📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!

Virgin Media retention deals (post your haggling successes)

1158159161163164383

Comments

  • Kevmanfred
    Kevmanfred Posts: 16 Forumite
    Fourth Anniversary 10 Posts
    No that's not including BT sport, I have sky sports collection- sky sports HD pack.
  • tazdev
    tazdev Posts: 21 Forumite
    Eighth Anniversary 10 Posts Combo Breaker
    No, not a spammer, just clumsily using the forum.

    As this is an MSE forum, I thought it may be useful for other users to hear my experience of trying to haggle with VM after receiving yet another price rise letter. It would appear that at least in my case, I had to actually leave to get a decent offer. I suppose I succeeded..... but declined their 11th-hour offer.

    My apologies. To be accurate, Plusnet apparently contacted VM in order to take over my landline number as I had requested to take my number with me, at least that's what my caller from VM stated.
    As you are no doubt aware moving to/from any provider outside of the Openreach network ie. VM or Hyperoptic etc. requires the end user to contact both new & existing provider directly and co-ordinate dates to suit.

    My point was that only after Plusnet officially contacted VM did I receive a call from a (UK) call centre with the £19per month offer....(for broadband only, no landline)
    I have been put off leaving VM in the past by the Openreach new line install cost. Seemingly every 6-12 months there has been a VM price rise, I have to ring up and haggle, ultimately signing up for another 12 month contract, with baffling discounts for 3 months then so much for 6 months etc.
    This time PlusNet offered £70 cashback to cover that. Maybe I'll be back in 18 months.....as a new customer obviously!
  • buglawton
    buglawton Posts: 9,246 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Right on.
    While mulling cancelling VM I decided to ditch the landline. Because the cordless phone on it is pants and I only make/receive 1 call a month. My Three mobile gives me unlimited mins for all usual calls anyway.

    And: I think that VM has identified 'fear of losing your LL number' as an inhibiting factor for switchers. Well, gone is that anyway on my latest VM retention deal.

    Notably, people have found real complications in retaining their LL number when leaving VM that resulted in ongoing bills instead of clean cut-off.

    So long as your employer plays hardball on your pay, you need to play hardball with any & all recurring payment suppliers, VM case in point.
  • tazdev
    tazdev Posts: 21 Forumite
    Eighth Anniversary 10 Posts Combo Breaker
    edited 31 July 2019 at 10:59PM
    Interesting point about transferring my LL number away from VM.
    I noticed that logging onto my VM account that they have sent me a new contract to sign (!).
    It seems to be for the landline, although I made it quite clear when I cancelled that meant both broadband & landline. Having spoken to them again, they assured me that my new provider (Plusnet) would take over the number when Openreach turn up next week to 'install' the line, (that's already there of course).
    SO we'll see.
    I can't quite work out if it's incompetence or deceit but if it wasn't for my complete distrust in VM's accounts/pricing policy/call centres/customer service I'd have taken their improved offer as from my experience at least, the actual broadband has been almost faultless over the past five years, (excluding curious outages between midnight & 3:30am lasting no more than 5-10 minutes every week or so.)
    I'll be keeping a close eye on my VM account online & cancelling the d.d after final payment!


    PS. I agree about the redundancy of landlines these days, I've made 3 calls in the last 6 months...and 2 of them were to test my own mobile! (Smarty £6 per month for unlimited calls & 1gb data)
  • rallycurve
    rallycurve Posts: 196 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 100 Posts Name Dropper
    Cancelled last week and had no email confirmation. Is this normal?
    Same here.

    £9 loyalty discount coming to an end and also received the letter increasing my bill an extra £2.5 - meaning paying £11.50 more from September. Cancelled Monday last week and had no email. Called again two days later to confirm and request the email and they said they would send it again but still nothing.

    Obviously no retentions call either, 12 days later. Assuming they don't want my custom anymore so will be leaving after more than 4 years with them.
  • northwest1965
    northwest1965 Posts: 2,076 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    rallycurve wrote: »
    Same here.

    £9 loyalty discount coming to an end and also received the letter increasing my bill an extra £2.5 - meaning paying £11.50 more from September. Cancelled Monday last week and had no email. Called again two days later to confirm and request the email and they said they would send it again but still nothing.

    Obviously no retentions call either, 12 days later. Assuming they don't want my custom anymore so will be leaving after more than 4 years with them.

    We have phoned again for an email but they said, because they are keeping the telephone line open they can't send one (although they said previously on 2 occasions that they would send one)
    We've already changed supplier and look forward to trying someone new
    Loved our trip to the West Coast USA. Death Valley is the place to go!
  • Dave360180
    Dave360180 Posts: 137 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    Still no callback for me after 25 days
  • daveandgem wrote: »
    Still no callback for me after 25 days

    Same here, no call back. Oh well, time for a change and then I can take a "new customer only" offer in 12 months time :rotfl:
    A big believer in karma, you get what you give :A

    If you find my posts useful, "pay it forward" and help someone else out, that's how places like MSE can be so successful.
  • Dave360180
    Dave360180 Posts: 137 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    Signed a new contract £26.50 for 12 months for 50mb fibre only.

    Retentions never called. I don’t wanna go elsewhere as probably needs new ugly wires on my house. Will go elsewhere when 5G broadband prices come down.
  • funkymonkey
    funkymonkey Posts: 524 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Name Dropper Uniform Washer
    VM 100mb BB only
    No BT line connected to our property and renting so would be a hassle to get a line drilled through (although obviously didn't tell virgin that!)

    Was paying 42 - going up to 44.50

    New haggle price £33.50

    Im happy with saving £10 a month.
    #113 12K in 2020 Challenge #113 £17,103/£12,000 £15000
Meet your Ambassadors

🚀 Getting Started

Hi new member!

Our Getting Started Guide will help you get the most out of the Forum

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 351.3K Banking & Borrowing
  • 253.2K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 453.7K Spending & Discounts
  • 244.3K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 599.4K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 177.1K Life & Family
  • 257.7K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 16.2K Discuss & Feedback
  • 37.6K Read-Only Boards

Is this how you want to be seen?

We see you are using a default avatar. It takes only a few seconds to pick a picture.