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. 

[unisoft]

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@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.

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

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That's mis advertising then VM. VOLT upgrades are SUPPOSED to be free but now you are saying they form part of the reason why people are being charged more; so you are pretending they are free at point of them taking an extra service and then putting their contract price up?

[Robert_P]

Not the case at all unisoft, the price rise is applied across all eligible customers regardless of package, it isn't just Volt customers.

Rob

[Andrew-G]

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@Robert_P wrote:

Not the case at all unisoft, the price rise is applied across all eligible customers regardless of package, it isn't just Volt customers.

Rob

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Think of it like Farmer Giles doing a drive-by with the muck spreader, everybody gets a good helping.

Although I have to say "price rise is applied across all eligible customers regardless of package" is questionable.  Due to the way VM apply the price rise, somebody who took out the Big Bundle package a month or two back will see their monthly bill go up by 29.9%.  I'd say that they might feel very aggrieved. 

Now, the semantics can allow both the interpretation of fairness (as in each customer pays 13.4% more), or of VM's unfairness approach of applying it to the standard undiscounted price, so that the bigger the discount the higher the actual effective price rise.  Luckily we all know VM are being rapacious opportunists on the basis they hope to get away with it.

[thechief]

I got a letter today telling me that my monthly bill is going up by £15 a month in April and that the RPI change will be forced on me. I've been with VM since the Comcast days (25 years?) and I am probably going to leave and go to Sky.

I priced up a (better?) package with them today (TV, BB, Landline) and it was £25 a month cheaper than VM's new price. The BB speed will be lower than with VM but I will get the benefit of multi-room UHD TV and I will also get Sky Cinema (I don't have any movies / Sky "premium" content with VM at the moment).

Its a shame as actually I have quite rated VM in the time I have been with them. I'll call them on Monday and see what they have to say about retaining a very loyal, long standing customer.

TC

[Nialli]

FYI Unless Sky are covering it or you’ve got existing BT cabling in the property you’ll probably be charged an additional one-off £49 for the Sky broadband

[Nialli]

I’m looking at Sky too. No price rise notification yet though

[Natalie_L]

Hello thechief, 

Thank you for posting to us here on the Community. 

We are very sorry to hear you are thinking of leaving us, this is not something we would want. 

Like many businesses, we’re experiencing rising costs due to inflation. We are not immune to rising costs, primarily due to wider economic changes from rising inflation
Every customer receives an individual price rise specific to them, if you wish to discuss your increase further then you can discuss this with us either by chatting to us online, calling 0345 454 1111 or 150 from your landline.

Thanks, 

[thechief]

I spoke to Retentions earlier today and was pleased with their attentiveness. Suffice to say that I won't be going to Sky just yet. My contract is up towards the end of the year so I will see that out and then make a call on what to do next. 

TC

[Adri_G]

Hey thechief, thank you so much for taking the time to update us on this.
We're glad to hear you've spoken to our retentions team and discussed this matter throughout, also delighted to hear you've made an informed decision to stay with us after this conversation.

Please, always feel free to pop us a new message and ask for help in case you need anything more in the future.
We're happy to best assist you over the forums or any other support channel.

[ollietup]

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@Natalie_L wrote:

Like many businesses, we’re experiencing rising costs due to inflation. We are not immune to rising costs, primarily due to wider economic changes from rising inflation

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Yes, we're all aware of rising inflation, but what isn't clear is why you need to raise prices at a level 3.9% above inflation. That means a 3.9% real-terms increase in prices, every year, forever. Inflation-level price rises to cover your rising costs are justifiable; above-inflation rises are not. I also note that you have set them at the maximum level that allows you to deny us the opportunity to cancel our contracts without penalty when notified of the price rises in future years.