Virgin Media - Retention Deals?

[Phunk]

I'm currently paying £34 a month for 1gig broadband and basic TV and I've just had my letter yesterday, advising of a £9 price rise.

Tried the online bot thing, offered £4.50 discount of 6 months, then went on their Whatsapp. Took a while, they offered a terrible deal at first, told them no and that I wanted to leave. 2 minutes later they then offered to reduce my current deal to £25.

Quite bizarre, and I did confirm that I would be on the exact same deal several times. Happy that instead of a £9 rise, I have a £9 saving.

[megaphone]

Phunk said:

I'm currently paying £34 a month for 1gig broadband and basic TV and I've just had my letter yesterday, advising of a £9 price rise.

Tried the online bot thing, offered £4.50 discount of 6 months, then went on their Whatsapp. Took a while, they offered a terrible deal at first, told them no and that I wanted to leave. 2 minutes later they then offered to reduce my current deal to £25.

Quite bizarre, and I did confirm that I would be on the exact same deal several times. Happy that instead of a £9 rise, I have a £9 saving.

Same happened to me and others, I'm waiting to see if the rise still goes ahead in May, in your case £25 + £9 = £34.00. May bills come out in April, so we'll soon find out.

Edited by megaphone on Thursday 9th March 13:22

[SteBrown91]

I have not had any email regarding a price rise, but I do keep getting calls from a number linked the Virgin media trying to offer me "deals".

I keep telling them Im not interested but a few days later they keep calling me.

I think when my deal is up in August I will move elsewhere as cant be bothered to jump through hoops again to get a deal and dont want to be harrassed by 3rd party call centres working on behalf of VM.

EDIT: Thinking about it I wonder if they are trying to get me onto a new contract so then I am subject to the RPI increases as currently mine is fixed until August.

Edited by SteBrown91 on Thursday 9th March 14:17

[Hoofy]

SteBrown91 said:

I have not had any email regarding a price rise, but I do keep getting calls from a number linked the Virgin media trying to offer me "deals".

I keep telling them Im not interested but a few days later they keep calling me.

I think when my deal is up in August I will move elsewhere as cant be bothered to jump through hoops again to get a deal and dont want to be harrassed by 3rd party call centres working on behalf of VM.

EDIT: Thinking about it I wonder if they are trying to get me onto a new contract so then I am subject to the RPI increases as currently mine is fixed until August.

Edited by SteBrown91 on Thursday 9th March 14:17

This is what happened for me - have you found out what the offer is? It might be better overall than your current offer even with RPI increases.

[SteBrown91]

Hoofy said:

This is what happened for me - have you found out what the offer is? It might be better overall than your current offer even with RPI increases.

No Ive not asked. As I said I think I will likely move away from them anyway now I can get Openreach Full Fibre in my area.

[yeager2004]

After 50 mins or so on WhatsApp, they removed the £7 price increase and gave a further discount. I did have to sign up to a new 18 month contact.

Their initial offer was to increase my 250 Mbit service to 500, throw in some free powerline extenders, and offered a £10/month SIM deal.

I didn't need or want any of that, so pushed for a discount.

The WhatsApp seems better than webchat, but the agent did accidently share someone else's deal with me in the chat, ooops.

[Hoofy]

SteBrown91 said:

Hoofy said:

This is what happened for me - have you found out what the offer is? It might be better overall than your current offer even with RPI increases.

No Ive not asked. As I said I think I will likely move away from them anyway now I can get Openreach Full Fibre in my area.

Sure. I think having an option to bounce between two companies and take their new customer offer is probably the easiest way of getting a decent discount!

[GlenMH]

Hoofy said:

SteBrown91 said:

Hoofy said:

This is what happened for me - have you found out what the offer is? It might be better overall than your current offer even with RPI increases.

No Ive not asked. As I said I think I will likely move away from them anyway now I can get Openreach Full Fibre in my area.

Sure. I think having an option to bounce between two companies and take their new customer offer is probably the easiest way of getting a decent discount!

That is precisely what I am planning to do.
VM sales were ringing me 3-4 times/day before I lost patience and had the conversation. It is purely a sales call to upsell more bandwidth or an O2 sim - they don't seem to have the power to revise your package downwards.

The call went along the lines of:
I have a current contract with another mobile provider so that is irrelevant. We don't watch telly apart from freeview and your box hasn't been connected up for most of the last 10 years so that is irrelevant too. All I am interested in is internet and landline phone.
"We would like to offer you 500Mbs for another £7month" (I am currently on 250Mbs with evening and weekend call package and I am paying waaay too much for it due to previous laziness.)
Ok, so that is pre-price increase so you are actually talking about nearly £14 month increase in April? Taking me to £82/month?
"Yes"
You do know that I can get fibre off the telegraph pole outside my house so VM isn't my only option?
"oh..."
And that Vodafone will provide me with a 500Mbit connection with a call package for £31/month installed in 10 days time?
"Oh. Please don't forget to give us 30 days notice when you cancel."

They haven't called back since.

[bigandclever]

I just posted a question (then deleted, because I worked out the answer) and now I'm in WhatsApp hell.

Let's see what, if anything, they can do. I'm attempting to change the package from M350, Full House TV and Talk Weekends to faster broadband only. And I can get FTTP from a dozen providers, with higher speeds for less money than Virgin offer new customers.

I reckon they're going to just say 'OK, bye'.

[Doofus]

bigandclever said:

I just posted a question (then deleted, because I worked out the answer) and now I'm in WhatsApp hell.

