Increase in Monthly Contract Price

[Charlie7369]

I received my notification of increase in my monthly contract price today.  I have been with VM and its predecessor NTLworld for over 20 years now.  I was expecting an increase in my monthly charge of around the well publicised 14% increase.  I was shocked to to receive an email telling me my monthly increase in service will be a whacking 25%!!!! VM how can you justify this level of increase?????

[Ernie_C · Accepted solution]

To get such a high percentage increase, you must be on a very generous discount.

The higher your current discount, the higher the increase will look as the increases are on the full, list price.

[Matthew_ML]

Hey Charlie7369, thank you for reaching out today and I am sorry to hear about the price increase.

We always balance our prices with the need to continue investing in our network, products and services.
 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.
We’re seeing growing demand for data – with usage growing by more than 10% each year. Last year, we invested more than £2bn in our networks, which contributed to average broadband speeds increasing more than 40%, while helping to make sure our customers stayed connected and were able to keep using our services more and more. Thanks 

[Charlie7369]

Matt,

Thank you for your response.

Charlie

[Charlie7369]

Ernie,

Thank you for your insightful response,

Yes i got quite a good deal in early September last year. Allegedly tied into me taking their new mobile offer from O2!

That said,  the monthly cost was higher than the previous agreement which had just ended. 

I was told then that this was a new package for customers who included an O2 mobile service, albeit  i had been with Virgin Mobile for more than 15 years.  So it would appear the small gain in my monthly charge,  I am  now being asked to pay an extra 25% + on my VM account! for the same services services, apart from me taking up the VM "free" 360 TV handset in October.  After the handset was received and set up, VM then e-mailed me to thank me for  services and tried to add another £2.00 pm for the free handset!!! 

For 20 years or so I always found the VM pricing structure difficult to understand - now I am totally confused by it!!!

Charlie

[unisoft]

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@Charlie7369 wrote:

Ernie,

Thank you for your insightful response,

Yes i got quite a good deal in early September last year. Allegedly tied into me taking their new mobile offer from O2!

That said,  the monthly cost was higher than the previous agreement which had just ended. 

I was told then that this was a new package for customers who included an O2 mobile service, albeit  i had been with Virgin Mobile for more than 15 years.  So it would appear the small gain in my monthly charge,  I am  now being asked to pay an extra 25% + on my VM account! for the same services services, apart from me taking up the VM "free" 360 TV handset in October.  After the handset was received and set up, VM then e-mailed me to thank me for  services and tried to add another £2.00 pm for the free handset!!! 

For 20 years or so I always found the VM pricing structure difficult to understand - now I am totally confused by it!!!

Charlie

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Renegotiate by using the "leaving Virgin" option on the telephone not standard customer services. You should get new customer pricing or near or sometimes even better. Be polite to VM retentions and explain what you are not happy about and the changes you want to make (you may decide your current BB speed isn't being utilised for example or want to reduce TV channels or reduce one service and add to another).

• Existing customers are cheaper than new as no free gifts (TV's Xbox Cashback as examples depending on the marketing for any given month), no need for VM to pay return postage for kit, no need to refurbish kit, no need to pay cashback to referral sites like quidco/topcashback.
• There has to be a benefit to a customer like a discount because they are being locked into an 18 month contract again
• Know your market prices for other providers Broadband, for example FTTC on NOWTV is 12 month or monthly only contact at £22. If you just want broadband only its going to easier than someone who wants landline and TV
• Consider whether you need a lock in contract for TV services. Does VM's STREAM box offer the channels you want (its Freeview part is free) and can you go without recording facility and just use catch up players or have another device that does recording off Freeview (aerial) for example? Stream's Sky subscriptions channels is only £8 per month and a 30 day notice contract. You also get 10% back on many subscriptions like Netflix, Disney etc.
• Ofcom rules mean you can currently exit your contract without penalty, as long as you do this within 30 days of being notified by VM; wait 3 months and be classed as a new customer and get new customer offers. Alternatively, many people on here sign up the next day in their partner's name.
• Be prepared to give 30 days notice if the result isn't what you want, this gives you time to arrange BB installation by someone else and you can ring back in to cancel the cancel if you change your mind. During this time you **may** get a call from 2nd level retentions with a better offer. It's not guaranteed and they won't if you have marketing disabled in My Virgin Media under My Profile.
• Despite annual price rises at ridiculous rates, new customer offers have been static for years (like Ultimate package hovers around £79-£85 often and sometimes with cashback or free gifts like a TV as just one example)

[Charlie7369]

Thank you for your helpful response. 

I always re-negotiate around their annual price increases - their proposed price increase was just a bit excessive even for VM.

Helpful tips beyond beyond the usual annual price increase/adjustment. So thank you fornthis. 

[cooltone]

Apologies Ernie at my rant. It is not directed at you personally.

My reaction to the use of the term 'generous discount' and the arrogate imbalance of consumer-corparate contracts:

1) Economic drivers are not a vaild reason to increase the price

Virgin knew the economic situation in September. All the current economic drivers were well-known at the time. The forecasts for 10% plus inflation were all over the news.

2) Investment in technology is not a valid reason to increase the price

Virgin Media and all other Communcation companies have to invest every year, there is nothing new here. The planning cycles for this are measured in years. Virgin knew the situation in September . Of course investment costs have been effected and I refer you back to 1).

4) The discounts are standard pricing; they are not generous.

Virgin Media introduced the current pricing practices focused on providing discounts to new customers and extracting as much as possible from existing customers; Virgin Media and every consumer capable of haggling knows this. The sad fact is that the vulnerable are penalised because they are incapable of haggling and consumer loyalty has been destroyed by the inevitable erosion of trust.  

Additionally, I notice that Virgin Media has opted to use RPI instead of CPI like most their competition, roughly an extra 3% more than competition added every year; no doubt more generosity from Virgin Media.  

5) Contract integrity no longer exists with Virgin Media   

My 18 month contract was agreed in September 2023 and Virgin Media is not going to honour the prices; that's 5 months into an 18 month contract; from the points above this is clearly unreasonable.