Not covering yourselves in glory

[mmj]

This is just another moan really but also a warning to others.

We phoned to re-negotiate a new contract ahead of the price rise in May, as usual it wasn't exactly easy.

First guy we spoke to thanked us for our loyalty (25+ years) but then things went downhill. We were offered a fixed price of £36 for 18mths (very basic package of BB/phone), they emailed us the pre-contract agreement and low and behold, it came in at £36.75 (can live with the extra 75p) but at the bottom it stated that it went up £10 after 6mths, pointed this out to the person who had offered us the deal, they said they'd put us through to someone who would fix it. Presumably, they just transferred us to another agent who then proceeded to tell us that the previous deal wasn't possible and tried to negotiate again. We got annoyed and hung up, then called back and have now been told it's been sent through to someone but should go through okay at the agreed £36 for 18mths. Hopefully that's the case but even so you are giving yourselves a seriously bad reputation doing stuff like this, there's little point in thanking customers for loyalty when you're going to treat them like that as your actions show that loyalty really means nothing to you.

[Andrew-G]

Loyalty doesn't apply, but there's tactics that can be employed.  Don't know what deal you're on, but you should always aim for near enough new customer pricing that's widely advertised on the internet.

And hopefully they explained that in April 2024 you won't be able to cancel or renegotiate when the bad news arrives?

[mmj]

Hi Andrew we're not not out to scam a bargain like people brag about various places on the internet by "gaming the system",  at the moment we just want the fair deal that was agreed without having to spend days on end talking to Virgin salesman who go back on their word. If Virgin were a decent company you wouldn't need to employ tactics and loyalty would be a factor. Virgin employees on here talk about how service costs are going up due to demand and therefore they need to raise prices, but if they weren't offering people who are gaming the system top tier packages for the same price we've agreed for basic broadband and telephone, then they wouldn't have so much strain on their services with not enough money coming in to cover it.

We know the price will rise in April 2024 but that's a bit different to them agreeing one thing and then going back on it and sending a contract which doesn't match.

[Ashleigh_C]

Hi there @mmj 

Thank you so much for your post and welcome back to the forums, it's great to have you here. 

We are so sorry that you have faced issues regarding your new deal and we do hope that the team have now been able to resolve this for you. 

Can I ask if they have sent across a new contract with the correct price? Or have they stated that they are going to add a credit etc to amend the deal. 

[Andrew-G]

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@mmj wrote:

Hi Andrew we're not not out to scam a bargain like people brag about various places on the internet by "gaming the system", 

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If you follow those links, you'll see that if anybody is gaming the system then VM are.  They train their retentions agents in the persuasive patter of sales, they train them how to detect people more likely to stay and offer them worse deals, those agents get paid bonuses for retain customers for the lowest discount possible, they're put under pressure with office league tables on performance, their basic salary before discount is not that far above minimum wage so the bonus is really important, and they handle retentions calls all day every day.  The system is soooo stacked against customers negotiation a discount. 

Now, if you don't want to follow my advice on how to land a decent discount, and prefer to take what you're offered when you say "Please sir, I'd like some more", then I'm not criticising, but the art of haggling is not "scamming".  If VM don't like it, then they can solve the matter in an instant by simply implementing a no discount policy.  They're not doing that, they employ thousands of retentions agents specifically to have these discussions.

[mmj]

Andrew-G we just want the fair deal that was originally agreed, you can game the system if you want and accept that call centre employees being trained to be a bunch of predatory con artists is acceptable in a civilised society but I remember the days when people and businesses had a bit of common decency  and weren't like that (yes even Virgin). If there weren't a whole bunch of people getting something for nothing because they're gaming the system then Virgin wouldn't have to treat good honest people like dirt to compensate, we can't all game the system or Virgin would go bankrupt.

The contract has been put through as £35 going up to £45 so I assume Virgin must be using a random number generator.

[Gareth_L]

Hello mmj.

Thank you very much for replying.

ASs much as we would like to help.

Billing and package changes are beyond our support scope on this community.

It would be best to call us back as we have a 14 day window to cancel changes.

That way you can discuss a new deal and make sure the cost is what is advised.

You should have got a consent text or email before accepting a new deal.

Please let us know how you get on if you do call.

Gareth_L

[mmj]

We're now being told the original £36 18mth offer isn't possible and that instead they've put a discount on our current contract to offset the May price increase, the trouble is it's difficult to believe them when they say one thing and then do another so often. I still don't understand how the new contract we didn't agree to dated 28th April 2023 is said by them to be not on their system even though we received an email yesterday thanking us for the changes and it's listed in my control panel.

We now have to ring back later in the year when our current contract runs out and go through this whole rubbish process of being messed around again assuming we decide to stay with Virgin.

[Kain_W]

Many apologies for the issues faced mmj,

Did our team send any confirmation of the agreed price at all?

Regards,

[mmj]

Hi Kain_W,

We rang back today because what the gentleman said yesterday raised more questions than answers and have now had it confirmed that the 28th April contract in my control panel (£35pm for 6mths and then £45 for 12mths) is what's in the pipeline, we can only assume the person yesterday was confused about the situation, so we're going to see this new 18mth contract out and then maybe look elsewhere. After the stress of 4 phone calls and being messed about we've lost the will to fight for the original £36pm for 18mths that was offered, one of your agents even said he had listened to the call and agreed it should go through okay but then it went through different. At this point we feel as though even if we can get someone to agree to give to us what was originally offered then they will probably put something entirely different through anyway and then we'll have spend another 3-4 phone calls sorting the mess out again, I guess it's designed that way. Quite frankly, we're tired of being forced into regular negotations and then messed around for days on end at this point. I'd like to think we won't have to ring for another 18mths but I suspect there'll be another surprise price rise before then on top of the April one. If you had put the original £36pm for 18mths through straight away and we could have got it sorted with just a single phone call we would have nothing but good things to say about you but alas it's now the opposite.