Virgin Media Retention thread

visidigi

daveandgem wrote: »

Thanks everyone. On reflection negotiation points would seem to be (in priority):

Talktalk offer c. £9pcm (BB and phone after cashback)
Don't need the XL anytime phone
No line rental price increase please
Ask for more loyalty discount due to extra year being a customer
Superhub 2 request
Any extra one off bill credits and full itemised billing
12 month contract rather than 18m ? (see below)

Can you let me know if I've missed anything obvious - thanks !

Question for everyone - what if your contract length (18m) is different to your line rental saver (LRS) period (12m) ? Hypothetically in 12m time you have a choice of whether to renew LRS... If you do then potentially you are kinda tied in when it comes to contract renewal. If you don't then you lose the back end of 6m of LRS. Any ideas ?

You can get 12 month commitment on renewals, ask for it, there is no need to renew phone at 18 months.

As regards LRS, make sure you are clear this is how you want to pay - so that you don't get confused with the pricing being offered.

visidigi

MrsBlue wrote: »

Hello everyone, hope all is good, just being friendly first post and all that

I`m hoping this is the right thread to discuss this, it seems it and is concerning Virgin Media!
First off some details. This is my parents household, i`m currently living there but am no spring chicken. They have been with Virgin Media for many years for phone, broadband and tv, actually since it first came to the area as Nynex (then NTL), with a one year period with Sky about 6 years ago.
Last August Virgin sent a letter saying the price of Sky Sports would be increasing by £1.50 and my old man was not happy.
Basically he phoned Virgin and asked to be put through to cancellations. He said he wasn`t happy about the amount he was paying and if they (Virgin) didn`t offer a better price then it would be adios.
The lady on the Virgin side offered a 12 month contract for a package price of £88.24 and explicitely said that this would not go up for the lengh of the contract (12 months to August 2014). My Dad was happy with this so told them to go ahead with it. Nothing was sent as confirmation and nothing was signed.
Fast forward to this month and my Dad noticed his monthly package bill had gone up :mad: Not happy we have phoned Virgin this morning and spoken to numerous people (allegedly a manager but for all i know they could just be passing the call between themselves) and the`ve said they sent out a letter in November with regards to the increase. We never received said letter, and even so had been told that we would be paying £88.24 until August 2014.
Whoever it was i spoke to would not budge an inch on this price (apparently we already get a £10 loyalty bonus). I said this was a disgrace and asked about cancellation whereby was told there would be a fee of around £200.

What are my best options next?

As far as we were concerned we had a 12 month contract at £88.24 with no price increases (i was privy to the conversation).
Virgin have increased the price and said they are well within their rights to do so, having allegedly sent a letter (which a lot, including us don`t seem to have received).
I asked the 'manger' to pull up the phone conversation from August but she said she wasn`t allowed!
Nothing was ever signed, these were verbal agreements, what sort of legal standing do both parties have, if say we said we want to cancel now but won`t pay any cancellation fee?
Do we have no option but to wait until the contract is over then leave? Surely they cant just increase prices like this or they could just add an extra £xx every month and you couldn`t do anything!

Current package:
XL Tv
60Mb Broadband (xl)
Sky Sports Package
Talk Unlimited
One Tivo box and a V+ box upstairs

Was £88.24 now £93.99.

Any advise would be appreciated

Many thanks, sorry it`s a bit long or in the wrong place (please move to appropriate place mods if so),
MrsBlue

There is no guaranteed price, this is very clearly laid out int he original contract you agreed, verbal contracts are also binding, as it was a continuation of service there is no notice period.

The price rise was communicated via email, mail and other channels - they can increase it because current contracts allow, Ofcom is changing this so in future in term increases will not be allowed.

SteveBentley wrote: »

I've just called retentions and renegotiated. Was paying £38/month for 20Mb and phone, pointed out that £35/month would get me "up to" 78Mb and line rental with plusnet inc a new router.

Now paying £35 for 60Mb, phone and new router. Not a bad result when I didn't tell them that plusnet's checker said I had no chance of the 78MB and 48Mb was as good as it gets!

They also offered something like £31/month for 30Mb and phone, but as I'm streaming a lot of TV to my roku, 4 quid to double the bandwidth seemed like a decent deal.

They knew exactly what you could get in terms of bandwidth - they've given you a deal they still have a margin on - as long as they make money, they'll deal.

Speth87 wrote: »

Hi all; spoke to VM yesterday to request a disconnection as spoke to them in Jan and offered next to no discount and then upped my monthly price! I'm happy to leave and get separate services if needs be, but also wouldn't mind them calling me back and offering a discount to stay until my flat contract comes up and I know if I might be moving (most new deals have lengthy contracts and hefty moving charges so trying to avoid!).

Only snag is that they've started sending me details about packaging deliveries etc so I can return the equipment at the end of my 30 day notice; does this mean I can count myself out of the "please don't leave" call?!

Thanks!

You won't be counted out, but they certainly only bother with calls where they have a margin to work with - if you are already on significant discounts or are expecting the world for 50p they simply don't seem to call.

Getting different elements from different supplies is incredibly overated. Its a pain, without a doubt.

Dave360180

Ferris - can you comment how you got 250 mins to 0870 numbers at anytime even though you only had evenings and weekend calls ? Ta!

