Virgin Media: Haggle down your costs.

mrwibble

crazy_house wrote: »

THEY HAVE ALWAYS HELP ME, BUT I DONT PLAY GAMES TELL THEM THE ISSUE OR WHAT YOU WANT AND THEY WILL GIVE YOU A STRAIGHT ANSWER

Agreed - I was brought up in Yorkshire ! They will only give you the best deals though if you cancel your service - just asking doesn't get in this instance you have to play the "cancellation game" by calling retentions and giving notice - I told them what deal Sky was going to give me - £37 pm with no install fees plus wireless router to replace my flaky one - and they agreed and gave me the deal.

I did not like the initial deal at £44 pm with £50 install when I first spoke to Retentions - asking them twice to remove the install fee but it was a "no" so would have moved to Sky if I didn't get a call-back.

Suggest we are all getting what we want by asking !

brandon28_2

I am with VM paying £42.99 including a existing customer discount of £19.50 The package I have is

Phone M
BB 10Mb M
TV XL
V+ HD old style box
also old style motorola wired router

Not in a 12 month contract at the mo would it be worth giving the retenion team a call for a better deal, also what is there number, was thinking of asking for a better discount or getting larger BB and a newer router

sweetie258

Well have been a virgin media customer for 2years,

have M tv, 10mb BB and basic phone, but due to 0845 numbers, bill usually £35-£40.

After disconnecting, well said that 2 weeks ago, got retentions call today, and have 30MB BB, M+ TV V+ hd box, basic phone plus free 0845 and 0870 numbers for £35 plus free installation, inc HD activation.

And told after 12 months ring through to retentions to get the best deal!

So all should try!

mrwibble

brandon28 wrote: »

I am with VM paying £42.99 including a existing customer discount of £19.50 The package I have is

Phone M
BB 10Mb M
TV XL
V+ HD old style box
also old style motorola wired router

Not in a 12 month contract at the mo would it be worth giving the retenion team a call for a better deal, also what is there number, was thinking of asking for a better discount or getting larger BB and a newer router

You know what you want but you need to tell them that Sky is offering you a better deal.

So "Sky is offering Entertainment pack, Sky+ and 20Mb BB (incl wireless router) for £37 with no setup" or something similar based on whatever Sky package you like.

They will say "Virgin BB better and phone will cost £12.99 from BT" but just stick to guns - maybe say "not happy with charges on phone calls and need to keep costs down so Sky BB acceptable and they are throwing in a new Sky+ box and a wireless router - would like to stay but I need to save money - what can you do ?". Don't hesitate or offer any other information.

Your aim is to get presumably - at least £5 off a month, better deal on phone, Superhub plus 30Mb BB and maybe a newer V+ HD box ?

Not sure what you mean by "old style" HD box ? Compared to Tivo or current V+ HD box ?

Cancel if you don't get deal you want then wait for call back - make sure you give mobile number when they ask ("just in case anyone needs to speak to you" !) as you want to get an outbound retentions call a couple of days later.

That is where you repeat what Sky are offering - get them to beat your Sky number.

Hope it goes well for you !

jenks282_2

Hi,

I phoned up retentions today and was offered

M+ TV
L BB
L Phone
500 Tivo
keep V+ box
line rental

£35

got a call back 10 mins later saying the system should not have let the salesman offer me that and that he was sorry.

Not as sorry as me!

tictak

Im currently paying £39 a month for tv, phone and broadband.We have what was known as the family package for tv.I dont know what sort of box we have but its one of the original ones.We dont have record facility or anything anf im confused about all the abbreviations but i dont think our package is good compared to some ive read about on here.What should i be asking for... thanks in advance

brandon28_2

mrwibble wrote: »

You know what you want but you need to tell them that Sky is offering you a better deal.

So "Sky is offering Entertainment pack, Sky+ and 20Mb BB (incl wireless router) for £37 with no setup" or something similar based on whatever Sky package you like.

They will say "Virgin BB better and phone will cost £12.99 from BT" but just stick to guns - maybe say "not happy with charges on phone calls and need to keep costs down so Sky BB acceptable and they are throwing in a new Sky+ box and a wireless router - would like to stay but I need to save money - what can you do ?". Don't hesitate or offer any other information.

Your aim is to get presumably - at least £5 off a month, better deal on phone, Superhub plus 30Mb BB and maybe a newer V+ HD box ?

Not sure what you mean by "old style" HD box ? Compared to Tivo or current V+ HD box ?

Cancel if you don't get deal you want then wait for call back - make sure you give mobile number when they ask ("just in case anyone needs to speak to you" !) as you want to get an outbound retentions call a couple of days later.

That is where you repeat what Sky are offering - get them to beat your Sky number.

Hope it goes well for you !

