

Will be cancelling the contract once I have another deal lined up elsewhere. The lack of negotiation on their part was surprising, I’ll happily switch though.

Folk above will tell you so once again
You only get offered the decent deals if you actually cancel;
i

Log into your account online and see what the best deals are showing to upgrade now out of curiosity. I had a similar chat and was cut off. They never called me back.

Buy online was the chance to pay 55p more to switch to 30 day rolling contract amongst better offers to boost speed and service. I chose the 30 days one as it buys me time, but the offers on the phone call we’re rubbish and I asked him to close it three times before he hung up after a 30 minute waste of time negotiating.

Thanks both. Every year for the last 7 years they've dropped it. If you're on a rolling contract I expect to pay more, but if you sign up for x amount of months it should certainly reduce.

[outnumbered]

I've just renewed at the same price I was previously paying. MAXIT TV; 2 boxes (incl. an upgrade to a new box as we still had one old Tivo); 200Mb/s Broadband; Landline + anytime calls for £75. Only took 10 minutes to get through, and straight to someone in the UK rather than offshore. I expect I could have done slightly better by cancelling, but that was competitive with BT/Sky's intro offers, so happy enough with it.

[outnumbered]

outnumbered said:

I've just renewed at the same price I was previously paying. MAXIT TV; 2 boxes (incl. an upgrade to a new box as we still had one old Tivo); 200Mb/s Broadband; Landline + anytime calls for 75. Only took 10 minutes to get through, and straight to someone in the UK rather than offshore. I expect I could have done slightly better by cancelling, but that was competitive with BT/Sky's intro offers, so happy enough with it.

Spoke too soon ! The contract email showed a reduced landline package, so another 20 minutes wasted online and then 20 minutes on the phone and allegedly it's now sorted. Maybe I will get the opportunity to cancel after all...

[JJJSW7]

outnumbered said:

Spoke too soon ! The contract email showed a reduced landline package, so another 20 minutes wasted online and then 20 minutes on the phone and allegedly it's now sorted. Maybe I will get the opportunity to cancel after all...

Cancel, and don’t settle for less than £50/month.

You can do so much better than £75 which is astronomical!

Pleased with my recent renegotiation.

I currently have Maxit TV (190+ channels), M200, V6 Box and a landline with Talk Weekends which I never use for which I was paying £69.75, which is £837/year (I had certain monthly discounts prior to that, so was more like £50/month).

Letter received telling me it’s all going up to £92.75/month. That’s a whopping £1,113 per annum!!

New users were being offered that same package for £49/month plus £150 Cashback, so about £41/month or £492 per annum. This was my target.

Called up to renegotiate and was offered £62/month “less than you’re currently paying”, so pulled the cord and gave my 30 days notice.

Two days later, Retentions called with an OK offer: for current package £44/month or £528/year for 18 months. Didn’t bite, saying I watch lots of Netflix now and use the e-players on catch up for most TV, so I’m only really paying for the benefits of the VM channel interface. Helps I’m in central London, so plenty of competition. Said I would be happy with a fast 500MB Vodafone broadband for £35/month.

He then offered a bump to M350 broadband and an upgrade to TV360 via a software feed to my current V6 box. Only downside is that I lose all my recordings in the upgrade (36% full, so I will get busy watching movies!). I would have held out for a £10 contribution off the Bill, but was in a hurry.

So Maxit TV (190+ channels), M350, TV360 and still have a useless landline with Voicemail and Talk Weekends for £44/month over next 18 months but good for leverage if I ever switch my SIM contract.

Was happy with that, and based on an 18 months contract, the numbers look like this:

ORIGINAL CONTRACT = £1,256
NEW OFFER CONTRACT = £1,670
RENEGOTIATION = £792

So, depending on how you look at it, I can claim a £464 saving over 18 months vs. original contract, or a massive £878 saving over the proposed new offer contract, plus a faster broadband speed and a new TV360 interface for about 20 mins effort! Hope this is useful to others!

[skinnyman]

Just had the email to say I'm in th3 last 30 days of my contract, so I've got this fun to come this afternoon. Currently on:

Full house TV
M200
Extra box
Landline

This is going up to £94.50 in June!! They're going to have to try very hard to keep me, as I'm more than happy to lose the phoneline & TV, in reality we don't watch standard TV anymore, and Vodafone have offered me 67mb broadband (with a £75 Amazon voucher) for just £22, which is perfectly fine with me.

Let the fun begin

[Shiv_P]

£103pm (was £115)
All Maxit TV plus the asian crap for grandma, sky sports etc
M600 internet
2 V6 boxes
Unlimited landline for everything
1x unlimited O2 sim card

[skinnyman]

skinnyman said:

Just had the email to say I'm in th3 last 30 days of my contract, so I've got this fun to come this afternoon. Currently on:

Full house TV
M200
Extra box
Landline

This is going up to 94.50 in June!! They're going to have to try very hard to keep me, as I'm more than happy to lose the phoneline & TV, in reality we don't watch standard TV anymore, and Vodafone have offered me 67mb broadband (with a 75 Amazon voucher) for just 22, which is perfectly fine with me.

