The rising cost of living

[chrisp65]

42 minutes ago, Harkanon said:

The Virgin Broadband routers are most definitely shit.  Broadband connections are rock solid, their routers are naff and always have been.  I Always just use them in modem mode only and use an after market router instead

Yep.

Working from home with all the teams meetings and 3D software and all that, Virgin plus a couple of TP Links is rock solid.

 

[Genie]

It’s annoying because the vodafone router just works. Straight out of the box, boom, full strength in every room.

I had a to link router with VM and it improved things a bit but still wasn’t brilliant. The pods improve things but still not brilliant.

I’ll give them a call in a couple of days, if they hold the current price I’ll go with it for a while. 

Edited March 6, 2023 by Genie

[NurembergVillan]

14 hours ago, Genie said:

It’s annoying because the vodafone router just works. Straight out of the box, boom, full strength in every room.

I had a to link router with VM and it improved things a bit but still wasn’t brilliant. The pods improve things but still not brilliant.

I’ll give them a call in a couple of days, if they hold the current price I’ll go with it for a while. 

Ooh, ooh - I might be able to help! It's a long read though, but for you the context might help.

I was on VM when moving into this house as it was, and still is, the only fibre provider for my address.  Same thing though - wifi randomly dropping out or just booting off random devices.

I'd got a set of BT discs around the house (from when I was on BT) and they were great for making sure we got solid coverage everywhere. Still, it was a pain in the arse restarting the router once every couple of weeks.

When they last put the prices up I had a look around and actually settled on staying with VM, albeit with the business division as I work from home. I figured it would be a better router and the problems would stop.

My speed went up, my price went down, my problems continued - particularly one period when I was out of the country and my wife had her Mom up for a couple of weeks to help with the kids. I was constantly getting grief about "the shitty internet".

Finally arranged for VM to come out and the guy ran all the analytics on the router - the internet provision was constant, the issue was with distributing it around the house. He could see when I'd been restarting it and also see any other errors.

What we figured out between us (mostly him...) was that the BT extender discs were highly likely to be sending voltage through the ethernet cable back into the router and it was sending it scatty. We also figured out that the problems were mainly arising when or just after we'd had a visitor - so a new or additional device on the network. The two things combined could be an issue, but certainly the return voltage or whatever it's called is not a good thing, but it's common for extender systems to do that.

To solve it (and there is a solution here!) I bought an ASUS RT-AX82U router off Amazon, put the VM box into modem mode and Hey Presto! - no more wifi drops. The router gives me good signal around the house without any extra discs and actually provides me with faster speeds than just the VM box alone.

I'm tempted to try the discs with the router too, just out of curiosity to see if it effs anything else up.

The engineer was really helpful in just confirming that the VM box (and all similar boxes) are there just to get the internet into the house, but are sub-par for distributing it. Wish I'd bought the router about 4 years ago TBH.

PS - agree with everyone saying tell VM you want to leave and if needs be even begin the process by signing up with a new supplier (you get 14 days to cancel). BT put my price up (I was still on the intro promo deal) about 5 years ago and I started the process of switching. They called me and asked why I was leaving, told them the reason and ended up with a price that was lower than the original promo I'd been on.

TLDR; buy a router, sack the extender discs off, tell VM you want out just to haggle a new deal.

Thanks for listening to my TED talk.

[markavfc40]

I am on an 18 month contract with Virgin (contract ends Feb 24) paying £51 a month for BB, TV, Phone which is about £50 less than it should be with discounts. I had an email a few days ago saying my monthly cost would increase by £15.  Anyway I have just phoned them and it must have been the easiest/quickest renegotiation I have ever had with them. First person I spoke to simply asked me why I wanted to leave them I said because my price has increased by £15 he gave me some waffle about it is ofcoms fault then said he can apply a further £15 discount until the end of my contract next February. The best thing about it is that the £15 increase wasn't coming in until May so as he'd applied the discount from today for next 2 months I'd only be paying £36. Phone call took all of 4 minutes. 

