Virgin Media: Haggle down your costs.

shupa

After seeing everyone else's success stories here, I thought I would have a go myself.

I was paying:
£25 for 4mg broadband,
£11.00 for line rental
£14.50 talk unlimited,
£5.50 for the basic tv starter package
TOTAL £56.00/month

After a 20 min wait on hold (it was a freephone number so I didn't mind!) I quoted Talk Talk's package of free broadband, £11 line rental and £8.99 talk unlimited equivalent. Told him I wanted to stay but could not really justify doing so when there were other packages at much better prices.

Very helpful chappie proceeded to:
halve the price of my broadband for 12 months,
match the talk unlimited price for 12 months
(still had to pay the £11 for line rental)
and reduced my current tv packaged to £0 indefinately!
TOTAL £32.49/month

Saving me over £280/year YAY!!!:j

Shantisharon

Thanks so much to your posts and money saving expert. Phoned NTL quoted Talk Talk offer. I currently pay £41.99 for NTL services plus cost of phone calls on top. With out the slightest push they gave me talk unlimited worth £14 a month for free ie all my calls to UK landlines now free and reduced broadband cost from £17.99 to £9.99 a month. THe phone deal is for 3 months and broadband for 6 months but the lovely advisor urged me to phone back 2 weeks before they expire to check out new offers available.

I asked about reducing the cost of my TV package and he said an account can only have 2 offers on it at any one time. If that's the case then make sure you've always got 2 offers on your account by phoning 150!!

I am now saving about £20 a month. Fantastic!:j

Gaia

Just phoned, half-line phone rental (£5.50) permanently, 2mg broadband £9.99 permanently and free tv (analogue very basic) for 6 months. The phone line and broadband are on the system for 1 year with a note that UI've been offered permanent and they have to honour this but I'm free to renegotiate without penalty later. He recommended keeping an eye out on digitalspy.

I use VOIP and a 1-tel box so effectively I get free/cheap calls.

That's £15.49 pm for line rental, broadband and tv!

I got the impression they also needed to retain as many customers as possible with the imminent Virgin takeover!

DeeBeeDee_2

Thanks for all your advice. I rang the customer relations number this morning: 0800 052 9403 (pressed option 3 which is for if you want to leave NTL). I currently pay a total of £66 per month for 4mb broadband, family pack TV and talkunlimited24. I explained to the guy that I'm thinking about cancelling my account as I don't feel I'm getting value for money from them anymore even though for the last 4 years I've been very happy with the service. I told him (which is true) that my Mom went on sky broadband at the weekend which is free (after the initial £40 fee) and I worked out that I'd get the same kind of package I'm on now from them for around £35 quid.
He said that sky broadband isn't a guaranteed speed but theirs is, so I said that for £35 I'd live with that!
Now might be a good time to call them as he told me that because Virgin have just taken them over, they are offering some better deals.
Anyway he said he'd check out what they could do and then offered me the same as I'm on now, but for £35 permanently!!!
I'd say that was a result! :j Thanks to you guys and Martins newsletters.

John_LG

Really chuffed with myself, for once. We've been with ntl for some years now, and a year ago went to Broadband. Worried the deal would be coming to an end (to discover that because of more competitive pricing, it was the standard deal that everyone was now getting!)
We were on Talk Local + 2MB BB for £25.49, but then added another £10 of calls as most family and friends live away.

Phoned up, asked to change package to something better (that didn't include TV), and they offered for a 1p more to go to Talk even/wends - so we could save on national calls.
Said Yes.
Then they said, as you've upgraded your package, how about doubling your BB to 4MB (I was expecting the ol' and it'lll cost £10 more) and as a deal it's on for £22 (i.e. saving £3 a month, and doubling my BB speed!)
A no-brainer.

So in one call, we will probably save £5-10 in national calls, plus £3 in package costs, and double BB speed - that's about £100-£150 in a year if I'd been too lazy to phone up!

And I think that's the key, companies rely on our laziness - not that us money savers do that kind of stuff! So if you haven't spoken to them in 6 months or so, isn't it worth giving them a buzz?

