Martin Lewis: Is it unfair to charge loyal customers more?

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  • Mobeer
    Mobeer Posts: 1,851 Forumite
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    There are a few things I would like in any renewal:
    • A comparison of cost last year \ last contract period vs. the new new \ period (e.g. was £100 now £120)
    • The change in average price across all customers (e.g. typical customer is paying 5% more this year)
    • The supplier's profit margin across all products last year



    One really unfair practice I have personally encountered is:
    • receive a renewal quote with a large increased
    • phone up to discuss the quote
    • without any suggestions on my price, their phone agent drops price by some amount
    At this point nothing about the product has changed except the price; it makes the supplier look dishonest. I wonder if the supplier could be required to offer their "best price" in the renewal, with the customer free to shop around but the supplier unable to drop the price if the customer does so?
  • Paul_DNAP
    Paul_DNAP Posts: 751 Forumite
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    I also find that phoning up my insurers (car and home) and asking a simple polite "is that renewal quote really the best price you can offer me?" really is a simple and effective.


    Pretty much every year they manage to get this year's premium down to somewhere close to last year's (sometimes a couple of quid below or above) whereas the auto-renews are somewhere around a 20% uplift. And if I compound that up over several years then I shudder to think what I'd be paying now. (A 20% uplift would give a six fold increase over ten years!)


    Sometimes they ask "what quotes are you getting" and I reply "you're my first port of call, I am hoping you'll come up with a number that saves me having to go comparing" (This year I did the full comparisons round up and the only way to beat their adjusted renewal quote was to deteriorate the level of cover in some way.)
    (Although I could be wrong, I often am.)
  • tom717
    tom717 Posts: 181 Forumite
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    I have a perfect example of existing customers getting ripped off.

    As a Talk Talk customer I can see a Black Friday deal on their website for £22.50. I am not logged in to my account, it is presented as though this is the deal new customers would get. But if I turn my WiFi off and connect via my mobile data the price drops to £17.95 a month.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 26,612 Forumite
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    A 90 year-old with early onset dementia??? :D
  • Paul_DNAP
    Paul_DNAP Posts: 751 Forumite
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    Moneyineptitude wrote: »
    A 90 year-old with early onset dementia??? :D


    Yes, the "early" in that phrase denotes that it is the early stages of dementia - it is not linked to the stage of the person's life as in "it's a bit early in her life to be getting that".
    (Although I could be wrong, I often am.)
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 26,612 Forumite
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    Paul_DNAP wrote: »
    Yes, the "early" in that phrase denotes that it is the early stages of dementia - it is not linked to the stage of the person's life as in "it's a bit early in her life to be getting that".
    That's not my understanding of the term "early onset" dementia.
    "Early-onset Alzheimer's disease, also called early-onset Alzheimer's, or early-onset AD, is Alzheimer's disease diagnosed before the age of 65".
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early-onset_Alzheimer's_disease
    "Other terms used for dementia that started before age 65 include ‘early-onset dementia’ and ‘working-age dementia’....
    Young-onset dementia is the term preferred by many people with the condition."
    https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/types-dementia/younger-people-with-dementia

    So the term is definitely not applicable to any hypothetical 90 year-old in the early stages of dementia.
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