Edited March 7, 2023 by markavfc40

[Genie]

3 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

I am on an 18 month contract with Virgin (contract ends Feb 24) paying £51 a month for BB, TV, Phone which is about £50 less than it should be with discounts. I had an email a few days ago saying my monthly cost would increase by £15.  Anyway I have just phoned them and it must have been the easiest/quickest renegotiation I have ever had with them. First person I spoke to simply asked my why I wanted to leave them I said because my price has increased by £15 he gave me some waffle about it is ofcoms fault then said he can apply a further £15 discount until the end of my contract next February. The best thing about it is that the £15 increase wasn't coming in until May so as he'd applied the discount from today for next 2 months I'd only be paying £36. Phone call took all of 4 minutes. 

They are still giving those lies out, it reminded me of them saying it last year. The guy was saying that it was government increases and forced upon them.

I already have 2 discounts on my account, let’s see if I can get a third!

[blandy]

Hello Sky mobile.

Hi, can you give me a PAC code please.

Yes. Click the link I’ve just sent you

Thanks

Has anyone talked to you about options to stay?

No, but if you’d like to…

Ok, an extra gig of data and a discount for 12 months…

That’ll do nicely. Thanks.

Now got more for less than when I signed up 2 years ago.

 

[Genie]

24 minutes ago, blandy said:

Hello Sky mobile.

Hi, can you give me a PAC code please.

Yes. Click the link I’ve just sent you

Thanks

Has anyone talked to you about options to stay?

No, but if you’d like to…

Ok, an extra gig of data and a discount for 12 months…

That’ll do nicely. Thanks.

Now got more for less than when I signed up 2 years ago.

 

It pisses me off that they will back down so quickly. They rely on more vulnerable people not realising they can leave or negotiate the price and paying over the odds. 

My mother in law had a contract for about £30 a month as it included the latest Samsung handset at the time. About 4 years later she still has the same phone, long out of contract and still paying the £30 plus a bunch of inflationary rises when she could have been in a sim-only £8 or £10 a month tariff.

[blandy]

13 minutes ago, Genie said:

It pisses me off that they will back down so quickly. They rely on more vulnerable people not realising they can leave or negotiate the price and paying over the odds. 

My mother in law had a contract for about £30 a month as it included the latest Samsung handset at the time. About 4 years later she still has the same phone, long out of contract and still paying the £30 plus a bunch of inflationary rises when she could have been in a sim-only £8 or £10 a month tariff.

Yeah, they do. I’ve always gone sim only and just bought a phone, because I’ve been able to afford the up front cost of the phone and tend to keep them a good while, but many people prefer, or have to, get the phone from the phone service company.

There’s probably not much difference price wise between either approach as long as you do what your MIL didn’t. It’s a shame nearly every operator works the way you say and the business model relies on laziness and/ people keeping unnecessarily changing handsets, which in itself is just wasteful.

The other lesson, as many have said in this thread is just go straight to the “cancel” number, don’t bother with the “normal” contact routes. Companies might eventually realise that they could cut the number of people they pay in India or wherever to handle the “normal” calls if they just offered fair renewal deals to customers directly, without people having to contact them. Plusnet broadband do that and it’s great. “Your contract is coming to an end and will go up to…but here’s a new offer…”

[stuart_75]

15 minutes ago, Genie said:

My mother in law had a contract for about £30 a month as it included the latest Samsung handset at the time. About 4 years later she still has the same phone, long out of contract and still paying the £30 plus a bunch of inflationary rises when she could have been in a sim-only £8 or £10 a month tariff.

I thought the operators were forced to put you on a SIM only tariff once the cost of the handset had been paid off during the term of the initial contract?

[AlwaysAVFC]

I had my letter from O2 about the April rate increase. I queried in their chat because the example said for a tariff of £12 it was going upto £14.07 but my tariff is £8. It did just say it was an example so wasn't sure if they got my rate wrong or everyone had that example.

The first response just gave the spiel about the increase and its detailed in the contract. I said that didn't really answer my question. Next reply said I can sense you're not happy about the response to your message, confirmed that it is £8 going upto £9.38 and offered me £20 credit to go on my account as a goodwill gesture and would I like at accept it.

