Virgin Media retention deals (post your haggling successes)

Rosa_Damascena

I've been with VM (and it's predecessor) for just shy of 20 years. It may well be time to change if they are going to be awkward about giving me a good retention deal.

The previous owners had BT / Sky. Does this means the postal can be activated remotely? I don't want to cancel VM rashly and then find I am without any internet access whilst I wait for an engineer to come out. TIA.

Eta: I've just called BT to see what constraints there are on installation. After a long wait on the phone I found that they look at the specific address rather than the geography, then take you through whole sales pitch before telling you that it will take 14 days to get connected. The deals aren't great either. 

No wonder their wait time is so long, their staff are told to flog dead horses.

MrLatte

bigrw said:

Can I have some advice please? Have been with VM for 10 years. Every time I've come to the end of 12 or 18month contract I've been able to re sign up to an offer which is effectively the new customer offer slightly tweaked in return for signing up to a new 12/18 month contract. Today is the first time ever that they have said no to this! I'm on the top package and looking to move to ultimate oomph which is effectively the same. I went to retentions who said the best they can offer is 30 quid more than the new offer of 89/month @ 120ish which is more than I pay now for the same service but I'm currently out of contract so 1 month notice!!! Surely this can't be right!? no company should work that way. surely they have an incentive to tie me back in!?

anyway what to do next? thoughts gratefully received.

I believe there may be a few issues, first off you are a long standing customer and just from the time you've been with them it seems unlikely your in any rush to leave this year round, furthermore if your paying a fair bit already it makes it harder each time to get better deals. In an ideal situation you want to research and identify what good deals actually are and then aim to get roughly that price for your new contract, that way when your contract is coming to an end they've got to work from that already we'll priced package. 

What I would suggest is see what potential offers you could get from Sky, i know when I spoke on a relatives behalf I got them on the highest package for £55 or so, then you can call cancellations and tell them your leaving because of the price and have spoken to sky who could offer x amount. If they don't give you a good deal put the cancellation notice in.. You don't have to be worried because your just putting in a "notice" meaning you could phone up with 30 days and say you'll stay, but as you can see from this forum it usually ends up with a call back from a department that can offer even better deals. If you've not yet put the notice in hurry up and do it otherwise your losing out! If you get offered a good deal there's no harm maybe asking if they could apply a credit to the account as you had to fork out the new £129ish you was rolled onto

Lostintheclouds

Hi. I think this is related to this thread so posting here.

Can anyone confirm that 0345 4541098 is the Virgin Retentions number?

I had a call from this number today, but when I answered there was just silence which I found a bit creepy. The internet mostly says it's Virgin. Though I wonder if making heavy breathing type calls is such a good way to try and win ex customers back.

st999

My Virgin broadband and phone line was going to be increased to £49 from £41.50 so I phoned them up.
Got the cost reduced to £38.50.
Also phoned Sky and am getting a Sky Q box and Sky cinema for £38.20. 

st999

Lostintheclouds said:

Can anyone confirm that 0345 4541098 is the Virgin Retentions number?

I wouldn't know but I just call 150

Anon

Lostintheclouds said:

Hi. I think this is related to this thread so posting here.

Can anyone confirm that 0345 4541098 is the Virgin Retentions number?

I had a call from this number today, but when I answered there was just silence which I found a bit creepy. The internet mostly says it's Virgin. Though I wonder if making heavy breathing type calls is such a good way to try and win ex customers back.

Yes, that is one of the numbers that they call from (there are various).  It appears the dialler connected you to them, but the person on the other end wasn't aware.  They are generally very good, from experience.

mineshm

I called to say I was going to leave. Tried to get a better offer. Would only give me a deal between £39.50 - £47.00. Said I hasn't happy with the price and asked to be disconnected. The customer services agent even said retention team would not call you back as they have all gone (not sure where). Still asked to be disconnected. Got and email about the disconnection. The next day retention team called me with this offer below:

Date: 28th July 2020
1st offer was: V6 Box with Mixit TV, 100GB broadband and Telephone with talk weekend for £35
Said it was still too much got this at the end:
V6 Box with Mixit TV and Ents Pick Drama, 100GB broadband and Telephone with talk weekend and Sim with 5GB data
Price: £35 (Am sure the price will go up next year about £3.50)
Discount: £7 discount off any 1 Ents Pick for 18m and £29 Big bundle 18m discount. Been with them for 25+ years
The length of the contract: 18 months

Happy with £35 as last years contract was £38.00

dave_dph

I have 100Mb and Talk Weekends. My introductory price of £27 was due to finish early next month, with the new price coming in at £49

Called Retentions yesterday saying I was not prepared to pay that price and wanted to arrange disconnection.

After trying to talk me into taking a sim only contract - which I declined, she came back with £26. I quoted the deal available with NowTV coming in around £22 for a 63Mb line and said I'd prefer to disconnect. She said that was a shame and then said she'd apply a further discount for the 18 month term, bringing it down to £21. I accepted!

Whilst I was prepared to go to NowTV for 12 months I prefer to stay with Virgin. I'm well pleased, and didn't even have to wait for a call back!

Rosa_Damascena

I'm really PO'd. Decided to end my time with VM (100Mb and Talk Weekends) as I was offered £27 or so, not good enough when I see dave_dph's deal of £21 pm and what is offered to new customers. Got the email the next morning and call from the retentions team in less that 24 hours.

The best they can offer is the M50 contract (50Mb and Talk Weekends) for £25, just not good enough given the deals they have offered to others! Is another call from the retentions team likely? 

dave_dph

Rosa_Damascena said:

I'm really PO'd. Decided to end my time with VM (100Mb and Talk Weekends) as I was offered £27 or so, not good enough when I see dave_dph's deal of £21 pm and what is offered to new customers. Got the email the next morning and call from the retentions team in less that 24 hours.

The best they can offer is the M50 contract (50Mb and Talk Weekends) for £25, just not good enough given the deals they have offered to others! Is another call from the retentions team likely? 

I was shocked. I didn't think I'd be offered £21 without jumping through hoops!

I previously had cable services from 1995 to 2018 and achieved a few retention deals during that time. When VM fell out with UKTV during the summer of 2018 I gave 30 days notice; I didn't get a call back! I went with Now Broadband for 12 months.