Deal or No Deal?

[Bill]

Good to see some action finally being taken to stop the practice of offering lower rates to new customers at the expense of those that stay loyal.

We know why they do this but thinking about it long term it gets the companies nowhere and it's just a massif inconvenience to the public😡 

I’d like to see a situation where companies compete fairly on price and quality of service and not what sort of short term deal they can offer, and this applies especially to the phone and broadband suppliers where they use time critical contracts to changing extremely difficult.

 

 Bill 😊

[Davy51]

Perhaps they should start doing the same with energy & tv companies.

It isn't before time.

[asperity]

I've tried something on energy comparison sites. You put in your information including your current supplier and they come up with the cheapest supplier. You then go in again with what the site has given you as the cheapest as your current supplier and the site comes back with another cheapest supplier. Fun for all the family.

[Observer II]

It'll save on having to threaten switching every time I ring up,   and get the reply "I'll see what we can do",  then the offer of a reduced price, which shows it's all a con. 😠

[Bill]

My Virgin contract expires next month, and the price will jump from £34 to £71 but they can go whistle for that. I only wanted the broadband, but they managed to talk me into taking a bigger package because they said it worked out cheaper. Their Virgin box that I didn’t want is still in the cardboard box it came in and they lost my landline so I’m not going to pay £71 just for broadband.

 

Bill 😊

[asperity]

I'm the same Bill, I cancelled my Virgin TV as I only wanted broadband but they said if I kept the box for 18 months I could have it for £33 a month. When the 18 months is up they will have to renegotiate a price to keep me.

 

 

 

 

[Evil Sid]

after 27 years with what is now virgin media the called me a few weeks back to discuss my package.  after a bit of back and to about what i wanted they offered me the biggest package tv plus the biggest package broadband for an extra ten quid. I just said i wanted to reduce my bill and was thinking of getting rid of sky sport s and going the smallest tv package. lo and behold the price dropped to just four quid extra. I ummed and aghed a few times and they finally gave me the deal for just an extra pound on what i was already paying for the next eighteen months.

so i now have 500mb broadband, all the tv channels including sky sports and movies plus whatever the landline costs (landline very rarely gets used) for the next eighteen months at a whole 100 pennies extra per month.

[asperity]

Well done Sid. I'll have to brush up on my ummming and aghing for when I speak to them next 😅

[Latchford Locks]

Virgin are notorious for putting up prices and if you don't complain you end up paying well over the odds

My payment went from£94 to £105 without notice 

I phoned up and huffed and puffed and said I was off to sky

Abracadabra ! It suddenly went down to £82 

Which begs the point why don't they just charge a fair price to all and not just those that complain

[asperity]

I just checked Virgin offers. I could get 3 times the broadband speed from them for less than I'm paying now if I was a new customer.

[Bill]

I’ve just rung Virgin to cancel my contract with them as there was no way I was going to pay an extra £40 a month for something I don’t even use. They said they could see I’ve never even turned their box on and that my phone line has had zero calls and the mobile not much more. The net outcome was I keep everything but just drop the broadband speed to 100MB which I more than enough, and in return, they drop my current bill by £4 to £31 for another 18 months.

I really wasn’t expecting that!

 

Bill 😊

[asperity]

Way to go Bill 😉, treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen.

[Latchford Locks]

I think all the media providers have made a killing during this pandemic.

Well apart from Brit Box which really does not seem to have taken off.

I think it offers nothing other providers do not and at the end of the day is just another cost added on to peoples already large bills

I believe it is awkward to access/watch from what I read having to have a certain number of ways but non are straight forward..

It is now being offered at £2.99 for 3 months that sounds ominous in my book

[Bill]

Yes Latchy, there’s too many companies all scrabbling for a slice of the same pie but as long as people are stupid enough to keep paying for extra services that offer little difference then they’re going to carry on. My son pays well over £100 each month for a raft of various channel options that he hardly ever watches and talking with some friends in the pub last week several of them do the same. I could plug the Virgin box in and get a few extra channels that are included in my package but there’s already more than enough on Freeview to keep me happy.

I think where a lot of people are fooled is in thinking that mega fast broadband speed is something they need, but that’s only true if you have a house full of kids all into online gaming. Years back, my speed was a top-of-the-line ground-breaking 20Mb and it was more than enough for the wife to be watching Netflix without it affecting my porno. 😊 So now, dropping from 200Mb to 100Mb there should be no noticeable difference apart from the reduced price.

 

Bill 😊