Virgin Media: Haggle down your costs.

c_smith

Fraglon wrote: »

I have been a Telewest/Virgin customer for about 8 years now and have been successful in negotiating discounts in the past but I called them on Saturday to enquier whether they would reduce my costs and it was an emphatic NO!

I think it's just your luck who you speak to. To be honest, I've found that if you get to speak to a man you get a better deal than you do if you get a woman. Maybe that's just been co-incidence, but it's certainly been true from my experience.

sva19

bullfrog wrote: »

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.

Thanks Bullfrog,

I followed your advice. I had been with VM for 4 years with landline and broadband. Total cost was £26 pm rising to £27pm in aug.

I phone Thurs 7, to say not happy with rising cost and yur costly service when compared to rival can get for £13 elsewhere like primus. I said only broadband was of value to me as have freee mobile mins, and that's not worth £27.

They offered to go down to £23pm. I declined and gave my 30 days notice.

Today Sat 16/7 got call from VM, presumably retention team, they gave sweet talk of been a loyal customer for 4 yrs, I gave them my talk , then she went away to see what she could do. Try to sell me TV, I declined. Then offered £15pm, I declined saying wanted closer to £13. We settled for £14. It will be another 12 month contract. But it a hugh saving from £27 to £14 ...£13 savings !!!

Thanks again, following advice on these forums comes up in trumps.

All the best to other VM customers, haggle your prices down!!!

bobdauilda

How do you go about cancelling the VM service and how do you find out how much time is left on your contract?

revpeachy

Thanks to all posters, especially Bullfrog, your step by step guides to haggling gave me confidence to hold my ground and I managed to get from £35.00 for broadband, phone & tv to £19.00 plus a credit for this month!! Amazed...thanks guys.

chichee

I've cancelled and did it last Tuesday so am waiting for the call now! Fingers are firmly crossed!

mahesh_on

Had an offer from retentions that was not quite what i was looking for..still have another 15 days to disconnect. Do they try again in the last week or is it 1 go and thats it..?

qwerqwer

Thanks guys... I just finished my call with retention now. My current package is Broadband L + Phone XL and TV M(free) and was costing me £ 37. I was mainly interested in phone and broadband only. Virgin media staff initially gave me an offer of £ 29 for the same package. Then I told them that I was getting the same items under £ 15 in market. He was offered me £ 25 deal with 12 month contract.
I still insisted on disconnection, then the person gave me a long speech about quality of Virgin media and its services and finally he told that he will call me back tomorrow to see if they can hold me back with Virgin or not.
Waiting for the call now.

samirD77

Same Here, Just called and get my 30 day notice period...lets wait to see what retentions come back with...If they don't, I have set a reminder to call them back 7 days before my scheduled disconnection date to cancel the cancellation request!

Lets see what happens!

Darath

Hello there!

My package with VM is as follows
£60.15 (inc for PayHandle and discounts)
M BB (There now, L BB)(the old one the used to upgrade you for free back in the day untill it got to 10mg then it stopped, blast!)
XL Phone
XL TV
SD box
V+ HD Box
Line R
Talk Mob
Payment handling £5 (Wont do DD - take more than needed)
With £8.50 and £22.50 discounts.

Phoned yesterday and got in contact with a lovely gentleman, and explained that i had gone on to the VM website to look at the TiVo box and see what it was all about to only find that there are new customer offers which are far better than what i am paying and for more services. I also said there there was £150 CB on offer and all these combined meant i was a little put out because of the years of loyalty i have given.

So off he went for a good 10mins and came back with prety much what i have before only adding/upgrading:
TiVo 1TB
XL BB (From my M/L)
For £58

Now i'm not sure if tripling my BB and aquiring TiVo is as good a deal as i can get?
I said i would ring him (retentions) back with my answer as i am to talk it thought with my family.

Please, if anyone has any comments or advice or even their opinions, i would be happy to hear from you please.

superknight

A couple of weeks ago I had a conversation with retentions, and I managed to obtain a £10 reduction on my monthly contract, but with the addition of a Tivo 1TB (now making 3STBs - 1 Tivo, 1 V+HD, 1V), and upgrading my 10MB BB to the next level (which I believe is 30MB), and obtaining a Superhub as well. I was told that there was a special offer and this was for £49 (activation fee) - I confirmed that it was the larger 1TB box, to which the lady said yes. I re-confirmed and this was still a yes.

Two weeks later, someone else in Customer service read the notes and it turns out that it wasn't a 1TB box - it was 500GB. And not only that, my BB wasn't upgraded and I was given a normal hub. They said that if I wanted the 1TB box it would be £99 and they wouldn't be waived at all. I cancelled my contract with them as I was not impressed with their lying.

Is this normal for the retentions team to simply lie and mislead you on the call and then give you something different?

Tip: always get an email confirmation of what was offered otherwise they will tell you one thing and make a note of something else.

Thoughts? Anyone have similar experiences?

Lastly, anyone able to get a free Tivo box (no installation or activation fee) for either 500GB or 1TB?