Negotiating a deal with Virgin Media

[mcfc4eva]

I'm currently on the VIP package, but I want an additional V+ box so I decided to call Virgin Media sales to see how much it would cost, here's how it went;

One-time fee: £110 (I think this is made up of £75 Installation + £35 Setup)
Monthly fee: -£4.50, I don't know why, but for some reason the woman said my monthly bill would be reduced by £4.50 if I got an additional V+ box!

Anyway, I decided to call customer retentions to see if I could get a reduction on this, here's what he offered;

One-time fee: £49 (instead of £110, which is great)
Monthly fee: £10, so instead of getting a £4.50 reduction, I pay an extra £10/month. This is quite bizarre and it seems to me that rather than giving me a better offer, they have just restructured the cost so I am paying my one-time fee "savings" over my subscription!

I didn't expect to pay much less than the £10/month anyway, so that plus £49 one-time fee seems quite reasonable. I didn't take them up on the offer straight away. I'll be calling back to renegotiate this offer, but if they won't budge I'll probably accept it!

I'm paying around £100/month for my services at the moment which is the VIP package, the virgin website says it should only be about £90 which makes me think my partner may have added extra services to the phone (as she uses it a LOT lol). Or maybe I'm on an older deal/price? My partner deals with this so I can't find a bill to examine it.

Does anybody have an idea why the sales dept. offered a £4.50 reduction in my monthly bill but retentions increased the cost by £10?

mcfc4eva

[carraig]

I think Virgin are treating you like dirt: For a customer who pays such a high price, the least they could do is give you an additional V+ box! You should check out what sort of deal Sky would do for you if your prepared to pay that sort of money out.

[mcfc4eva]

Originally Posted by carraig

I think Virgin are treating you like dirt: For a customer who pays such a high price, the least they could do is give you an additional V+ box! You should check out what sort of deal Sky would do for you if your prepared to pay that sort of money out.

Just found my bill. I'm paying £90.75 including line rental. Their site shows the price being £89.50 (£77.51/month + £11.99 line rental). I'm not going to quibble over £1.25, plus this might just have been the price when I upgraded (about a year ago).

So sky offer a similar package that has everything but only comes to £68.50 a month! However, my landline is not BT compatible, which means I would have to pay £39.99 installation for that, and only then can I see what broadband is available. Another downside to this, is to get my extra Sky+HD box, I will need to pay £199 for the box and £20/month (£10 multiroom + £10 HD). This makes it a total of £88.50 and £240 one-time fee.

So now I am stuck with the following options;

Stay with Virgin and pay the following for an extra box;
One time: £49
Monthly: £100.75
At least I am confident in their services and I know my broadband performance etc.

Or move to Sky and pay;
One time: £240
Monthly: £88.50
This means I need to get a BT phoneline fitted, and THEN enquire about broadband, which all seems a bit risky and far too much hasstle. And then there's the one-time fee which is quite expensive!

I suppose the next step would be to call Sky and get more information on Sky Broadband in my area and see if they can reduce the one-time fee to entice me into switching - but how likely is this?

[Robbo]

Worth a phone call to Sky, as if they know that they are competing directly with Virgin, maybe they will wave the installation fee on the phone.


Also, Virgin retentions may be just fobbing you off, knowing that you are just scouting for a better deal.

I know that when I got a better deal on mine a while back, I just told them I was going to cancel, and had every intention to do so at the time, but the offer they gave me, was enough for me to stay.

[Amazing1000]

To be honest and even though I think Sly is a rippoff(but so is VM) sky is the best in my opinion and you are getting the channels directly and you also get a lot more channels including a lot more HD than VM.
You will only get a max of 20 merg BB and most won't be that high but I only get 6 but that is quite fast enough, and don't forget the BT is to lay in their own cable with 150 meg.Don't know how far on they are with this but when it was first reported it was around 9-10 months ago and it was stated then that it should maybe be around 1 year to 18 months to get this.
The final descision is yours and yours alone though m8, but please check on HD channels etc available to both and this may help you make up your mind.

[hugob]

Your getting done i got xl tv,hd box sports movies, the lot 10mg b/band, line rental, free calls anytime , £49 per month one off fee of £49

[mcfc4eva]

Originally Posted by hugob

Your getting done i got xl tv,hd box sports movies, the lot 10mg b/band, line rental, free calls anytime , £49 per month one off fee of £49

Hi Hugo,

How did you manage that? Bear in mind I've got an additional set top box and 20mb broadband.

Maybe you mean it was £49/month to start off with. I've noticed they make these offers to catch you and then after 2, 3 or 6 months they hike up their prices, sometimes doubling them. Of course, they aren't doing anything wrong as they let you know before you sign up but this is a prime reason you should read the small print.

[hugob]

done everything through retentions dept been with them for a number of years tell them about a sky match offer they had going.

[cts]

i phoned up vm today and they said they would give me the VIP package for £89.50 thts a free V+ HD box 50meb broadband unlimited phone line sky sports xl tv and the asians channels is tht worth it

[Robbo]

The standard VIP package is £89.50 with 20Mb broadband, the Asian channels are £10 per month. So yes they are giving you a bit of a discount.

But.. £89 a month!!! thats still a flipping lot just for TV and broadband + phone. Will you really use all that?

I don't use my phone, just my mobile.