Price Increase RPI plus 3.9%

[NC4]

Could someone provide a rationale that makes increasing prices by RPI plus 3.9% fair for customers (apart from the fact that some of competitors appear to be doing something similar).  

Even if the RPI is below 0%, prices still go up by 3.9%...that doesn't seem reasonable at all.

Can we expect a year on year 3.9% improvement in performance, etc in return?  I know systems need investing but surely this should be built into the pricing model and not imposing this annual hike onto customers year one year.

This permanent RPI plus 3.9% will be a compound increase with the inflation busting increase being applied to the previous years over RPI price rise.  If the RPI stayed at 0% or less, after 12 years this would cause a 50% increase in the cost of the service (double the cost after 20 years).  

[Tudor]

At least they are stating what the increase will be. My car/house insurance goes up every year and I have no idea how much it will be until the bill arrives. The really unfortunate part is unlike car/house insurance you cannot cancel without penalty. 

[Adduxi]

When my contract is up, I'll be off to one of the smaller Openreach ISP's.  They generally don't have in contract price rises. 

[Chrismaff67]

Hi, 

The Question that no one seems to have risen is the email sent says that the any termination of contract is to be given by the 31/10/23 & the increase will not happen until April 24, that is 6 months in advance asking to terminate a contract which is absolute madness to even send such an email to customers. 

My point is we are told that we can not terminate the contract after the 31/10/23 with out paying a cancellation fee but its fine to tell us that we can cancel before the 31/10/23 and no cancelation fee will be added. Is this madness or what, how can they do that?. 

Ok let me say here in the community that I now put in text that IF I want terminate my contract on the  31/10/23, to End on the 31st of March 2024, Then I Have given six months notice of termination of my contract there for it will NOT HAVE a termination fee to end the contract because of the six months advanced notice given, so as simple as A,B,C To Dear virgin media it is 100% rubbish what has been written and sent by email to most of the customers this past week.  You can NOT SEND out an email with the way it has been written on forcing people to pay a termination fee after the 31/10/23 if the new 3.9% Plus RPI increase is NOT due till the following April of 2024. Really guys who worded that email that is absolute rubbish?? 

Just my point of view when I seen the email sent to me last week. 

[Vinegar]

You do make a good point, however legally, it’s all valid. VM are staying that they will be making a change to the contract terms ie as of April ‘24, your price absolutely Will increase by 3.9% over and above the RPI as calculated in Feb. ‘24 (and what will that be, we don’t know, have a good guess?)

So you have until the end of October, to accept this or reject it and leave without any penalty. It’s all a bit of a gamble really isn’t it, personally, if you have reasonable alternatives then give your notice in now and leave.

Your idea of giving notice now to take effect as of 1st April is fair enough, except I don’t think it will fly, legally, you have to give a minimum of 30 day’s notice, 60 days, maybe 90 days is reasonable,* six months, not so sure!

*the often mentioned posts on here where customers are told that they ‘have’ to give exactly 30 days notice, no more, no less otherwise…., notwithstanding. It is, of course, legally rubbish, but then nobody ever, ever accused VM’s offshore customer service provision as being properly trained or competent at doing anything other than blindly reading for a script in front of them, or, indeed making stuff up or lying to customers.

[Chrismaff67]

And what does this mean then > 

What are my options now?

If you’re unhappy with anything in this email, you can cancel your package, any time before 31/10/2023 without paying any early cancellation fees.

what happened to the 30 days notice we all had as customers and by giving a 30 notice there would be no cancellations fees to pay.  That is the part of unfairness or have I not understood the written email sent.?

[Speckett2]

I would say with the current inline prices we will see alot of people leaving Virgin and going with cheaper alternatives in the very near future, myself included. With cityfibre and now 5g being at considerably better speeds and lower prices its a no brainer to start looking around before the price hike comes into force, I have been with virgin since the early days of cablecoms/ntl and have found the ever increasing price to the none ever lack lustre returns a failing feature. The new customer deals vs as the tried and trusted loyal getting roached with higher and higher bills. Its not all bad, I very rarely have an issue with their services as a whole, the customer services though is poor.