"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
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"altheim" wrote in message
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"Lobster" wrote in message
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Harry Stottle wrote:
I have just had an email informing me that my VirginMedia broadband M
service is going to cost me an extra £3.25 per month from May, which
equates
to approximately a 20% price increase. This is made up of a £2.00 price
increase, plus a £1.25 service charge for sending me a monthly bill!.
It
also says that I am to receive an upgrade to the 10Mb service, which I
have
not requested, and do not require. By enforcing this price increase on
the majority of their customers, who probably like me do not want or
require an upgrade, they are effectively penalising us for wanting a
basic service for emails and web browsing, and this is not on. I shall
be contacting customer services to strongly complain about this
extortion, and I hope others will do the same.

Hmm. I've just been advised that the TV component (we have the XL
package) is going up by a quid; but none of the other components of my
deal are affected. Except they are reducing by 2.75 GBP my 'loyalty
discount', which I negotiated a few months ago with the retentions
department. That seems a totally bizarre method of increasing the
overall amount they are charging me; you'd think almost designed to make
me see red and pull my account? And I might just do that...

From their pov, if the loyalty discount you negotiated is unprofitable
for them, allowing you to "pull the account" may be preferable to keeping
your custom. Letting a customer escape is not something that businesses
would normally do but the present financial climate is not normal and
their
survival might be more important.




I have a broadband-only service from Virgin. It was originally taken out
with NTL. When they first started their broadband, it was not available as
a separate option. After a while, they got the idea that it would be
better to sell just broadband to people that wanted it that way, rather
than not have them as any kind of customer. Over the years, I have been
pretty happy with the level of service and automatic speed upgrades -
which are *way* beyond anything that competing technologies can offer -
and have stuck with them.

When Virgin took over, it all changed. The prices for a broadband-only
service have crept up, and it is now possible to get a deal including TV
and phone, for less than I am paying for my fast broadband service. They
are forever writing to me and calling me to try to get me to convert.
Thing is, I don't want their TV or phone. If I had, I would have taken
them, or upgraded to a package with them, on my own.

I like the broadband service that I have with them, and don't want to
downgrade to a BT-level one. I suppose that I could convert to a package,
and just not use the additional services, but it is annoying that to get a
decent price, without having to get on the phone to their cancellations
department and have a rant and 'negotiate' a deal of dubious long-term
validity, I would have to change the simple service that I have, and have
always had ...

Arfa
Fortunately it coincided with a house move and sh*te Freeview for me so
changing from broadband only to broadband +TV (and then, on a subsequect
move) to B/band +TV + phone made sense - as you say, a competitive package!
I too have had excellent service from them. You could revisit whether you
want their phone or whatever, I guess - there's no point paying and *not*
using them, after all!


--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)