Virgin Media - Retention Deals?

[Hoofy]

Kev_Mk3 said:

tried for a 3rd time today so that's once a month now for 3 months. Keep getting told callback end of the month as they cant do anything.

I suspect they will keep doing that unless you do it properly ie actually take action to cancel.

[Kev_Mk3]

Hoofy said:

I suspect they will keep doing that unless you do it properly ie actually take action to cancel.

Toys thrown out the pram so called and told them to cancel it, they reduced my price to £36 from £50 this bill and then from £61 to £36.45 for 200mb BB with a old mix tv package and landline.

That will do as didnt want the increase as I'd been paying £39 for the last 12 months.

[Hoofy]

Kev_Mk3 said:

Hoofy said:

I suspect they will keep doing that unless you do it properly ie actually take action to cancel.

Toys thrown out the pram so called and told them to cancel it, they reduced my price to £36 from £50 this bill and then from £61 to £36.45 for 200mb BB with a old mix tv package and landline.

That will do as didnt want the increase as I'd been paying £39 for the last 12 months.

[Legend83]

I am pretty terrible at this. Absentmindedly I have ended up on a rolling contract for Player TV and M100 broadband with phone line and have been paying around £55 a month for the last few months.

Decided I don't really need the TV as it's basically a glorified Freeview with a recording box - my hope was I could negotiate a reduced price with just broadband and landline...nope, the bloke reduced my current package cost by £5 (claiming this was the cost of the TV) and said take it or leave it. So if I just want rolling broadband it will be £49 a month.

Only way I could get onto a new fixed contract was to upgrade.

Trouble is VM service is the best in my area so even though I want to leave and save money it will be into inferior BB speeds.

Thinking now I should ring up and cancel - does the 30 day cancellation period apply for rolling contracts too?

[Hoofy]

Legend83 said:

I am pretty terrible at this. Absentmindedly I have ended up on a rolling contract for Player TV and M100 broadband with phone line and have been paying around £55 a month for the last few months.

Decided I don't really need the TV as it's basically a glorified Freeview with a recording box - my hope was I could negotiate a reduced price with just broadband and landline...nope, the bloke reduced my current package cost by £5 (claiming this was the cost of the TV) and said take it or leave it. So if I just want rolling broadband it will be £49 a month.

Only way I could get onto a new fixed contract was to upgrade.

Trouble is VM service is the best in my area so even though I want to leave and save money it will be into inferior BB speeds.

Thinking now I should ring up and cancel - does the 30 day cancellation period apply for rolling contracts too?

Worth a try.

Inferior BB speeds? What's BT doing? What speed do you really need? Doesn't the likes of Netflix require about 30Mb?

[anonymous-user]

My 200 BB was going up from £32 to £39
A quick call, now on 100 @ £30 a month
Plenty fast enough for me (openreach lines are rubbish here so no viable alternative..)

[Legend83]

Hoofy said:

Worth a try.

Inferior BB speeds? What's BT doing? What speed do you really need? Doesn't the likes of Netflix require about 30Mb?

Currently getting close to the 100 in my VM package - Sky/BT website suggests guaranteed 47mb via their FTTC offering.

Re: Netflix - is that 30mb requirement for streaming in one room? What about when the kids want to watch in the kitchen at the same time as we are in the lounge (while my son is playing Roblox!)?

Anyway, rang VM back and got through to retentions who offered me my current package for 12 months at £39 a month - feels like a sufficient enough reduction to avoid the hassle of swapping supplier (better the devil you know and all that).

[Hoofy]

Legend83 said:

Hoofy said:

Worth a try.

Inferior BB speeds? What's BT doing? What speed do you really need? Doesn't the likes of Netflix require about 30Mb?

Currently getting close to the 100 in my VM package - Sky/BT website suggests guaranteed 47mb via their FTTC offering.

Re: Netflix - is that 30mb requirement for streaming in one room? What about when the kids want to watch in the kitchen at the same time as we are in the lounge (while my son is playing Roblox!)?

Anyway, rang VM back and got through to retentions who offered me my current package for 12 months at £39 a month - feels like a sufficient enough reduction to avoid the hassle of swapping supplier (better the devil you know and all that).

Good result! For future reference, I think Talk Talk mention a 67mb average.

