Our new Broadband Haggling guide - please share your feedback

Bounce56

My first year’s contract with Virgin Media for 200mbps; phone line 24/7 UK landline & mobile calls, is coming to an end. My introductory rate was £38pm. The renewal rate was £63.50pm. I phoned Virgin, this morning and worked my way through the automated menu system, eventually choosing the “I’m thinking of leaving Virgin option” I spoke to a lovely Scottish lady. With very little conversation she said she would see what discount she could offer me. As a result I am now paying £43pm for the same service, a 32% discount! Thank you Martin for your encouragement.

bawbeebaby

I was really interested to read the message from the Virgin customer dated 6 December. I am in more or less the same position, had a contract for broadband and phone line for £32 per month, on end of contract at beginning of last month it went up to £59.50. Today I navigated my way through the automated responses, got to a Welsh lady this time, but it was absolutely no dice. The "deal" she offered me was £58.20! I am going to wait a few days, as Martin advises on the main website, and try again. Annoyingly Virgin is the only supplier who can give me fibre broadband, but I made it clear that I am not prepared to stay with them just for that reason. I am very surprised actually as I have re-negotiated a lot with Virgin in the past and have usually done well -- this time, no dice at all. If I do any better next time I will post again.

[Deleted User]

bawbeebaby wrote: »

I was really interested to read the message from the Virgin customer dated 6 December. I am in more or less the same position, had a contract for broadband and phone line for £32 per month, on end of contract at beginning of last month it went up to £59.50. Today I navigated my way through the automated responses, got to a Welsh lady this time, but it was absolutely no dice. The "deal" she offered me was £58.20! I am going to wait a few days, as Martin advises on the main website, and try again. Annoyingly Virgin is the only supplier who can give me fibre broadband, but I made it clear that I am not prepared to stay with them just for that reason. I am very surprised actually as I have re-negotiated a lot with Virgin in the past and have usually done well -- this time, no dice at all. If I do any better next time I will post again.

Are the VM BB speeds really necessary or have you just got used to having them?

MSE_Kelvin

Bounce56 wrote: »

My first year’s contract with Virgin Media for 200mbps; phone line 24/7 UK landline & mobile calls, is coming to an end. My introductory rate was £38pm. The renewal rate was £63.50pm. I phoned Virgin, this morning and worked my way through the automated menu system, eventually choosing the “I’m thinking of leaving Virgin option” I spoke to a lovely Scottish lady. With very little conversation she said she would see what discount she could offer me. As a result I am now paying £43pm for the same service, a 32% discount! Thank you Martin for your encouragement.

Thanks for the great success story, Bounce56 - we've added it to the Broadband Haggling guide to help other MoneySavers see what's possible

MSE Kelvin :beer:

ctdctd

Just coming to the end of my 12M line rental saver which is no longer available.
I had a loyalty discount which ended earlier this year - VM wouldn't extend the discount at the time.


Full price was going to be £45 PM from next month - quick call to "thinking of leaving us" armed with current BT and Plusnet deals got an offer of £29.50 PM for 12 months - happy with that. :beer:

Catslovelycats

My deal with Now is due to end in a couple of weeks. Phoned today and they offered me another 12 months on £22.99 (fast fibre and anytime calls). Currently paying £23.50. Got through on the phone straight away and they were very efficient. Confirmation email received within about 20 minutes of the phone call. Very glad I made the effort to phone them rather than just go with the cheapest I could find online (which doesn't offer anytime calls or fast fibre anyway).

PM0001

I don't really want to move from virgin as I can't get similar speeds elsewhere (200mb) anywhere else. My package includes a 2nd tivo box and talk more anytime phone package and costs £63 per month.

I turned down the silly first offer and was connected to the business retention team who knocked £15 per month off my package for the next 12 months. That's £180 savings (24%) for a few minutes work.

Polite but firm and a knowledge of what else is available seems to be secret.

GeorgiaBoy97

I have to say with all due respect to Martin Lewis, this broadband 'haggling' guide IS NOT an accurate representation of how the discounts work from broadband companies. I know this as someone who works in one of the retentions departments. The idea we have "serious discount-giving power" is true in some respects. But every account is different and each one gives varying levels of discount power.

This neatly leads me onto my next point which is that the idea of 'haggling' is extremely misleading as we only have a fixed list of discounts which again vary depending on each account. Someone who has a large tv, broadband and phone package will get different discounts from someone who has broadband and phone on its own. The idea of bartering like you would in a marketplace is simply not an accurate reflection of how the process works. I should also mention that customers should be reminded that new customer deals are surprisingly only for new customers. The number of calls only calling about getting a new customer deal as an existing customer is incredible.

Finally, and I think this was mentioned earlier, but every broadband provider is different. Therefore, it is not comparable on a like for like basis. It's not like gas and electricity where the fuel is the same (the only exception being 'green' energy providers). Broadband packages alone vary quite significantly. and this needs to be reflected in advice given to consumers. Yes, if you use very little broadband then the speed might not be an issue. But if you have a high amount of usage, then the quality of the broadband will vary quite a lot.

A lot of these misleading facts not only cause confusion amongst customers but also make my working day a lot more stressful! So I thought I should politely correct the record.

spaceboy

Christ my PlusNet package is £36 a month now. How much chance do I have of beating it down to sub £20?

Sun-Is-Fun

Phoned up BT today as contract was ending. After quite a bit of haggling and refusing their initial offers, got fibre broadband for £0. Just paying the line rental cost.