Virgin Media: Haggle down your costs.

pug_in_a_bed

We've just called up now, regarding our rather large telewest bill of a £62 per month including broadband , unlimited calls to landlines and cable tv.

The woman was very aggressive, prob because she's being bombarded by MSE'er's! She had a really aggressive spiel about talk talk, how you're only guaranteed half a meg broadband, not 8meg, how awul they are etc.

We also mentioned that we had heard some bad stuff about NTL, so were worred we were going to see this transferred over to Telewest because of the takeover. I've just googled this and i'm getting results that show NTL took over telewest not the other way round - she said, I quote' you're absoultely wrong about that, telewest took over ntl', hmmm, customer services!

Anyhoo.... they have knocked £8 off per month so that's £54:)

Hmmm, now I look at what everyone else's got I don't think we did that well. We opened by asking how long the notioce was to cancel cos we were thinking of going to talktalk - i think the secret must be to go straight to cancellations and say you're planning on leaving.

Oh well, every penny counts!

HawkesFord

This is my first post so I'd like to say thank you to everybody for some excellent tips and information. Cheers :beer:

I am with Telewest and I sent them an email about changing, telling them about the TT offer, asking if they were planning to do anything to better it. They replied with a load of technical gibberish that was way over my head explaining why their service was better than TT and why not to change.

So the moral here is, don't email, phone up and actually talk to someone.

I will be telephoning them soon to see what they offer.

susan47

I don't have Broadband and don't have NTL TV either so didn't hold out much hope, but I followed your advice and said exactly what you did and it worked! Currently I pay £31.49 a month for two phone lines plus dial-up, and that was about to rise by £5.50 a month, an increase of 17.5%! So I rang NTL and said that 'a friend' had suggested I switch to Talk Talk unless they could do something about the price increase, and they immediately said they would hold my current charges for 12 months. That's going to save me £66. So thank you for the advice as I now have 12 months to find somebody cheaper! BTW, I was only kept in the phone queue for a couple of minutes (I rang in the morning.)

alison74

Phew - what an effort !

Just off phone to telewest and got quite a snippy sales assistant, who was obviously at the end of her tether with calls such as mine.

Anyway - got £10 a month off my services (taking it down to £30 for 2meg BB, essential tv, phone line rental and talk evenings - previous £40) so I am happy with that for the moment and will attack again in 3 months.

However - a few points to note. I said how pathetic it was that TW now charge for calls after 1 hour of speaking and she said - how often do you honestly talk for more than an hour everyday ? And I said to her that I did it most days, if not every day. People must be talking over an hour, otherwise they wouldn't be charging for it would they ?

And then when I mentioned switching to free view - she started losing her sales pitch to me as she said that freeview boxes break down a lot (?!) and that would be £30 down the drain

I pointed out to her that if it was within 12 months then it would be covered by manafacturers warranty and if it was outwith 12 months, then £30 would still be cheaper than TW per month.

Then she launched into the fact that Freeview only has 15 channels and I said - that i only watch ITV2 and E4 - so she lost that one aswell.

You just need to be assertive and not back down.

I even said - no thank you, i will just leave, can you process that for me ?

And then she offered me the £30 deal. So if I took off the talk evenings and weekend, it would only be £24 a month for line rental, tv and 2 meg BB !!!

And the best thing of all is that I do not have a BT line in my house (although i told her I did) and I am not allowed a Sat Dish on side of my flat !

I felt like it was a test for The Apprentice except she was most definately Syed (i.e all talk and not winning) and I was The Badger ! (but a lot nicer )


So thank you for this on the forum - saved me some dosh which is always a good thing !

Smurf

I'm with NTL and I have the 2meg BB and family tv pack so with the call charges I was paying about £60 per month. About a month ago I noticed an offer on NTL's website for their triple plan )which is basically the above+free off peak calls) for £49.99. I called them and moved onto that with no problems (they didn't even give it the usual "for new customers only" spiel).

After reading this thread I phoned them back (0800 052 9403 opt2)and said I was considering going to talk talk and sky due to the price difference and they reduced that price to £43.75 per month, basically for 12 months. Took about 5 mins of holding and 15 mins of me trying to sound despondent! I did get a bit of banter about talk talk only being 2 meg in most cases, I told her I'd heard it was more like 6 but she assured me "we look into these things and we know better", hmmm.

I don't think that's a bad price now, has anyone managed to get that exact package for even less?

Cheers guys!

ScoobyZ

Result - rang up to cancel my £24.99 2mb (been with them ages) I didnt wait to ask went straight in with the I just want to cancel. They offered upgrade to 10mb for £9.99 a month Thats £25 a month cheaper then normal price.

dominiquereynolds

ScoobyZ wrote:

Result - rang up to cancel my £24.99 2mb (been with them ages) I didnt wait to ask went straight in with the I just want to cancel. They offered upgrade to 10mb for £9.99 a month Thats £25 a month cheaper then normal price.

Well after reading that people were getting the 10mb cheaper than me I phoned them to get a better deal AGAIN. I am presently on
Talk Unlimited 24, Broad band 10mb for £30.99

I told them that people wee getting the same deal as this and much cheaper. The NTL guy said "no this is the cheapest they get". As they should know because they are the customer retention department.

Even mentioned that I had read about it here. He would not budge and said I was on the best deal they could offer!!

smugcat

ntl: Picked up immediately! (that's a first). Told them I receive moneyexpert newsletter and had noticed customers were receiving discounts. Have been paying £34.99 for 10mb broadband....instantly offered £17.50 per month for 12 months plus they are removing the £2 charge for non direct debit payment. Done and dusted in less than one minute. Thank you Martin...much appreciated

VWRog

I take triple play, inc Sky Sports. They knocked £15.75 off my total bill per month.

alison74

smugcat wrote:

ntl: Picked up immediately! (that's a first). Told them I receive moneyexpert newsletter and had noticed customers were receiving discounts. Have been paying £34.99 for 10mb broadband....instantly offered £17.50 per month for 12 months plus they are removing the £2 charge for non direct debit payment. Done and dusted in less than one minute. Thank you Martin...much appreciated

That's a GREAT deal !! That's the same price us TW people are paying for 2 meg.

NTL are giving out better deals, it's just a shame it's not one system yet and I have to phone TW.

The minute they merge their customer services (if ever) I will be back asking for all sorts !

Anyway, I am happy with my lot and glad I am even able to get cable and not stuck with BT.