Wahoo!

costbuster

Well done.Lots of folks have been successful at cutting their costs see:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=77342

John_LG

Whoops - should have used the search facility... just so pleased, I forgot.:o

peter999

John_LG wrote:

We were on Talk Local + 2MB BB for £25.49, but then added another £10 of calls as most family and friends live away.

Phoned up, asked to change package to something better (that didn't include TV), and they offered for a 1p more to go to Talk even/wends - so we could save on national calls.
Said Yes.
Then they said, as you've upgraded your package, how about doubling your BB to 4MB (I was expecting the ol' and it'lll cost £10 more) and as a deal it's on for £22 (i.e. saving £3 a month, and doubling my BB speed!)
A no-brainer.

So in one call, we will probably save £5-10 in national calls, plus £3 in package costs, and double BB speed - that's about £100-£150 in a year if I'd been too lazy to phone up!

I think you're saying you will be paying £22/month for:

-Talk Evenings/Weekends
-4Mb Broadband

That's a saving of £19.50/month on their standard costs.

peter999

Ps: Standard costs:
2Mb Broadband (size M) = £18/month
4Mb Broadband (size L) = £25/month
10Mb Broadband (size XL) = £35/month

Talk Weekends + Line (size M) = £11/month
Talk Evenings/Weekends + Line (size L) = £16.50/month
Talk Unlimited + Line (size XL) = £25/month

Free TV Pack (size M) = Free with phone
Base TV Pack (size L) = £11.50/month
Family TV Pack (size XL) = £20.50/month

djandyr

I was paying NTL (Virgin Media Services) :

• 11.00 Line Rental
• 25.00 Broadband 4MB (L)
• 20.50 Family Pack (XL)
• 15.00 Additional set-top box

Total : £71.50 (Before any phone charges)

I phoned 0800 052 9403 (pressing option 3) you will have to phone between 9am - 5pm, waited for about 10 minutes and spoke to a pleasant operator. I was greeting with

Operator : "How can i help you?"
Me : "I would like to leave NTL, as i dont think i am getting value for money. I was just wondering if i can talk to anyone about it"
Operator : "That would be me, can i take your account number"
Operator : "Can i ask why you want to leave?"
Me: "The problem is that TalkTalk have just activated, and unbundled the local loop on the exchange near me. Currently they offer 8.99 for unlimited phone calls and free 8mb broadband, with the addition of 11.00 line rental. This is an offer i can just not ingore, and was wondering if NTL could offer me anything to stay, as the service for the last 8 years has been excellent"

NTL then proceeded to reduce my bill immediately, i requested the broadband to be downsized to 2mb as a 4mb line was beyond my needs (browsing, email and the odd couple of downloads) and they gave me unlimited anytime UK land line calls for free.

• 5.50 Line Rental (was 11.00)
• 8.95 Broadband 2mb (M) (was 18.00)
• 20.50 Family Pack (XL)
• 9.50 Additional set-top box (was 15.00)
• 0.00 Talk unlimited (unlimited anytime UK landline calls) (was 25.00)

Total : £41.45

Potential Monthly Saving :£55.05
Yearly Saving : £660.60

All i can say if just give them a phone, do not be aggressive and they will go out of their way to try and give you a better deal. The operator i spoke to was very friendly, he gave me his name and extension and went out of his way to try and remember additional codes to save me more money.

Thanks to everyone on the forum, for the brilliant money saving tips.

John_LG

peter999 wrote:

I think you're saying you will be paying £22/month for:

-Talk Evenings/Weekends
-4Mb Broadband

That's a saving of £19.50/month on their standard costs.

peter999

Ps: Standard costs:
2Mb Broadband (size M) = £18/month
4Mb Broadband (size L) = £25/month
Talk Weekends + Line (size M) = £11/month
Talk Evenings/Weekends + Line (size L) = £16.50/month
Free TV Pack (size M) = Free with phone
Base TV Pack (size L) = £11.50/month

Wahoo, it gets better! Cheers!