Top 10 service companies to haggle with

phillw

JJ_Egan wrote: »

(i have actually paid less year on year due to the price rises )

Five years ago I was paying around £4 a month for phone line and broadband. Then there were some insane cashback deals on otherwise relatively expensive deals, which due to price rises I was able to leave before I'd paid the company more than I'd received in cash back. One time I had to fight to get all the upfront line rental back, but I made something like £30 out of them that year.

Sky spoilt my run by withholding cashback for about 8 months, I perhaps should have cut my losses when they put their price up. I don't think my current provider is going to put their prices up now, I think they have started to cotton on.

I wouldn't stay with my current provider at the end of the contract. I have a separate "cable" router that I plug into whatever awful router the ISP sends me, so that I don't have to reconfigure anything whenever I switch. Advanced routers are pretty expensive, but if you spread the cost over the life of the router then you get much better local wireless and ethernet speeds than any ISP is shipping for something like £1 a month. If you get one that supports openwrt or dd-wrt then it will also be up to date with security patches, which your ISP supplied router is unlikely to have (especially on the cheap broadband like I get)

mopezone

TREVORCOLMAN wrote: »

Tried to get a better deal with VM as had been with them for many years, but they would not budge, so asked to cancel contract. Lots of introductory offers with other providers, They said Ok cancel then. I expected a call back but nothing. Hey ho time to save money. :rotfl:

I've just been on to them as my package goes up to £126pm on 1st September - from £122!
The bloke in India offered to reduce it to £125 but include free calls to mobiles - when I pointed out that I wanted to reduce the price not have a smaller increase he offered to cut my broadband speed from 216mb to 108mb, any time calls to weekend only free calls, and lose BT Sport, for £92pm - still don't think this is a good deal since it's what new customers get, but including BT Sport, for £65 for the first 12 months.

Where do I go from here? Is it possible to connect to a call centre in the UK rather than India?

Doc_N

mopezone wrote: »

I've just been on to them as my package goes up to £126pm on 1st September - from £122!
The bloke in India offered to reduce it to £125 but include free calls to mobiles - when I pointed out that I wanted to reduce the price not have a smaller increase he offered to cut my broadband speed from 216mb to 108mb, any time calls to weekend only free calls, and lose BT Sport, for £92pm - still don't think this is a good deal since it's what new customers get, but including BT Sport, for £65 for the first 12 months.

Where do I go from here? Is it possible to connect to a call centre in the UK rather than India?

Leave. That’s a staggeringly high price.

mopezone

Well that’s what I thought!

What does anybody else pay for 200mb broadband, free anytime calls and TV including non-HD Sky Sports and BT Sport but not Sky Movies?

Doc_N

mopezone wrote: »

Well that’s what I thought!

What does anybody else pay for 200mb broadband, free anytime calls and TV including non-HD Sky Sports and BT Sport but not Sky Movies?

Not remotely the same thing, I appreciate, but I'm paying TalkTalk just £21 pm for unlimited faster fibre, free anytime calls, and various add-ons that BT charge for.

Freeview gives us all the TV we want without charge.

Cangrejito

Reading through Martin's tips on haggling with VM has served me well today and I managed to renegotiate a saving of £21.50 per month on my TV/phone/broadband bundle.
Happy days

mopezone

Cangrejito wrote: »

Reading through Martin's tips on haggling with VM has served me well today and I managed to renegotiate a saving of £21.50 per month on my TV/phone/broadband bundle.
Happy days

Did you accept any reductions in your package, or is it just the same but cheaper?

And what would you say were the key points, the clinchers for you as it were?

StoicLass

Just negotiated my Sky bill down from £67 per month to £39 per month. Initially on the call they told me the best they could do was £51 per month. Once I quoted some of the alternative provider offers on MSE, in particular BT, they were miraculously able to bring it down to £39. For Superfast Broadband, the Entertainment TV package and Sky Talk. Delighted. 

sue16

Thanks for the tips. I rang and because we were on a very old contract with Sky it was going up to £92 pm but the new deal was cheaper -£69. I rang back again and now we have BT sports added and lose the unwatched kids channels for £60 after quoting the latest VM rates. Quite happy.

sunnyflower

I phoned BT to cancel as my contract was up and Sky Broadband was £26 cheaper. 
I was offered a new BT contract for just £5 more than Sky offered, so have stuck with them.
 Very pleased with that.