That more than cancels out the increase to when I can look at sim only deals again in July. Happy with that, especially as I wasn't even trying. 

[Genie]

On 07/03/2023 at 11:18, Genie said:

They are still giving those lies out, it reminded me of them saying it last year. The guy was saying that it was government increases and forced upon them.

I already have 2 discounts on my account, let’s see if I can get a third!

Ok, I gave them a call about the price rise. It was quite a painful experience as the lady on the line wasn’t speaking great English and the line itself was slightly muffled.

Me: I’d like to cancel

VM: Why is that?

Me: It’s because of the price rise letter, £15 increase is nearly 40% more than I’m currently paying you (£37 per month). 

VM: Ok, let’s see what we can do. You’re currently on “Maxit” TV (all base channels, plus BT Sports), 350mb Broadband and talk weekends (phone line isn’t even plugged in). 

Option 1: We keep the package the same and you pay £57 a month on a new contract.

Me: Errr no, that’s even more than the price I’m going to cancel over. 

VM: Understood.

Option 2: We keep the price the same… BUT, we’ve downgraded the TV and broadband. 

Me: No thanks

VM: Understood

Option 3: We keep everything the same, same contract, new price is £29.50, BUT the £15 price rise in May is applied making it £44.50 a month from then

Me: No thanks

VM: Understood.

Option 4, final offer: Same contract length, same service, new price is £25 from now BUT will increase by £15 from May. Next bill is £0.60, May bill is £25, June onwards to March 24 is £40.

I’d lost the will to live by this point so agreed. 

Just checked and i’m slightly better off.

Instead of paying 12x £37 (£444) I’ll pay 1x £0.60, 1x £25 and 10x £40 (£425.60).

Thank god that over. 

 

[bickster]

22 minutes ago, Genie said:

Thank god that over. 

Did you press the I want to leave option?

[Genie]

11 minutes ago, bickster said:

Did you press the I want to leave option?

Yeah, usually the Indian call centre offers about £2 then once rejected they pass to a Scottish call centre. 

Maybe given the amount of people calling as a result of their letters the Indian call centre is offering better retention deals? I don’t know.

All’s well that ends well I suppose. I was happy with £37pm and now averaged out I’m paying £35.46pm and no new contract length.

[Davkaus]

It is a lot harder to get through to Scotland these days. I remember last year getting a really helpful bloke who just laughed and skipped the bullshit when he asked why I was calling and I said "to play the annual game of 'get a reasonable price'"

[bickster]

1 minute ago, Genie said:

Yeah, usually the Indian call centre offers about £2 then once rejected they pass to a Scottish call centre. 

Maybe given the amount of people calling as a result of their letters the Indian call centre is offering better retention deals? I don’t know.

All’s well that ends well I suppose. I was happy with £37pm and now averaged out I’m paying £35.46pm and no new contract length.

When I press the I want to leave option, I get straight through to a UK call centre - not always Glasgow, sometimes Newcastle

[Genie]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

When I press the I want to leave option, I get straight through to a UK call centre - not always Glasgow, sometimes Newcastle

I doubt I’d have got better than I ended up with by speaking to UK cancellations team. It might have been less of a faff though. 

[rjw63]

12 minutes ago, bickster said:

When I press the I want to leave option, I get straight through to a UK call centre - not always Glasgow, sometimes Newcastle

Same thing ennit? Both indecipherable.

[bickster]

18 minutes ago, rjw63 said:

Same thing ennit? Both indecipherable.

Both Scottish anyway, just one is a bigger town

[Harkanon]

Everyone on VM.  I managed to get a rolling 30 day contract.  With price locked in for 18 months  It cost me a few quid extra a month than on the discounted 18 month contract that was coming to an end.  So that is always an option if your contract is coming up for renewal.  Ask them, they don't freely offer this as an option if that floats your boat.  I just really really hate these lengthy contracts where they efff u at the drive through, if you need to drop them.  

[Genie]

Mrs complaining about Virgin Media wifi… I’ve re-bought a TP link router to see if the wifi distribution shuts her up. Plenty of people in the Amazon review section suggest it will.