Contract renewal - severe loyalty penalty
After almost 15 years with different Virgin Media contracts, my existing Virgin Media package contract comes to an end in August. I tried to look at options via my online account a couple of weeks ago but there was nothing available - just a message saying oops there is a problem and to call up or use chat. So I tried to login to my online account last week, this time I was forced into re-linking my Virgin Media and O2 accounts (which were already linked!). All seemed well until I tried to login today and was unable to getting in instead receiving an IDF-12B error message and advising to call in to get help. Aarghhhh. Looking on posts here, it seems I am not alone with this issue and it is taking multiple calls and days/weeks for people to resolve with the help desk. So what does this mean: I cannot access my account online; It makes it very difficult to cancel the agreement; It means I cannot see any potential new contract offers. After my last round of contract renewals where I was bombarded with multiple calls a day, all offering the same package but at wildly different prices even in the same day (some were 50-75% higher for the same deal!) I am loathe to try chat or calling up the call centre. So I tried to contact someone via this forum who was very helpful in resolving issues in the past. After no response and a chaser I got a note from someone else telling me not to contact the team directly and instead to post via the forum. So much for customer service! I then got an e-mail advising me that my contract was coming up on 23 August and that my existing package will go from £77 per month to >£219 per month if I do nothing - this is not going to happen.... The e-mail helpfully told me that a new customer could get a similar package for £79 per month but as an existing customer I would pay £190 for the same package...hmmm... does this sound like a fair and equitable way to treat loyal customers? Weren't OfCom looking into this issue specifically after a similar problem with the insurance industry penalising existing customers? This makes no business sense either as if the prices are so uncompetitive that I leave, then there is a cost and the waste of returning VM equipment, sending an engineer out to the local box etc.... So the long and the short of this post is please can someone from the team contact me directly to discuss a sensible price for a new contract with the same package I have now, otherwise I will be leaving and issuing notice tomorrow.