Virgin Media Retention thread

Rev

spud17 wrote: »

Very similar to me, I have a theory that because you have BB only and won't take all their services, they want rid of you.

Think about it, sorry if stereotyping, e.g the wife wants phone, the kids want BB and you want TV, then they have 3 bargaining points when you want to leave.

I've moved to O2, via Topcash, now get 6Mbps, all being well it should work out at £22 for the year.

I assume they didn't attempt to call you and ask you to stay?

I'm kinda annoyed, I've been with them since they were cableinet and 512kbs was the fastest speed they offered. And I've always upgraded to the fastest speed as soon as it's been available.

Having spoken to someone in BT the fastest my line can handle is 4meg, damn huge drop from 50meg. Half of me wants to call back and say I'm staying, the other half thinks 'sod em, I'll take my custom else where' lol

I do agree with your point, the more cash they can get the better but surely they're a business, they want custom.

We have a BB with virgin, land lane with BT and TV with sky. Sky gave me 25% off for a year, BT gave me free any time calls for 6 months. Yet virgin can't knock a £5 off?

gjs6385

Can someone PM me with where to watch it or can I pay and watch it officially?

How much have people been offered sky sports package for by retentions? Any cheaper than the standard? I'm thinking of trying to pretend I was offered it for £5 per month or something when I spoke to them lol.....

Anyone please??

fitshase

gazsharpe101 wrote: »

Can someone PM me with where to watch it or can I pay and watch it officially?

How much have people been offered sky sports package for by retentions? Any cheaper than the standard? I'm thinking of trying to pretend I was offered it for £5 per month or something when I spoke to them lol.....

You could sign up for a sky player account (clicky) but it's not cheap.

jem16

Rev wrote: »

I assume they didn't attempt to call you and ask you to stay?

I've done this twice now with Virgin. Last year they gave me a 12 months contract with XL phone and L BB for £13.95pm and a £30 credit. This was for 12 months. I did have a problem with them after 5 months when they tried to put the price up by £11 claiming I had been given a 6 months free line rental offer. Email to the CEO sorted that.

This year they offered me XL phone with 0845/0870 numbers and L BB for £16.94. This would be for 18 months but price would go up after 12 months by £6pm - possibly more as I didn't really listen when I eventually got it out of them about the increase after 12 months.

I told them I wasn't interested in any deal where the price changed after 12 months and I was tied in for 18 months - that was 30th December and haven't heard from them again. Disconnection is on 22nd january.

I'm kinda annoyed, I've been with them since they were cableinet and 512kbs was the fastest speed they offered. And I've always upgraded to the fastest speed as soon as it's been available.

I have been with them for 15 years going through the speeds as they were offered. I stopped at 20Mb though. Last year I moved down to 10Mb when I accepted their offer - didn't notice any difference to be honest.

What do you use your connection for?

Having spoken to someone in BT the fastest my line can handle is 4meg, damn huge drop from 50meg. Half of me wants to call back and say I'm staying, the other half thinks 'sod em, I'll take my custom else where' lol

What LLU operators are available on your BT exchange? These will usually offer ADSL2 and a higher speed. I took out O2 BB last year as I got 3 months free and £75 cashback from Quidco and fully intended going to them which is why I handed in my notice to Virgin. This meant the O2 BB has been free for this last year but I also had Virgin 10Mb BB because of the deal offered. I have found no difference between the 5.5Mb/6Mb that I get with O2 compared with the 20Mb/10Mb that I got with Virgin. I don't do a lot of downloading.

I do agree with your point, the more cash they can get the better but surely they're a business, they want custom.

Yes but they are looking for you to take more services.

We have a BB with virgin, land lane with BT and TV with sky. Sky gave me 25% off for a year, BT gave me free any time calls for 6 months. Yet virgin can't knock a £5 off?

Their discounts are better if you have another service such as the phone even if you don't use it.

I have not used my Virgin phone line for years as I went back to BT for calls as they were much cheaper. However I found that there was only a difference of £1pm between having the Virgin phone and not having it. Having the phone meant I could negotiate the deal better. I've only started using the Virgin phone this last year as they gave me Anytime calls.

spud17

I assume they didn't attempt to call you and ask you to stay?

They did call back after a couple of days.

We just repeated our original retentions conversation, £15 for BB (L) or £15.99 BB(L) plus phone.

They again told me I'd never get more than 2/3Mbps, actually I get around 6, in line with my research.

Just to add, regarding the drop in speed, the only large downloads I make are Linux distros, it now takes around 18 minutes compared to the previous 12 minutes.

I can live with that considering that this year I'll save £158.

spud17

Yes but they are looking for you to take more services.

That's it exactly, they'd rather you have 2 or 3 (M) services, then when it comes to offering deals there are more points to negotiate around.

Rev

I do download a lot so notice the speed difference.

I did go with o2 for about a week last year, their site said i could get 17meg, I in fact got just over 4 meg, and they are operating LLU in my area.

jem16

Rev wrote: »

I did go with o2 for about a week last year, their site said i could get 17meg, I in fact got just over 4 meg, and they are operating LLU in my area.

I would find it very unusual for O2's estimate to be so far out. O2's estimate for me was 7Mb - in reality I usually get about 5.5Mb - 6Mb and probably could get more if I used the master socket.

What package did you try out for a week and what is your internal wiring like? Do you have extension sockets and was that what you were using to connect?

spud17

Anon wrote: »

Was the phone with any package or phoneline/M only?

Many thanks

Anon

I'm sorry but I can't really remember, , I'm pretty sure she just said phone, and TBH I was only interested in what they were offering for BB.

spud17

jem16 wrote: »

I would find it very unusual for O2's estimate to be so far out. O2's estimate for me was 7Mb - in reality I usually get about 5.5Mb - 6Mb and probably could get more if I used the master socket.

In general O2 are conservative with their estimates.
In my case, all the estimates came back at 5Mb, except VMs 2/3Mb :cool:.
In reality it's +/- 0.2Mb of 6Mb.