Paying Too Much For Broadband

wheresthebargain

Hello,

My parents have been with broadband Company X for a good few years and the service has been fine. My parents have been paying around £25 per month since the beginning. In recent years broadband competition (and speed) has increased and prices have fallen; however, while their connection speed has gradually improved, this has not been in line with the competition, and certainly does not justify £25 per month. Furthermore, a quick call to Company X now reveals their business model has largely moved away from home broadband, and my parents' current broadband 'plan' can be reduced to £7.99 per month (i.e. a new 12 month contract).

And so, here's my rant: why have Company X never written to my parents to offer anything different? Is there no [moral?] obligation for Company X to review such long standing customer relations?

Admittedly it has only now occured to me/them to look into changing providers - you know how it is, when everything works fine and direct debits just come out etc. there's no impetus to change.

Finally then, is there any recourse at all for reimbursement? It is likely that they've been paying over the odds for two, three, four years, etc. which is pretty appalling.

Many thanks.

pcombo

Well either way there is going to new contract with the new broadband supplier. unless you go with companies such as ADSL24 who offer month to month contracts on some packages. I dont see the big problem, Just get the packagae changed to £7.99 a month and deal with it.

It seemed your parents were happy enough paying for the service they got, It is out of the question to think a company is going to refund you 4 years worth of payments "because someone thinks their overpaying" what about the isps costs, Bandwidth, Router, BT charges, Supplier charges.

Come on get a grip.

macman

No obligation whatsoever, moral or otherwise. I suggest you do an exchange search on www.samknows.com and see what the LLU options are, these will be the cheapest deals. Anything down to around £6.50pm is possible, depending on the exchange and the type of broadband service required.
Why are you being so coy about naming the company involved if you think they are in the wrong?

Inactive

Broadband is a service industry, the new cheaper provider may well not give the same level of service that company x gave.

They are like cheap insurance companies, fine until you need any help.

Coopdivi

Internet Service Providers, for the most part, couldn't give a monkeys about long standing loyal customers. They'd rather rip them off for years on end just so that they can throw a few baubles at potential new mugs. It's the modern day morality.

For years I was with AOL paying £18 a month with a capped download speed. One day I was browsing around the net and noticed an AOL advert offering my package for £14 with a free wireless router. I was livid so I found a forum and had a whinge. Another member told me that if I rang them up and asked for my MAC they'd offer me the same package without the speed cap for a tenner a month! So that's what I did and learnt a very important lesson: Loyalty is for wimps.

Your parents will never get that money back, I'm sorry to say. Best thing to do is visit Sam Knows to see what alternative ISPs your parents can get. Once you've worked out the best deal you, or your parents, can either tell company X to stick their broadband up their back passage or negotiate a better deal.

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_availability

penrhyn

Caveat Emptor OP.

Energy companies don't contact you about lower cost tarrifs, Tesco don't tell you of cheaper products at Lidl, why would ISPs be any different?

xbrenx

If you buy apples in a supermarket one week then the next week they are reduced, do you ask for a refund for last weeks apples?

No company is going to suggest you pay less if you're happy paying the higher price, they will only suggest lower prices to you if you show unwillingness to pay the high price. If you call customer services they may offer some peace offering to get you to stay but they won't back-date it.

wheresthebargain

Many thanks for your reponses; I rather think I threw myself to the wolves on this one, but nevermind. Particular thanks go to @pcombo - a grip I shall get, I assure you.

Anyway, I fully take on board the no-recourse angle most have taken, and looking back my post had a tongue-in-cheek feel about it.

However, there is still a point (which @Coopdivi alluded to), and that is some companies are happy to take without giving. The analogy of apple prices is valid - though I would add that some companies do provide a refund on the difference if a product has been reduced in price since purchase (within a reasonable time frame). This relates to their own refund policy, which neatly brings us back to good customer service.

I fully agree it is our responsbility to, and is easy to [get a firm grip of ourselves and] transfer from one provider to another. But are we saying therefore that it is perfectly reasonable - or rather, acceptable - for a company to ignore loyalty in this way?

Finally, regarding the analogy of Tesco advising customers of a cheaper option at rival company; this misses the point somewhat as it is the existing broadband company which is now (and semingly has done so for quite a while) offering the same package but now at a far reduced price, not a rival company, hence the issue relating to loyalty.

lucylucky

Very few companies reward loyalty in the way you would wish.

It is not in their interest to advertise to current customers that new improved offers may be available.
So they, generally speaking, don't do it.

Which is why it pays to come onto site such as this to keep informed and change suppliers, of whatever it may be, as often as is financially beneficial.

mlp

Maybe it would be "nice" if ISP X had automatically dropped their price in line with what they were doing for new customers.

It would be "nice" if Sky and energy companies did so as well.

Fact is, most don't. And as most don't, it would tend to suggest that they don't rate customer loyalty highly.

The lady from Talk Talk / Tiscali offered to drop my £14.99/month broadband to £9.99 when I phoned up and asked for my MAC code. Told her to shove it in the same place where the semi-literate / semi-english speaking so-called "technical support" department is based.

esuhl

If your parents had agreed to pay Company X a certain amount for their services... why would the company be expected to say, "Oh no - that's too generous; please have some money back so that we don't make too much profit."?

Or to put it another way, if I bake a cake and sell it for £1, that doesn't legally mean that I can never sell a cake to anyone else for £1.01.

Coopdivi wrote: »

Internet Service Providers, for the most part, couldn't give a monkeys about long standing loyal customers. They'd rather rip them off for years on end just so that they can throw a few baubles at potential new mugs. It's the modern day morality.

It's called capitalism. It has it's problems and needs intervention to prevent unjustified exploitation, but surely it's a better system than the type of communism tried in the former USSR, etc.?