[chow pan toon]

I've been with Virgin for 10 years since we moved into the house and they couldn't have been less interested in keeping my custom. Luckily we have just had fttp put in so I'll be paying £28 for 200/200. Waiting for their usual trick of asking for the router back after a few weeks now...

[Legend83]

Hoofy said:

Good result! For future reference, I think Talk Talk mention a 67mb average.

Thanks.

Slight curve-ball - Sky will do Superfast BB (min 47mb), anytime calls via landline, and Sky Entertainment with 1tb Q Box for £41 per month. £130 cashback from Quidco means over 18 months it would be £35 p/m...

[Big Worm 1]

I've been with VM for years, and always happy with them.

Last year, i was paying £56 a month for 100Mb Broadband, Full House TV, and the weekend phone line.

I rang up in December to negotiate a new contract and the lady i spoke to couldn't have been any less interested. She told me for the same service for another 12 months, the price would increase by about £20 a month (even though there were much lower offers for new customers). When i queried this, she said there was nothing she could do.

I then asked what if i decided i wanted to leave, and she just said "i'll process that for you now!". Terrible service from this one woman! I was that disgusted, i just said "ok do it", and figured i could do without it until i got set up with another company. bks to VM! Customer loyalty means nothing! Or so i thought.

I then got a phone call a day or two afterwards from a member of the retentions team, asking why i was leaving. I explained the situation with the customer service adviser, and this retentions person couldn't apologise enough.

She offered me the same rate as the new customer offer, so i ended up with 200Mb broadband (double what i was on before), the same TV package, and an additional TV box for £51.50 per month. £4.50 a month less than i was paying before, for more services.

It was worth taking the risk of actually leaving to get a decent deal. If the retentions team hadn't phoned me, i could have done without it for a couple of weeks, and then signed up as a new customer, or just gone elsewhere, but it all worked out in the end.

[croissant]

Big Worm 1 said:

I've been with VM for years, and always happy with them.

Last year, i was paying £56 a month for 100Mb Broadband, Full House TV, and the weekend phone line.

I rang up in December to negotiate a new contract and the lady i spoke to couldn't have been any less interested. She told me for the same service for another 12 months, the price would increase by about £20 a month (even though there were much lower offers for new customers). When i queried this, she said there was nothing she could do.

I then asked what if i decided i wanted to leave, and she just said "i'll process that for you now!". Terrible service from this one woman! I was that disgusted, i just said "ok do it", and figured i could do without it until i got set up with another company. bks to VM! Customer loyalty means nothing! Or so i thought.

I then got a phone call a day or two afterwards from a member of the retentions team, asking why i was leaving. I explained the situation with the customer service adviser, and this retentions person couldn't apologise enough.

She offered me the same rate as the new customer offer, so i ended up with 200Mb broadband (double what i was on before), the same TV package, and an additional TV box for £51.50 per month. £4.50 a month less than i was paying before, for more services.

It was worth taking the risk of actually leaving to get a decent deal. If the retentions team hadn't phoned me, i could have done without it for a couple of weeks, and then signed up as a new customer, or just gone elsewhere, but it all worked out in the end.

I experienced exactly this with VM, start the process for leaving and they'll call you back within 48 hours begging you to stay. Also happened with EE a few weeks ago when I found a better deal than they would offer. Requested my PAC code and within 10 minutes they called and offered me an unbeatable deal

[Hoofy]

Legend83 said:

Hoofy said:

Good result! For future reference, I think Talk Talk mention a 67mb average.

Thanks.

Slight curve-ball - Sky will do Superfast BB (min 47mb), anytime calls via landline, and Sky Entertainment with 1tb Q Box for £41 per month. £130 cashback from Quidco means over 18 months it would be £35 p/m...

When I was ready to jump, I had been speaking to Vodafone who gave a good deal at the time. Just that Talk Talk are promoting their current deal. Worthwhile bookmarking these sites for when you renegotiate in 12 months!

[EarlofDrift]

Big Worm 1 said:

I've been with VM for years, and always happy with them.

Last year, i was paying £56 a month for 100Mb Broadband, Full House TV, and the weekend phone line.