Del_Boy_Gupta

Del_Boy_Gupta wrote: »

I contacted them last night as my contract is due to end in March. I quoted Sky's movie deal including Quidco which if you factor the boots voucher as cash amounts to £29 odd for the TV including movies, phone line and broadband.

I explained this was only marginally more than broadband only with it- £25 after end of contract.

After along chat in which sky was poo-pooed by them the advisor offered £13 for six months and £18 for the remaining six months for 30mb broadband only.

This averages out to £15.50. I rejected the offer and carried on with my cancellation. My view is that they can go lower. I reckon they can reduce it by another couple of pounds. Anyone got any experience of this for boradband only.

He did offer £18 for six months and £23.50 for six months for b/b and landline. However I don't wish to move to cable landline with Virgin.

Well I got two phonecalls today from Virgin. Unfortunatley I was at work so unable to enter into too much in terms of haglling with them.

The upshot was that as a loyal customer they were willing to give me a superhub 2- normal cost £20 but waived. She insisted this was required even though when I had checked previously based on 30mb connection superhub 1 was fine. What about the cost- her response was wait for it b/b only for £19. The girl from retentions when I mentioned I had been offered lower by its advisor last week which I had turned down said Ok I will knock £5 off per month for 6 months to bring it down to £13.

When I pointed out I had been offered lower and of course a fiver off £19 didn't make £13, she corrected herself and said £14 for six months.

The upshot was that she was not prepared to go lower so I said to proceed with the cancellation.

What do you think. I would probably go for £13 for 6 months and £18 for six months with the new superhub but unlikely now to get it?

visidigi

You don't tend to get more than one go with the outbound retention calls.

I fear you might have pushed for too much - the problem now is when you call back you will be back to the original offer, at best.

CrashUK

c_smith wrote: »

My package was getting too expensive and I was offered a better deal with Sky, so I called VM last week to see if they could improve on my package. They only offered to save me money by cutting my services so I gave notice to leave.

I've since received a call offering the following:

XL TV with upgrade to TIVO
Additional V+ box
60mb Broadband
Weekend Calls
Line Rental
12 month contract

for £54.99 for the first 6 months and £59.99 for the following 12 months. They're also throwing in 3 months free TV and adding a credit to my account to cover this. After working out the total cost over the duration of the 12 month contract, it works out at £49.99 a month which I'm quite happy with.

Still think that too high.

I pay £25 pm for 60 mbit internet on a 12 month contract. Its £25 for 18 months. after that £30

voip localphone line rent 75p PM - I use my own virgin number after it was ported from virgin. Also calls are a lot cheap.

Also had to buy a voip to phoneline adapter that was £20 off ebay.

I use a mediacenter for my tv which can record 4 channels at once on freesat. Also use mediacenter to download movies and tv shows + use it for iplayer

fd1972uk

I really need to get myself sorted with this too, they did send a letter out in November after me only agreeing a contract in August, but I thought I was exempt and it was just a usual mail-drop.

Now my increase is a little more than I thought.

But it's my own fault, but come August, I'll see what deal I can get, get Phone (Eve/W-E), XL TV, L B/B, it was coming in at just over £50ish, but it's now £55.35.

But tbh I'm going to totally rip the TV deal, as our little one was the main reason for keeping the XL package as it has a lot of the cartoon channels, but she is more watching stuff on her tablet and playing the Xbox, and we hardly watch the TV ourselves.

So thinking that I'll be re-jigging our deal come July/August when it ends.

And this time I'm going to phone when the increase letter comes up.


FD

Del_Boy_Gupta

visidigi wrote: »

You don't tend to get more than one go with the outbound retention calls.

I fear you might have pushed for too much - the problem now is when you call back you will be back to the original offer, at best.

well thought I would just provide an update. Phoned back Virgin explained the two deals I had been offered and asked if i could get the original offer (£13 for 6 months and £18 for six months and the new superhub). End result was that yes I could have that so in the end got slightly better than either retentions person had offered.

Also due for the 50mb free upgrade with effect from May-July. At £15.50 on average for BB I can't really complain.

c_smith

CrashUK wrote: »

Still think that too high.

I pay £25 pm for 60 mbit internet on a 12 month contract. Its £25 for 18 months. after that £30

voip localphone line rent 75p PM - I use my own virgin number after it was ported from virgin. Also calls are a lot cheap.

Also had to buy a voip to phoneline adapter that was £20 off ebay.

I use a mediacenter for my tv which can record 4 channels at once on freesat. Also use mediacenter to download movies and tv shows + use it for iplayer

The normal price for my services is £67.99 a month, so the way I see it, saving what amounts to £18 a month over the 12 month contract is a good deal. Maybe its not as good as some others have managed to get, but I'm happy with it. Virgin are running a business, they can't give services away to the point where they're not making a profit and we've reached a deal that benefits us both.

You make a good point about the VOIP thing though, and this is something I'll certainly look into next year when my contract is up.

me0000

MrsBlue wrote: »

) and the`ve said they sent out a letter in November with regards to the increase. We never received said letter,and said they are well within their rights to do so, having allegedly sent a letter (which a lot, including us don`t seem to have received).

MrsBlue

Funny that.
Our BB has gone up in price.
When I called up to find out why the price had gone up, they said they wrote to us in November last. We never received any such letter. I would have cancelled if I had.
They said it was not their problem if it got lost in the post / I didn't get it.