Virgin Media retention deals (post your haggling successes)

Limara

After phoning to cancel I was offered £18 for my current package  to stay with them until end of my contract. This was to be billed 15 first month I assume I was part way through followed by 18 pounds a month until the end. I was sent the attached info.
First payment was 15 as expected next one jumped to £27 so none actually paid at the 18.
They are now trying to say it's a offset to add 9 pounds increase and bring the price to the 27 a month I was on.and it's good I didn't get the 9 pounds increase on the 27.
It makes no sense why the first one was even reduced if it wasn't classed as a new payment as it was prior to the new price increase any way !
I have seen lots of screen shots like mine where people negotiated better deals any one else got this problem?

Bettie

Limara said:

After phoning to cancel I was offered £18 for my current package  to stay with them until end of my contract. This was to be billed 15 first month I assume I was part way through followed by 18 pounds a month until the end. I was sent the attached info.
First payment was 15 as expected next one jumped to £27 so none actually paid at the 18.
They are now trying to say it's a offset to add 9 pounds increase and bring the price to the 27 a month I was on.and it's good I didn't get the 9 pounds increase on the 27.
It makes no sense why the first one was even reduced if it wasn't classed as a new payment as it was prior to the new price increase any way !
I have seen lots of screen shots like mine where people negotiated better deals any one else got this problem?

Same sort of thing . Lowered to £21 then the £9 added so I paid £30 same as original amount.  Therefore no rise . Lots of others had  the same.  

ladruid

ladruid said:

I have just started the VM dance. Oh what a fun little ditty it will be.

They wanted to put up my Ultimate Volt bundle to £136 and some shrapnel... that was a hard pass from me.

I called up and chose the options to cancel, first guy could only offer it for £99, a new customer gets it for £85 so told him that's that's the maximum cost I will accept. No can do, so passed onto another section of retentions, this very helpful chap eventually got the offer to £85, and I was about to accept it, but I have played these games for many years and asked them to reel off exactly what I would get for my money (always good if a dispute so the phone recording has the evidence). Turns out it did have everything included in the Ultimate Volt bundle, expect for one thing, it didn't include the £25 charge for the o2 unlimited sim.

So this means it would have been £85 to VM and £25 to o2, £110 total, ha, caught them out before I accepted! Proceeded to give VM 30 days notice that I am cancelling my contract, checked marketing preferences and contact details...

Looks like my partner doesn't like losing VM so she she's going to sign up herself in her name, legally a totally new customer. Bonus is she nets herself a nice £115 of cashback for a new Ultimate Volt signup at the monthly charge of £85 (£60 VM, £25 o2).

Lets see how the story develops.

Wow, what a ride.

I wont bore you with the entire saga. It went along the lines of:-

called to cancel
offered crap deals
said no, go through with the cancellation
week later checked online account, got decent deal, was going to accept £63 VM + £25 O2, only £3 more than new customers
a few days later went to website to accept, but the website was messed up told me to call them
called them, got cut off mid explanation of issue
called back, told they needed to pass it to manager, needed to review 48 hours max
no contact in 72 hours, so decided to call back
called back, told no cancellation noted on the account so couldn't help, needed to re cancel
cut off again (sigh, VM really need to sort out their comms/staff)
called back, on hold for 25 mins listening to annoying music
while waiting on the landline, got a call on my mobile (account authorised number) from 0800 something ma bob
answered mobile as the number was unusual to me...
seemed it was the VM outbound port team... so onto the crux of the story...

The lady I spoke too was actually quite helpful.
I was told the cancellation was in place, the other teams were wrong. Was extremely sorry that they couldn't honour the offer I had in writing though... seems its valid for 24 hours only, to which I was not told (verified by recorded call) and no mention on documents I was sent... VM didn't care...

Was told the best they could do was £74 with her maximum personal discount of £8, ended up at £66, I proceeded to explain that's more than new customers for the Ultimate Volt bundle. (£60 to VM, £25 to O2). Was nothing they could do... wouldn't budge.

