MoneySaving Poll: Have you haggled with Sky, BT, the AA and more this year? 15 November 2016 at 4:30PM in Money Saving Polls 5 replies 3.1K views

Former_MSE_Sam_M

Poll started 15 November 2016

Have you haggled with Sky, BT, the AA and more this year? Did you succeed?

Call centre haggling can provide big savings – whether it be digital TV, broadband, credit cards, breakdown cover, insurance and more.

Each year we try to gauge the success rates of those who’ve done it. So please let us know whether you gained cheaper prices, extra goods, better deals or reduced interest.

What firms have you tried to haggle with IN THE LAST YEAR?

Click here to vote in the poll

Did you vote? Are you surprised at the results so far? Have your say below. To see the results from last time, click here.

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nursemaggie

I haggled with Virgin Media for over an hour to get my broadband and phone down to what I can afford. They agreed just at my top level after a lot of haggling. Three weeks later they put it up by about 10%. They have put it up by another 10% since but I am still locked into my contract until next February. It could still go up again before my contract is finished. I feel all reps for this company are on default to lie with every word they say. There is no way I would have signed up if I had know about them being able to do this. I am now having to use my savings to pay bills as they are above my income. I do not spend over an hour on the phone for the good of my health.

Mary_McLary

I was furious to receive an email from TalkTalk telling me my broadband and line rental cost was going to increase mid contract. It was only a small amount of money but It was the principle I objected to - as far as I was concerned we had a 2 year contract at an agreed price. They couldn't/wouldn't stop the increase from happening but I managed to persuade them to credit my account with the difference in price until the end of my contract.

Mogley

I wanted to haggle with Sky in February this year. I got through to cancellations and they would not offer me any incentive to stay with them (broadband, phone and T.V with half price movies customer). I chose this time to haggle with them as there was a good new customer incentive deal with BT with £175 worth of cash back via MSE link for a lower monthly payment and a better overall package. Used this to haggle but in the end cancelled with Sky and took the BT deal.

Sky have since tried to get me back with firstly 50% off TV bundles. 3 months later it was 60% off T.V bundles and this month it is now 75% off TV bundles!!

So.... if you are prepared to go through with the cancellation process you can potentially get the savings with Sky further down the line. But why they didn't offer this to retain my business in the first place is beyond me.

I'm happy and still with BT and will be until my contract finishes at which point I'll assess the best deal again. Hopefully the haggle success rate with BT maybe better before cancellation!!

Anthorn

I haggled with TalkTalk particularly concerning moving to the new tariff because I would lose the discount I was getting for the remaining three months. Or else I could keep the discount for the remaining three months and would then be subject to a hefty price increase.

Absolutely no success whatsoever so I switched to Plusnet. While the switch was going through TalkTalk wrote to me and emailed me several times highlighting the new tariffs I would be losing that I was objecting about in the first place!

chrismbt

Virgin Media kept telling me that they were going to increase my broadband speed in 6 months time, but the price was going up now.

I originally took out "Up to 50MEG" and it would be around 30MEG in the evenings when I actually want to use it. Then they increased it to "Up to 100MEG" and put the price up and it still ran at around 30MEG in the evening.

After 2 price rises last year, last month they told me I was going to get "Up to 150MEG" next year, but the price was going up by £4.95/month NOW.

I called them and said I didn't need 150MEG, it seldom ran at the advertised speed anyway, and I now had an option of getting "Fibre" from BT, SKY or Plusnet at "up to 70MEG".

They told me that these other services weren't really "Fibre" and only Virgin Media had real Fibre, and only Virgin Media didn't slow at peak times (which is obviously false because it clearly does) and I'd only get 5MEG from "Up to 70MEG" via BT (but BT were offering a minimum speed guarantee).

So when I got put through to Retentions I negotiated that I wouldn't get the "Up to 150MEG" upgrade (sticking with the 100MEG I already had) and instead of it going up by £4.95/month it went DOWN by £12/month.