Called the retentions line twice with no success, also sent a mail to the complaints department asking what deals there are for existing customers as also looking at other suppliers but did I say did not want to move, did not expect a reply but got a call back today but was in bed due to being on nights so the guy said to my Mrs that he would send a mail which he and the up shot is I still have the same package but I have got a deal where I got 1/2 price line rental so my new bills will be £33.99, so for any one out there it is worth keeping at them

bullfrog_2

We were paying £36 per month for Line Rental, 10MB broadband and the TV package (L Broadband, M TV, XL Phone) as follows:

Telephone Line Rental £12.99
Talk Unlimited £8.00
Phone, Bband & TV M Discount -£11.00
Broadband Size: L £26.00

Using information elsewhere on this site I saw that if I had a BT phoneline I could get line rental and broadband for under £11 per month. So I worked out that I could have a new telephone line installed and take out Line Rental and Broadband with another provider at a cost of £18.61 PM in year one, falling to no more than £13.28 PM in year two.

I consequently called Virgin and told them:
1) We had been given a Freesat satellite kit so we didn't need their TV channels anymore.
2) We had call-inclusive mobile phones and so we didn't use their landline.
3) The only Virgin service of any value to us was the Broadband and it wasn't worth £36 per month.

Their customer service rep repeatedly tried to persuade me that the telephone line based ADSL broadband speed would be disastrous compared to the Virgin cable speeds (As an engineer, I knew this to be nonsense).
After much haggling the best he could offer was to provide the same package that we were already on for £15 per month, for 3 months, rising to £21 per month thereafter.

I told him that I could get the same service elsewhere for £13 per month and asked him to process the disconnection - you have to give them 30 days notice so they arranged for an engineer disconnection and equipment retrieval 30 days from the date of my phone call.

I left it a couple of days to give their Retentions Team a chance to get back to me. They didn't, so I placed an order for a new line with a competitor. Fortunately, by delaying for a few days I found a deal with Primus (also via this website) which gave me a free line installation, line rental and broadband for £15.78 per month.

Today, precisely 7 days after I cancelled the Virgin contract, I got a call from Virgin Retentions. They offered to keep me on my current package (L Broadband, M TV, XL Phone) for a total cost of £13 per month.

Now that's a good deal and had they called me last week I would have accepted. As it is, I will carry on with my migration back to ADSL because it will put me in a better position to roam the market again for the best deal next year. If you're on ADSL you have a choice of many providers, if you're on Virgin you have a choice of one provider.

Or, as my wife put it: "They've been charging us £36 per month for ages and NOW they say they can do it for a third of that? #**# them!"


It appears that the Retentions Team have a lot of calls to make so if you want to reduce your bills the best advice I can give is this:

1. Research the alternatives offered by competitors.
2. Haggle with the Virgin reps and tell them the offers available to you from their competitors.
3. Hold out for an offer which betters that of the competition.
4. Don't be surprised when they refuse to match the competition and then offer to disconnect you.
5. Sit back and wait for the Retentions Team to call you, this may take some time (a week in my case) - Retentions will almost certainly call, so just be patient.
6a. Accept the new shiny contract from Retentions and celebrate your haggling mastery.
6b. Alternatively, decide to ditch Virgin anyway and go with another provider at a slightly higher initial cost with a view to save money from year 2 onwards.


I hope this helps some-one else to find or negotiate a better contract. The more churn in the marketplace, the more aggressively competitive the providers will become and the bigger the savings for the consumer.

Regards,

Bullfrog.

Scots

bullfrog wrote: »

I hope this helps some-one else to find or negotiate a better contract. The more churn in the marketplace, the more aggressively competitive the providers will become and the bigger the savings for the consumer.

Regards,

Bullfrog.

Good work Bullfrog :T. Your right if more people gave VM two fingers and left their prices would plummet.

It's beena few months since I ditched their tv and landline. Not missing them at all. I kept the broadband albeit reduced to 10mb which costs me £21 a month.

I'd like to move to another provider but I am worried that the VM 10mb will still be faster then anything anyone has to offer.

Can anyone who is in a position to give a comparison please tell us if ADSL is just as good as Cable ?

alzy_3

bullfrog wrote: »

I left it a couple of days to give their Retentions Team a chance to get back to me. They didn't, so I placed an order for a new line with a competitor. Fortunately, by delaying for a few days I found a deal with Primus (also via this website) which gave me a free line installation, line rental and broadband for £15.78 per month.

I am in similar situation as you are. Virgin -> Primus.

I have L BB & M Phone (No TV!) and the best they can offer me is £23.49/mth for another year

Already requested for a disconnection, no calls from their Retentions team yet

I don't really care if the ADSL speed I'm going to get is slower than Virgin's fibre. I am not a heavy user that needs super high speed and unlimited downloads. Anyway, I'll share later on my new experience with getting back on ADSL after the new line is active.

I just want to save the extra money and use it for something else.