Price Increase Beyond My Means

[MrGiles22]

Received an email the other day about my discount coming to an end soon and revealing the price increase. It was way beyond my current means so I am wondering whether just to cancel TV but keep Virgin Broadband and Landline. I am also wondering if Virgin offer pensioner packages at reasonable cost since I am 77 years old. Anyone know? 

[MrGiles22]

Hello, my current contract with Virgin is due to end September 24 this year, price increase will be from £79 to a whopping £122. Being a pensioner this is way beyond my means. I have had a good offer from Sky which would costs £49 just for TV including Sky Sports, UHD and plenty of channels, this would work with Sky Stream. Of course, I would stay with Virgin for their broadband only. Would Virgin come up with a similar offer. Their pricing policy seems to be way out of order these days I am surprised they manage to keep some customers when their charges are so high. 

[japitts]

I suspect that what you refer to as a price increase is actually the end of some time-limited discounts.

By having "facts & figures" from an alternative supplier, you're halfway to a good negotiation with VM retentions. That's not a conversation you can have on this web forum, but can do so either via the WhatsApp chat or by calling in.

If you're considering Sky Stream and therefore am not seeking a recording box, VM also offer their own streaming option.

[Zach_R]

Hi @MrGiles22,

Thank you for your post and welcome back to our community forums. We're here to help.

It's a shame to hear that you're considering cancelling your services with us. As @japitts has mentioned, what you're describing sounds like the end of your minimum contract term as when that expires so do any discounts meaning your package then increases to its full price.

It's also correct that we don't deal with package changes from here, so it'd be best to speak with our retentions team about any package change requests. You can reach them via calling 0345 454 1111 (or 150 from a Virgin Media landline), though as our offers are subject to change it may be best to wait a little closer to the time your contract term expires as we may have something available then that you'd prefer.

Let us know how you get on either way, and if you need any further assistance with things we can go from there to see what can be done.

Thanks,
 

[MrGiles22]

Thanks for the info much appreciated.

[unisoft]

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@MrGiles22 wrote:

Thanks for the info much appreciated.

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Top Tip. Be polite to retentions and just say you don't feel like continuing with VM would offer value that you'd get from Sky (in the research you have done). Go straight in with wanting to cancel. If the agents, who are trained, detect any form of wavering or uncertainty, you'll get a bad deal. Be realistic in the offer and what's available from others. They should be able to match Sky or better it with a faster BB speed for example, but don't expect half of what Sky would charge for example. If you do cancel, you have 30 days to undo the cancel, and as long as you have marketing enabled in My Virgin Media Portal WAY IN ADVANCE, you would likely get a call back from the most powerful retentions team and get the best pricing. If you haven't gone through this before, this is much more likely and usually within 72 hours. If you are a "known" negotiator having gone through retentions for previous renewals, they may leave until 2 days before actual disconnection.

p.s. Until recently I had Sky Stream and it was littered with usability and firmware issues. Sky do regular firmware updates but faults fixed have been known to come back. It's certainly not a premium product and I preferred VM's Stream as the box functionality was better/stable for me (I wasn't bothered about limited 4K content as didn't have movies or sports).

[newapollo]

Hi MrGiles22 

VM offer two < Essential Broadband > packages without  landline or TV. 

To qualify for either of them you need to be  receiving one of the following:-

Universal Credit, Pension Credit, Income Support, Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance†, Income-based Employment Support Allowance†

Apart from that if you speak to retentions you may be able to negotiate a deal that is suitable to yourself that includes landline and broadband.  Call 150 from your VM landline and select options 1,1,4 and 4.

[bhaskarsamani]

shop around to see what deals you can get ? 

[bhaskarsamani]

 If the agents, who are trained, detect any form of wavering or uncertainty, you'll get a bad deal

i have cancelled virgin media, 9 September is when it will end 

they couldn't price match Vodafone 900 mb for £31 a month  

had 2 call backs from retentions 

[Cardiffman282]

What were the two offers from VM?