Virgin Media: Haggle down your costs.

RedTiger

Well that was relatively painless! Phoned Telewest disconnections, said I was moving to Talk Talk - got the 'we are waiting to see if TT can sustain the free broadband offer, they may put prices up, you'll not get 8meg, their customer support is a premium number' etc, etc He offered to reduce my BB from 4mb to 2mb which would reduce my cost from £25 to £13 per month - erm, no thanks! In the end I've kept 4mb BB + supreme TV package and now pay £30 instead of £42.50 for 12 months with no contract tie-in = £150 saved over the next year. Result! Can put the saving towards a new laptop now!

My call was answered quickly - was expecting to be on hold for a while but it was pretty much answered as soon as i'd got through the recorded messages, and I was only on the phone for 5 minutes.

boyflitt

I have the following from NTL

*Family package (£30)
*1mb broadband (£17.99)
*skysports 1&3 (£8.50)

Total £56.49

plus I use 1899 for calls as I used to get the Unlimited 24 and found it never worked out cheaper. Having read everyone's posts, I can't believe I've been paying so much for so long (5 years!).

Just tried the call to NTL customer retentions, but made the mistake of calling at 4.35pm. 20 mins later I get a miserable "Phil" answer, take my details, then put me on hold......

5 mins later, I've been automatically re-routed to Customer Services, I tell them I'm waiting for Phil and what the dickens am I doing back at Customer Services. The nice lady there informs me that she can't transfer me back to Phil, because Customer Retentions close at 5pm!!! Talking about taking the biscuit. This is just typical of NTL customer service - Phil obviously looked at the clock, couldn't be bothered to talk to me and transferred me over....

The nice lady did apologise, but had no record on my account of Phil ever logging into it. When I explained I was peeved with the awfully high prices (and shocking customer service) and was going ot leave, she did try to offer me the 3 for £30 deal, but that was saving me about £7/month, so I said no thanks. To that, she suggested calling back to Customer Retentions who could offer "much better deals". So I will.

Keep you posted....

UPDATED

Called Customer Retentions back at 9am. Got straight through to a very nice lady. With no effort, she immediately offered me half-price broadband and Family pack for £32 all in. I then said, well what about calls and faster broadband, cos Talk Talk is doing 8Mb and calls for £20. The response was they can do 2mb (rising to 4mb) and unlimited calls for £17.25, and gave me the same spiel that only 512k was guaranteed by Talk Talk etc.

After very little additional pushing, I ended up with:

*Family pack
*2mb broadband (rising to 4mb on 1 June)
*unlimited landline calls
*a second box to be installed in 2 days time
*free upgrade to ntl+ for both boxes when it comes out later this year (and no monthly subscription)

all for £32/month for the next 12 months! With the free calls, I reckon I've saved a total of about £240 over the next year, plus the added extras for free. Pretty pleased with all that, and she said I could simply renew after 12 months or adjust as required. Result. Thanks Martin and everyone.

phil2006

Phoned up today at 4.30pm waited about 10 minutes got through to cancellations who then said they would put me through to someone else about 5 minutes late got through. Lady was very helpful but said talk talk would only guarentee 512K speed but it could be up to 8 meg. She checked my line on BT web site and said I could only get 1 meg with a BT line. She offered me £10.50 line rental and £12.50 bb with 4 meg from 1st June. I then said I could get free phone calls with Talk Talk so she agreed to match that as well. Well pleased.

jo124_2

I am currently paying £49 per month for Telewest Phone, talk unlimited, broadband and TV starter package, which is horrendous. I called them to say that I wanted to cancel my service firstly I had some oik telling me that it would cost me £300 to have digital aerial fitted to enable me to get freeview - I already have a digital aerial fitted, which cost £100, to receive freeview in my bedroom. After that they basically said fine contact BT as they are unable at present to discount my bill to keep me as a customer as they are waiting a reply from ofcom regarding the Talk Talk offer.

I then went to BT to reconnect which can be done in 7 days but at this stage I will not be able to order my broadband package for at least 48 hours after my phone is connected and then it will take up to 14 days for my modem to arrive. As I work from home via the internet this is totally unacceptable and ridiculous - what am I supposed to do to get away from Telewest and their horrendous prices.

toolslinger

hi,want to ring telewest to haggle a better deal.only trouble is my name is not on the bill,its the wifes,she doesnt like ringing.rang cs they said would have to send me new contract which would tie me in for 12 months.to change the name on bill are there any ways round this.

many thanks toolslinger

billieboy_2

I've done it the other way round. Our bill is in DH's name (silly really as I sort out all the finances!) but as long as you have the account number and password they should accept speaking to you. Certainly did with me.

phil2006

jo124
Why dont you phone NTL again about a discount you may have just got unlucky with who you spoke to?

cheeseandham

toolslinger wrote:

hi,want to ring telewest to haggle a better deal.only trouble is my name is not on the bill,its the wifes,she doesnt like ringing.rang cs they said would have to send me new contract which would tie me in for 12 months.to change the name on bill are there any ways round this.

many thanks toolslinger

Yes, try simply ringing up with your wifes name and password and simply state you are your wife.
If they say anything just act a bit offended and upset about them insulting you about how low your voice is.

Lady_K

Well I wont believe it till I get my next bills with the offer they have given me today.

What I have before discount totals to £62.49 (1st June prices)

but she said I'm now being charged £20.49 for all 3!!!

1 Meg broadband

Talk unlimited 24

family package

For 3 months then shes put a note on my account to say no quibble when customer rings in 3 months to continue or better this offer

Thats a 1/3 of the true cost

elvislives77

Up until a month ago I was paying £37.99 for Unlimited calls evenings and weekends and 2mg Broadband.

I noticed on NTL web-site that customers could get this deal for £32.99 so I telephoned and they immediately agreed to reduce my bill to that amount.

Telephoned them again today and told them I wanted to cancel my services as I was going to change to Talk Talk. Did my homework in case I was quizzed (I wasn't). Told her I was reasonably happy with NTL but Talk Talk deal was too good to turn down.

Agreed without any persuasion to reduce my bill to £22.99 for 12 months with telephone upgrade to Talk Unlimited 24, and shortly to 4mg broadband.

The icing on the cake was when I told her I telephone my brother in Spain every month or so. She put a £30 credit on my account as a goodwill gesture.

Marvellous! I know people have done better but that'll do for me. I couldn't have done with the hassle of changing over anyway!

Cheers all!