Change in contract and price rise

[BBwill]

Hi,

Need some help please. I'll come to the price rise in a moment. 

Firstly, I would like to know if I can leave my virgin contract not because of the increase but due to the change Virgin are making to the contracts. From 2024 they are adopting the RPI model to raise prices which means you will not be able to leave any longer, this is now going to be baked into the contracts. Surely, such a change to the terms allows us to hand in our notice?

I joined VM 14 months ago on the ultimate volt bundle, this package includes an O2 SIM, the price was £79 for the package, £25 was billed by O2 and £54 by Virgin. 

In the interim, VM put the price up last March, then in April, O2 put the price up separately, I'm now paying closer to £90 for the package.

Back to this year, we've been informed VM are putting the price up by nearly 14%, on top of that O2 will shortly announce an RPI increase of around 20% 😱.

End result will mean I'll be paying over £100 come April. Only been with the company for 14 months!

Fed up with all this and the fact the Virgin Broadband has been flaky, I decided to sign up with Community Fibre since I live in London, joined last month and got the first three months free and then £25 a month for 1 Gig symmetrical speeds, the BB is way better compared to Virgin, lower latency and 20 times faster uploads compared to my VM gig service. 

The problem is I have yet to receive the price increase notification yet from VM, I can't wait to ditch them! At the moment I'm not paying for community Fibre, but that will change in March. 

Does anyone know when the price increase notifications are being sent? Or can I just give my notice to leave simply because Virgin are changing the terms of their contracts. 

Any advice would be much appreciated. 

[Andrew-G]

Click on the link in my post that should work. 

Incidentally, it's not just Ofcom rules, any contract cannot have material changes made unilaterally under both consumer rights legislation, and established contract law.  If it were otherwise you or I could just write to VM and tell them we're cutting the agreed price by 80%.  

[Shroko]

Sorry, just noticed that and amended my previous post. 

I agree with what you're saying, trouble is when you call VM customer services they completely deny that I can leave due to the change in terms. 

I don't know how to overcome that, I'm sure others are in the same predicament 

I still haven't received my price increase notification either. 

[Andrew-G]

Notifications are being phased over a couple of months, so no surprise.  Until they notify you that either the price is changing, or the T&Cs are changing then it is correct you have no option to cancel.  Once you get the notification you've got 30 days to cancel or rengotiate.

[BBwill]

I think it's absolutely disgraceful how VM treat their customers. 

It's public knowledge that prices are going up and that the contract terms are being changed. 

The only reason I can think that VM are staggering the notifications is just so they can fleece hard pressed customers for another month or two. 

Their greed knows no bounds, adopting the RPI model is so they can hyke the prices higher than using the CPI model which is lower. AFAIK other broadband companies use CPI, it's still unfair that any of them can increase prices mid-contract. 

OFCOM should intervene and stop this unfair practice, especially during the cost of living hell that we are all in at the moment. 

[Andrew-G]

The only reason I can think that VM are staggering the notifications is just so they can fleece hard pressed customers for another month or two. 

For some customers the phased notification means the increase occurs a month later, so I'm not sure that is correct to say they the company benefit by much - even though it means some customers will get the right to cancel later than others, most customer won't be cancelling so the effect on VM of deferring this April's increase for some is probably a large sum than the additional month's business they get from those who do leave. 

But the only reason for phasing it is because if they did it in one go, they'd be (even more) swamped with customers phoning to renegotiate or cancel.

OFCOM should intervene and stop this unfair practice, especially during the cost of living hell that we are all in at the moment. 

Should but won't.  Ofcom themselves CREATED this situation by (a) allowing fixed term contracts longer than twelve months, and by (b) allowing ISPs to charge whatever they wanted without a consumer right to cancel if the formula were baked into the contract.

[acdeag]

---

@BBwill wrote:

The only reason I can think that VM are staggering the notifications is just so they can fleece hard pressed customers for another month or two. 

---

More likely that they couldn't cope with the call volumes if everyone was notified at once.

[Tom_W1]

Hi @BBwill thanks for your reply, sorry you feel this way.

1. Many of our main competitors have announced changes to prices, and more are expected to do so this year.

2. We are confident that we provide excellent value for our customers by including daily saving on Priority, discounted TV subscriptions through Stream, and boosting broadband speeds and data through Volt.

3. We also support our vulnerable customers through our Essential Broadband packages as well as Talk Protected landline customers, all of which will not see their prices change.
Many thanks

[Nialli]

Sky today announced increases will be 8.1%. VM and BT are going to have a mass exodus. 

[Andrew-G]

---

@Tom_W1 wrote:

Hi @BBwill thanks for your reply, sorry you feel this way.

1. Many of our main competitors have announced changes to prices, and more are expected to do so this year.

Translation: All the big players are doing it, we know we can get away with it.

2. We are confident that we provide excellent value for our customers by including daily saving on Priority, discounted TV subscriptions through Stream, and boosting broadband speeds and data through Volt.

Translation: We'll use smoke and mirrors to try and persuade customers that they shouldn't cancel (and then phone-bomb them with retentions calls if they do). 

3. We also support our vulnerable customers through our Essential Broadband packages as well as Talk Protected landline customers, all of which will not see their prices change.

Translation: The benefiterati who got a 10% increase this year from HMG are also being offered discount connections by us, and despite the largesse of the Jeremy *unt, we'll still freeze those costs;  As a paying customer all of our costs for this generosity will be added to your bill.

Many thanks

Translation:  Hahahahaa!  You mugs!

---

[roryp123]

---

@Tom_W1 wrote:3. We also support our vulnerable customers through our Essential Broadband packages as well as Talk Protected landline customers, all of which will not see their prices change.

Many thanks

---

I understand the need to look after the vulnerable and I do not disagree to a company doing this. However if the company NEEDS to increase the price of it's services due to their rising costs then ALL customers should have the same % increase to help cover these costs, or even better idea (which obviously won't happen) instead of paying out £1.6billion last year to investors look after the customers with a smaller increase which would probably keep more customers with you.

It will be interesting to see if the new customer prices will still be at the same price they are now after April or if they get increased inline with existing customers price increases. I say that like we all don't know that the new customer prices will stay the same even though ours will be going up.