VM price increase

[ruddlad]

Like everthing, prices going up and up and up, I get home and find a letter from Virgin Media, "your price will increase . . . . blah blah blah"

So onto the phone I go, I asked what I would get for the increase, and was offered a promise that I'd get more channels and better service.

"What like the movie channel and someone bringing popcorn round" (tongue still in cheek by the way) I asked, "well no sir" came the reply.

"Ok, put me through to the retention department, I will go to basic and save £25 a month"!!!

Outcome???

£5 a month reduction in the bill and a 3 fold increase in my broadband speed and sending a new hub to cope with the extra speed.

That's free phone calls 24/7, 30mb BB, XL TV with 2 Tivo boxes.

Alas no movies or popcorn.

Credit to VM, it's worth a call, now where's Eons number, gonna threaten to put a windmill in my garden if they don't cut my 'leccy costs!!!!!:D

[Tomor]

Similar sort of thing, They called us and said they were OFFERING to upgrade us. Gave us a free Tivo box, faster internet and a monthly bill reduction. and THEY called US!!!!!!

[ruddlad]

Go on, is your price bigger than mine?? lol

[Tomor]

our bill or our reduction?

[maviczap]

Swapped leccy & gas from British gas to fixed until 2015 saving £50 a month with Scottish Power

Swapped my wife's mob phone from Vodaphone who didn't really try to hold onto my business, saving about £30 a month for a better deal

Would like the Virgin option but no cable or fibre in my road.

Quite happy with Sky BB

[ruddlad]

Tomor either, lets compare size:D

[Specialone]

I did this last year, phoned up to complain about how crap my 8mb broadband was, so they said we qualify for free 24/7 calls and 30mb broadband and reduced our bill by £10 a month, couldn't believe it tbh, but fair play to them it's not increased in over 12 months.

[Tomor]

discount of around £25pp now paying £75 for everything incl ultd calls & 0845 and many other bits, 60 meg int. xl tivo and v+hd tv. all i can think off the top of my head

[ruddlad]

£50.20 (.20p ??????????) inc 0845 numbers, though only 30mb BB.

Increases to £52 in Feb.

Have been with them since they started and have mobiles too (that's not inc in the price)

[Thunderace]

Thats the spirit! The best thing to say when calling a service provider is "I aint happy" they will usually grovel and offer you a good deal. I had an increase from sky, rang them to complain and said "I aint happy" now got unlimited calls to all No's inc 0800,0844,087 etc and bumped up to 36m broadband and full Sky tv package with a discount of £10 a month?

[embee]

Hmmm, feel done now. Only managed doubling speed+wireless superhub+one Tivo box and £5/month reduction.

Must try harder next time.

[Bluefish]

My virgin runs out soon, look's like i'll be getting a second box, nice.

[Bibio]

been with telewest since they started the £10 unlimited dial up in 1999?

only phoned retentions once at which point i dumped the phone line and got what is now vonage. i think i pay £7.50 a month for free calls to almost anywhere in the world and mobiles are dirt cheep :-)

i'm pretty happy with the service i get from Virgin.

[ruddlad]

My original post on price was incorrect, it isn't really £50.20, had a call this morning saying a computer error wouldn't allow such a discount. Works out now at £50.40.

Considering my options now for the extra 20p :D

[timwilky]

Wish I could call their bluff. but as I cannot even get ADSL I have to have virgin.

Now if they actually provided a decent service I wouldn't mind the fact they are more expensive than anyone else for broadband.

ie, scrap traffic filtering
provide a decent STATIC subnet to allow customers to route their traffic
5:1 download/upload ratio
tech support that speak english and competent (yes mr wilkinson, if you ping our special address of 127.0.0.1 it will confirm there is nothing wrong with our network). Fool it is the loopback address.

[EssexDave]

Customer loyalty does not exist as a matter of course anymore.

I wanted to upgrade from my iphone to Samsung Galaxy S3 (by the way I SHALL be going back to iphone as soon as possible - that is another story).

Orange (Who I have been with for 8 years) said, fine, you can upgrade for £50 for the phone, £36.99pm and we will give you £50 cash back in 3 months time. (Clearly to deter people nicking phones and not paying the bill).

So anyway Three were offering the same deal except 15gb of internet instead of 500mb and the phone for free.

Quick call to orange, I'd like to cancel my contract please...."Can we ask why sir?" My reply: "Of course, Three are offering me a much better deal".

They ask me what I'd like, I come in with a ridiculous deal - "I want the S3 for free, 1gb of internet, 600 minutes, unlimited texts and to only pay £28pm" - To which the reply was, "Okay sir, just to confirm, that would be a 24 month contract, are you happy with that? If so the phone will be with you tomorrow".

Morale of the story, complain, threaten to cancel and get the better deal. Unfortunately it seems so much more work is put into obtaining new customers (in the knowledge that they will leave to get a better deal asap) than retaining loyal customers.

Three seem to be the network to go with at the minute in terms of value for money (at face value at least - I have no idea as to the quality of the network).

Wouldn't it be nice to find a company that just offers you the best they can do, just because. (Of course this is arguable bad business).