Let the fun begin

They offered me M200 broadband only for £28, I've taken it

[anonymoususer]

JJJSW7 said:

.

He then offered a bump to M350 broadband and an upgrade to TV360 via a software feed to my current V6 box. Only downside is that I lose all my recordings in the upgrade (36% full, so I will get busy watching movies!). I would have held out for a 10 contribution off the Bill, but was in a hurry.

Well done without being picky that TV360 thing is something everyone will get anyway who currently has a V6 box.
They have been promising it though for the last 12 months !

skinnyman said:

They offered me M200 broadband only for 28, I've taken it

I genuinely think you could have got that for under £20 had you stuck out etc.
I also think a deals fine if the users happy with it

[skinnyman]

anonymoususer said:

JJJSW7 said:

.

He then offered a bump to M350 broadband and an upgrade to TV360 via a software feed to my current V6 box. Only downside is that I lose all my recordings in the upgrade (36% full, so I will get busy watching movies!). I would have held out for a 10 contribution off the Bill, but was in a hurry.

Well done without being picky that TV360 thing is something everyone will get anyway who currently has a V6 box.
They have been promising it though for the last 12 months !

skinnyman said:

They offered me M200 broadband only for 28, I've taken it

I genuinely think you could have got that for under 20 had you stuck out etc.
I also think a deals fine if the users happy with it

Tbh I'd had enough of my phonecall with Indian John at this point and was happy with the price. Had they actually let me go through with the cancellation it would have cost me £22/mth to switch to 66mb Vodafone fibre anyway

[anonymoususer]

Another number the retention team are using is:

0203 743 6951
And you can ring them back on this one and get connected you get a jolly "hello and welcome please hold the line whilst we connect you to a telecommunication expert. Then you get them (the team) sometimes there is no one actually on the call and you get to hear interesting background chatter sometimes you get a person

[Jinx]

I do hate this merry-go-round. First person can never do anything for you and then you have another wait whilst you get put through to terminations. Then miraculously they can negotiate. I've been with Virgin since 2009 yet I still have to haggle every 18 months just to stop my bills going up. I would love to start a company that rewarded loyalty, focussed on retention and held customer service as a unique selling point rather than a business cost.....

[Muppet007]

Interesting thread.

My Dad (78) has a stupid package with them. Super faster broadband, TV etc. It comes in at £136 a month.
I called them to try and reduce the cost, he does not use the internet, all he wants is sports channels.

Best they could offer £116. On their website the same package is about £50.
He has been a customer for 20 years and 4 months and they could not offer the same package. Disgusting greedy wkers.

The next challenge is to talk him around to cancelling and going with a cheap internet package + Now TV.

[giblet]

100mb at £27, was previously paying £28 before it expired and went up to £47. Could have just cancelled and waited for them to ring me back but didn’t want the hassle

[megaphone]

giblet said:

100mb at 27, was previously paying 28 before it expired and went up to 47. Could have just cancelled and waited for them to ring me back but didn’t want the hassle

You can't that for £24/m

[anonymoususer]

megaphone said:

giblet said:

100mb at 27, was previously paying 28 before it expired and went up to 47. Could have just cancelled and waited for them to ring me back but didn’t want the hassle

You can't that for 24/m

I totally get the " Could have just cancelled and waited for them to ring me back but didn’t want the hassle" bit
It's all a bit farcical for me

I have the sort of opposite issue They keep ringing me and I really don't want their calls. Partly it's because they simply can't beat the deal I get from BT Now and partly it's due to the fact I told them I would leave and having gone elsewhere am very pleased as it was the biggie for me having the new line put in. Only last year I would have had to pay around £75 upwards. It was put in for the £9.99 joining fee
I also have to say that their attitude on the phone when I say I am sorry but I am simply leaving and don't want to go through the same conversation again with you has resulted in poor responses from their retention team.
It's ranged form the phone simply being put down, through being called a liar about the price I am now paying.
I have a contact within Virgin Media on the business team and she is looking into getting the calls stopped

[gus607]

I requested my landline turned off when I haggled, no problem sir, that will be £1 a month more than you are paying now with free weekend calls.
I hate how VM operate & glad I jumped ship & save £40 per month with Three 5G broadband for a much better product than VM offer.

[Hedobot]

Jinx said:

I do hate this merry-go-round. First person can never do anything for you and then you have another wait whilst you get put through to terminations. Then miraculously they can negotiate. I've been with Virgin since 2009 yet I still have to haggle every 18 months just to stop my bills going up. I would love to start a company that rewarded loyalty, focussed on retention and held customer service as a unique selling point rather than a business cost.....

Could not agree more.

After the last painful renewal it will be the last,

The whole renewal "merry go round" is as archaic as it is like dealing with Arthur Daly.

Looking forward to binning them.

[anonymoususer]

gus607 said:

I requested my landline turned off when I haggled, no problem sir, that will be 1 a month more than you are paying now with free weekend calls.
I hate how VM operate & glad I jumped ship & save 40 per month with Three 5G broadband for a much better product than VM offer.

It is ridiculous and ripe for an overhaul