on 15-02-2023 18:44
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?????
Answered! Go to Answer
on 15-02-2023 19:38
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.
I'm a Very Insightful Person, I'm here to share knowledge, I don't work for Virgin Media. Learn more
Have I helped? Click Mark as Helpful Answer or use Kudos to say thanks
on 15-02-2023 19:38
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.
I'm a Very Insightful Person, I'm here to share knowledge, I don't work for Virgin Media. Learn more
Have I helped? Click Mark as Helpful Answer or use Kudos to say thanks
on 16-02-2023 08:20
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
Matt - Forum Team
New around here?
on 16-02-2023 13:18
Matt,
Thank you for your response.
Charlie
on 16-02-2023 14:08
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
on 17-02-2023 09:11
@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
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).
on 17-02-2023 18:07
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.
on 21-02-2023 12:22
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.