Let's see what, if anything, they can do. I'm attempting to change the package from M350, Full House TV and Talk Weekends to faster broadband only. And I can get FTTP from a dozen providers, with higher speeds for less money than Virgin offer new customers.

I reckon they're going to just say 'OK, bye'.

Virgin wouldn't cancel my tv and phone and give me broadband only. They insisted I had to have an O2 Sim as well "because it's cheaper if you have both".

I'm getting a City Fibre installation on Monday, and Virgin will get told to FO thereafter.

[GlenMH]

Doofus said:

Virgin wouldn't cancel my tv and phone and give me broadband only. They insisted I had to have an O2 Sim as well "because it's cheaper if you have both".

I'm getting a City Fibre installation on Monday, and Virgin will get told to FO thereafter.

Yes - it is getting to the stage that the additional cost of running both for a month is trivial in comparison to the savings to be made from moving somewhere else...

[bigandclever]

Doofus said:

bigandclever said:

I just posted a question (then deleted, because I worked out the answer) and now I'm in WhatsApp hell.

Let's see what, if anything, they can do. I'm attempting to change the package from M350, Full House TV and Talk Weekends to faster broadband only. And I can get FTTP from a dozen providers, with higher speeds for less money than Virgin offer new customers.

I reckon they're going to just say 'OK, bye'.

Virgin wouldn't cancel my tv and phone and give me broadband only. They insisted I had to have an O2 Sim as well "because it's cheaper if you have both".

I'm getting a City Fibre installation on Monday, and Virgin will get told to FO thereafter.

Pretty much where I am. Down to £57.75 £53.75 £42.75 £37.75 with an O2 sim, and M500. They're up against CityFibre and giganet/zen/talktalk plus others at about £35/40 for 900Mbps.

The weekly free sausage roll made me wobble though, I'll give them that.

ETA they're pushy buggers towards the end aren't they. 'One time offer', 'you need to decide now'. Up yours, mate, it's a new contract, I'm going to bloody read it .. and I reckon if I sit here you'll drop the monthly down another fiver

Now down to £37.75, one day till end of contract

Edited by bigandclever on Tuesday 14th March 10:49

[RichA35]

Well after cancelling last Friday and arranging for sky and Zen they have called me 17 times. Today I answered for the first time and they have given me the full tv and sports package with 1gig broadband for £74 a month.

I’m happy with that, it’s around half what they put my price up to and cheaper than new customers get.

[Shinyfings]

They’re a bizarre company and their customer service more or less doesn’t exist. Every renewal I have to go though an attempt to cancel when they double my bill (from under £30 to £60 for 350 broadband this time). Each time I fail to get anyone to take a call but the What’s App route is new and I go through the loop three times. First time crap offer and an attempt to flog me a mobile contract I don’t want. Oddly I then get an email from them offering 1gig for £37 that I’ve never discussed and has no link for me to accept the offer. Try What’s App for attempt two and they go home before any offer and appear to not be aware of the 1 gig email. What’s Apo then contact me for attempt three and again try and flog me mobile contracts despite me asking to cancel. I should add I can just go to BT for £30.99 for 500 but that’ll be hassle as although my street has service there is no overhead cable to my house so would involve chimps drilling into my house. During attempt two I am sent someone else’s mobile offer including their name and mobile number. I give up and email their Customet Service Director and amazingly he replies within the hour on a Sunday stating he’ll pass this on and sure enough I receive a call (missed but not their fault). What an odd company and all they had to do was email me an offer that’s the same as new customers and I would have clicked accept. Instead we go though this routine. In contrast LV sent me a car renewal for a reduced amount (under £450 for two cars). I didn’t have to do anything and for for the likely saving made no attempt to leave. They also answer calls when I’ve had to phone them in the past.

[bigandclever]

How quickly might I expect a CityFibre / Zen installation to be done?

Obvs I could call them before ordering, but the PH-hive knows its stuff.

[timbo72909]

bigandclever said:

How quickly might I expect a CityFibre / Zen installation to be done?

Obvs I could call them before ordering, but the PH-hive knows its stuff.

Had installation scheduled within a week of ordering (you can choose the date when you sign up) but they didn't turn up. Attempt two tomorrow, let's see what happens...

[Doofus]

timbo72909 said:

bigandclever said:

How quickly might I expect a CityFibre / Zen installation to be done?

Obvs I could call them before ordering, but the PH-hive knows its stuff.

Had installation scheduled within a week of ordering (you can choose the date when you sign up) but they didn't turn up. Attempt two tomorrow, let's see what happens...

I booked City Fibre on March 3rd, and they're coming next Monday (20th)

[bigandclever]

Doofus said:

timbo72909 said:

bigandclever said:

How quickly might I expect a CityFibre / Zen installation to be done?

Obvs I could call them before ordering, but the PH-hive knows its stuff.

Had installation scheduled within a week of ordering (you can choose the date when you sign up) but they didn't turn up. Attempt two tomorrow, let's see what happens...

I booked City Fibre on March 3rd, and they're coming next Monday (20th)

I know you're all on tenterhooks .. booked today (14th), scheduled for next week (21st), so that's a positive start, at least. We'll see. Bloody Virgin are ignoring my cancellation now.

[NorthEast]

Anyone been offered a free weekly sausage roll from Greggs as part of a new deal?

[megaphone]

NorthEast said:

Anyone been offered a free weekly sausage roll from Greggs as part of a new deal?

I use the O2 Priority App, a Virgin account qualifies for it, get a free cup of tea most days and a free roll at the weekend.