Virgin Media: Haggle down your costs.

tamste

Thanks for the tip. Called NTL Customer Services and gone from 3 for £33 to £19.49 (for 6months) for the following:

Base TV pack
1MB Broadband
Phone with Talk unlimited local

A total of £13.50 saved this time on top of the £8.50 saved a couple of months ago when I went onto the 3 for £33, i.e. bill gone from £39.49 to £19.49 (halved) in just a few months. The maths does add up as I added TUL local with the 3/£33.

I will chase up another offer before the end of the 6 months to keep the bills low. Just wondering if I should be very cheeky and call back to ask for a Broadband speed increase at no cost.

Just to put the record straight as I am fed up of seeing continual bad press about NTL, I have been with them (and their predecessors) for around 18 ish years and never had a problem with them. I have always found them helpful and willing to please if only you ask nicely.

maggiem

:rotfl:
Just been reading this thread and decided to try and ring ntl. We were on:

Family 30.00
Unlimited 1MB 17.99
Talk unltd 24 + mob 16.50
Fully itemised billing 1.00

Total 65.49


I spoke to a very helpful lady called Jane and said I felt as if I was paying too much - we have been with them for 7 years and never thought of negotiating a discount!

She straight away offered me all of the above for £44.00 and then said I could have 2mb for £4 more - so 1 call, 20min wait and I am saving £209.88 a year permanently. Furthermore she called me back and said she was unable to upgrade the bb speed so would arrange for a stand alone modem to be installed and then a further call arranging the date next week.

Yippee!:j :j :j - next stop o2 and the mobile!

nicku72

Just been on the phone to NTL and reduced mine...

Old price..
Phone 10.50
BB 17.99
Total 28.49

Now 20.49 for that + talk 24...... worth a go dont you think..
Cheers

FireToad

I've just rung NTL (last thing on a Friday so the guy spoke to sounded pretty worn out! - Must be all us Money Saving Experts ). I said that I could get my services cheaper elsewhere and the guy immediately gave me half-price 10MB broadband for 3 months. Not a huge saving but that's £50 off until August!

Thanks Martin & all those who posted here.

money_money_monica

I love this site so much and yet again it has saved me money. Last year after reading posts on this site I haggled with NTL and got free line rental for a year . This has just expired and I read Martin's article & had a look to see what discounts other people had managed to obtain.

Armed with this information I phoned NTL & asked them to beat the Talk Talk deal and BINGO! :j I managed to get 2 mg broadband (to be upgraded to 4meg in June) + line rental & talk unlimted 24 all for £17.75 a month indefinitely.

Cheers to all previous posts and to anyone thinking about giving this a go, good luck may the money saving expert force be with you!!!!

Mikeymikes

After three attempts I finally have had success in reducing my rental package from Telewest. The first attempt I was completely stonewalled and was left really annoyed, the second attempt was similar. To fan the flames Telewest did a mail drop offering £30 to brand new customers only!!! I got on the phone again and was offered a downgrade, less TV channels and 1 meg broadband. I stuck by my guns and said that it wasnt acceptable. This time I had also done my research a little better and was armed with the facts and figures of other offers and was able to argue my case a lot better. Telewest conceded and reduced my rental package from £50 per month down to £35. The only thing I had to compromise on was broadband from 4meg to 2meg - but I havent noticed the difference at all.

The advise that I would give is have your facts and figures to hand, dont let them bamboozle you (which they will try) and most of all, persevere. Good Luck and thank you to you all for your advice on this.

Destiny33

Destiny33 wrote:

Help please, just off the phone to NTL. Best deal they could offer was follows:

Broadband £9.99 for 3 months (said would be no probs then to continue?)
Talk unlimited free for 6 months
Standing Charge £14

I am hopeless at haggling and any advice would be gratefully appreciated

Many thanks
D
x

Please any help would be so so much appreciated. So far i'm stuck and all this talk of 20 pm and indefinate is so so impossible for me. I am getting a brick wall and they cant do anymore?????


Thank you someone please
D
xx

Mark_Kingston

I called BT to arrange porting my telewest line first then had a discussion with Telewest customer services, they stated that they had been doing price matches until Monday when news broke about OFcom stepping in about the disputes between BT and Talk Talk about costs, which could increase talk talks price. See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/02/carphone_ofcom/

Anyway, they agreed to refund the price of my braodband for this months £25, and on goingly if necessary until Ofcom have resolved the dispute. At that time, Customer service agreed to price match. So for the time being I'll probably cancel the porting.

I have to say Telewest were very helpful. I will wait and see what price matching actually means?

Thanks Martin
:beer:

stuzhunter

I phoned Telewest few weeks ago to tell them that I want to give them 30 days notice to cancel my phone line rental. The customer advisor asked me why?. I told her that I wanted broadband but Telewest broadband was too expensive for me as they are other good deals on the market. She put me through immediately to their retention department. I was offered off-peak caller (6p charge for any local & national phone call in the evening). I am already on talk weekend so I don't pay weekend calls. I was also offered 2mb unlimited broadband for £8.99 for the first 3 months & then 1mb unlimited broadband for £9.99 for the rest of the contract year. Line rental was £ 10.50 but I got a letter saying it is going up to £11 soon. Don't forget also that Telewest offers free fully itemised billing. I've been using Telewest for one & half years I must say that their services are spot on!. but you have to watch their installation team quite closely during installation as they can do some dodgy moves!

45noddy

I'm an NTL customer we just use the phone package as second line (work related issues - no calls made) and it comes with bog standard TV channels.

Phoned 0800 052 9403 the customer Relations number (option 2) and politely said I wanted to leave and was going for Talk Talk. They really slammed Talk Talk (not sure if what they were saying was true?).

Anyhow, got over 1/3 off the current bill and upgraded to a family TV pack.

They also said to phone back in 6 months.

This was the best NTL customer service ever - if you're with NTL you'll know what I mean.

That's nearly £200 in savings since viewing this site in 6 months!