I rang up in December to negotiate a new contract and the lady i spoke to couldn't have been any less interested. She told me for the same service for another 12 months, the price would increase by about £20 a month (even though there were much lower offers for new customers). When i queried this, she said there was nothing she could do.

I then asked what if i decided i wanted to leave, and she just said "i'll process that for you now!". Terrible service from this one woman! I was that disgusted, i just said "ok do it", and figured i could do without it until i got set up with another company. bks to VM! Customer loyalty means nothing! Or so i thought.

I then got a phone call a day or two afterwards from a member of the retentions team, asking why i was leaving. I explained the situation with the customer service adviser, and this retentions person couldn't apologise enough.

She offered me the same rate as the new customer offer, so i ended up with 200Mb broadband (double what i was on before), the same TV package, and an additional TV box for £51.50 per month. £4.50 a month less than i was paying before, for more services.

It was worth taking the risk of actually leaving to get a decent deal. If the retentions team hadn't phoned me, i could have done without it for a couple of weeks, and then signed up as a new customer, or just gone elsewhere, but it all worked out in the end.

I phoned VM today because I'd noticed my discounts had ended on 23rd January and they'd put my Full House, 200mb broadband up to £83. I phoned them and told them I was leaving as I was cheesed that they are currently offering new customers the same for £49 and I 'm paying over £80.

Also told them sky are doing the same with adequate 50mb broadband for £37.

They told me at the minute they had no more offers to give so I told them to go and speak to their supervisor and tell them a customer of 20 years was leaving because they weren't prepared to be ripped off.

Came back and told me they could give me £5 off and told me to ring back on 1st Feb, my contract had ended and it's moved to a 30 day rolling contract.I told them to put it on the account that I was leaving and if they want to give me a call back with a better offer then we will work from that.

So sick of this having to phone up and try and get a better deal and still paying £70, when I know people getting more with Sky Sports and Movies and they aren't even paying £50. I think there needs to be some sort of law brought in to combat this sort of selling with telecommunications companies. It seems the deal you get depends on what agent you get and what day of the month you call. It's a goddamn racket.

Is there is tricks I can use apart from telling them I'm leaving?

[Big Worm 1]

EarlofDrift said:

Is there is tricks I can use apart from telling them I'm leaving?

They were actually processing my cancellation, rather than just saying i might leave. That's what got me the call from the retentions team. It was a bit of a risk but it worked.

I believe with mobile phone companies, they have a budget each month that they can use to offer discounts. So if you call them at the beginning of the month, they have more money to play with and can offer better discounts, towards the end of the month they have less, or none, so the discounts are poor or the price is the price. Could be the same with companies like VM, Sky, etc.

[Hoofy]

EarlofDrift said:

Is there is tricks I can use apart from telling them I'm leaving?

Prove you're serious. They get so many calls that I think they don't care because people don't leave in the end so start the process, shop around and tell them you're actually leaving. It's a bit like Brexit deals - if you aren't prepared to walk, the other party is ready to laugh at you.

[EarlofDrift]

Hoofy said:

EarlofDrift said:

Is there is tricks I can use apart from telling them I'm leaving?

Prove you're serious. They get so many calls that I think they don't care because people don't leave in the end so start the process, shop around and tell them you're actually leaving. It's a bit like Brexit deals - if you aren't prepared to walk, the other party is ready to laugh at you.

I told them what Sky were offering and all they had to say was that Sky wouldn't permit my 300GB broadband usage.

Edited by EarlofDrift on Thursday 30th January 18:47

[Hoofy]

EarlofDrift said:

Hoofy said:

EarlofDrift said:

Is there is tricks I can use apart from telling them I'm leaving?

Prove you're serious. They get so many calls that I think they don't care because people don't leave in the end so start the process, shop around and tell them you're actually leaving. It's a bit like Brexit deals - if you aren't prepared to walk, the other party is ready to laugh at you.

I told them what Sky were offering and all they had to say was that Sky wouldn't permit my 300GB broadband usage.

Edited by EarlofDrift on Thursday 30th January 18:47

Are they tellling porkies to put you off?

[anonymous-user]

Doesn't matter about telling porkies
Doesn't matter how long you been with them. The best way to get a better deal is to prepare to go
I realise and accept that some people can't do that as there may not be an adequate fibre alternative. But if there is do your research and get your cancellation notice in.

[Hoofy]