Kept her talking explaining all the issues I had, she managed to find another £1 off discount she could add, so I managed to get it to £65... decided it was the best I was going to get, and with a week to disconnection, too late to sign up as new customer, or another provider, so decided to accept it.

Saying that, I am better off though as I had the £25 o2 sim for 18 months, managed to get the £25 sim lowered to £5 a month with a £50 account credit on a 12mth contract for 4gb data (in essence £10 for 12 months). As I only use it for a backup to my EE sim I hardly ever use it. Also I got a free Netflix account which I didn't used to have, which will save me £10.99.

So in the end I managed to get :-

Ultimate Volt Bundle

• Gig1 Fibre Broadband including hub 5 + free wifi pods
• o2 5G sim with double data (4gb a month, not unlimited)
• Maxit TV
• Sky Cinema HD
• Sky Sports HD
• BT Sports UHD
• Kids Pick
• TV 6 Set top box
• Extra set top box
• Netflix Standard included
• Anytime Chatter plan includes anytime calls to UK landlines and mobiles
• Caller ID

All for about £66 on an 18 month contract. 3.9% + RPI in May 2024.

Just glad this malarkey is over for another 18 months. Phew.

retiringtoosoon

ok, £22 for M125 broadband, 360 box MixIt Tv, and phone
but had to take out a £6 per month O2 sim also

Am i able to just cancel the O2 sim with no repurcussions?

mits999

retiringtoosoon said:

ok, £22 for M125 broadband, 360 box MixIt Tv, and phone
but had to take out a £6 per month O2 sim also

Am i able to just cancel the O2 sim with no repurcussions?

Yes you can 

retiringtoosoon

mits999 said:

retiringtoosoon said:

ok, £22 for M125 broadband, 360 box MixIt Tv, and phone
but had to take out a £6 per month O2 sim also

Am i able to just cancel the O2 sim with no repurcussions?

Yes you can 

Boss mode, thanks 

ry91

Was just offered the following after being called back:

Volt 200 + Weekend calls - £23pm
Volt 350 + Weekend calls - £23pm (I went with this)
Volt 500 + Weekend calls - £29pm
Gig1 Fibre + Weekend calls - £34pm 

dave_dph

ry91 said:

Was just offered the following after being called back:

Volt 200 + Weekend calls - £23pm
Volt 350 + Weekend calls - £23pm (I went with this)
Volt 500 + Weekend calls - £29pm
Gig1 Fibre + Weekend calls - £34pm 

Did those prices include the cost of the monthly sim?

Just put my 30 days notice in. Been paying £20 for the last eighteen months for 125Mb and weekend calls. The guy initially offered the same package for £30 (or £29 with sim), then reduced to £25 (or £24 with sim). I'm pretty sure the sim is then charged seperately by O2 at an additional cost?

He then offered 'Essential broadband' at £15, at which point I declined and gave notice.

Will now wait and see. My local BT exchange is FTTP, so I'm happy to change to Vodafone if need be.

dareusj

Just played the Virgin shuffle. Customer of 9yrs

Had Bigger TV + Sky Sports, 350mb BB and talk weekend for £50

Rang up to cancel and best price they could offer me for same package was £66. Cancellations te best was £59. Loyalty team called 2 days later and actually offered £2 more at £61. 

A week past and got a call and follow up text to call back. Spoke to someone in their "top tier" loyalty team who offered the following:

Maxit TV + Sky Sports and Movies

Netflix

250mb (believe to be upgraded back to 350mb due to volt as have O2 SIM)

Talk weekends

All for £49.30

Kingsblue

Was paying £21 a month for 125MB, due to go up next month to £37 IIRC, phoned Virgin, was offered £29 then £27, declined this offer, put my notice in, had a phone call from retentions who offered the following on a 18 month contact


125MB for £23 a month
250MB for £20 a month
350MB for £20 a month (which I went with)