Annual Broadband and Phone charges increases

Caveman1010

Not sure. I've just been paying attention to it over the last 2-3 yrs since the cost of living has being going through the roof.

matelodave

Its fairly recent, around three years ago.

When OFCOM allowed customers to leave their contracts without penalty if the suppliers tried increasing charges mid contract the suppliers found a way to get around it by writing the uplift clause into their contracts.

MuckChucker

Xenon said:

Broadband providers annual price increases
Has this always been the case or is this a new thing over the last few years ?

This will be my 12th year living in the UK. As far as I can remember, I have had to ring my ISP each and every year to do the cancel/renegotiate tango due to price rise.

On a selfish level, I love these price rises as I've never paid them and it means I can ignore the contract length when signing up to a new ISP because they all do it at some stage every 12 month period. However, there will be vulnerable people who will be exploited by these rises and as such I imagine more regulation may be on the horizon.

molerat

People are not complaining about price increases, they are complaining about mid contract price increases.  It wouldn't be so bad if they put new customer prices up but they usually don't, they keep the same low price.  The worst thing is that if you sign up now you will get an increase in a few weeks.  The regulator, as with all the OFs, is absolutely useless.

Ifeelrippedoff

Hi folks,

I am a Virgin Media Customer, and have been for many years.  I have M250 broadband, TV option (Maxit), Telephone line (evening and weekend calls free), Sky Sports package and Kids package. (How I got the last one I don’t know).

 

I have received the Virgin Media price increase letter stating that my monthly payment will increase by £15 a month, (£180 a year).  Ok, I know that prices all over the show are increasing but such a percentage increase is a bit outlandish.

 

However, my main concern is that Virgin is going to alter their contracts so that an annual price increase formula is included and it will be binding on their Customers. This means that Virgin will say, mid contract, that it will increase the price by x% and there is nothing the Customer can do about.  They will not have the option to opt out of the contract and will just have to pay the new rate.

 

I believe that other Broadband providers currently have this clause in their contracts.  I believe that this clause is immoral!  The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 states that “The Regulations provide that an unfair term is one which has not been individually negotiated and which, contrary to the requirement of good faith, causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations under the contract to the detriment of the consumer.” I would therefore maintain that this clause is an unfair term that causes a significant imbalance in the Customer’s rights and is detriment to the Customer.

 

I feel that the only organisation that can get this rule altered is OFCOM.  I have registered a complaint with them using the complaint form on their website.  I would therefore suggest that if you are in agreement with me and resent that clause then please raise the matter with OFCOM.  The more of us that protest then they will need to take notice.

 

Please don’t ignore my suggestion.  If we act like sheep and just accept these conditions they will just impose more of them on us.

 

A statement from the OFCOM website, “our principal duty is to further the interests of citizens and consumers”

 

Do they do this?