VM Negotiation Tips

[jimbouk]

If there are two adults in the house then you can just play ping pong with who's on the contract.

I do wish there was just 'the price', it's not like we're haggling for antiques art a market stall!

[Saracen999]

I cancelled on Friday afternoon and got a call from them this afternoon. They don't work weekends in retentions, apparently so not bad...

Nice work, Smudger.

It's interesting if you actually had to cancel to get them to budge. It used to be enough to threaten to.

I must admit to having an obstinate streak. I'm inclined to have my ducks lined in a row to switch before threatening it, and if they call my "bluff" I'd have already ordered the new service elsewhere before actually cancelling and probably would have done if they left it that long with me.

It's what I did when migrating BT to Sky, and Sky to VM.

Partly, it's because I do suffer from the inertia they rely on and if they actually make me go to the extent of cancelling, that stubborn streak makes me go through with it.

Last time, because I worked from home, I wanted to be sure there was service outage and I went through the 'threat to leave' stage to no effect. So to ensure continuation of service (working from home and continuous broadband and phone was important) when Sky ignordd the threat, I ordered and had VM installed and active before cancelling. It meant paying for both for the overlap but that was preferable to ending up with neither, or even risking it.

Sky's retention people seemed surprised when I actually cancelled and their "Oh all right, here's our offer" was rejected out of hand. They missed their chance when I said I would leave if they couldn't improve the deal and by the time they did make an offer, VM was already installed and running. But this time, I don't need guaranteed lack of outage. If we have to do without for a week or three, so be it.

[Smudger]

I checked and could have got an install date at the beginning of July for an ADSL package, was going to give VM a week before looking into actioning it...

[Jace007]

Existing customers coming to the end of their contract can always phone Virgin media and ask for a Better deal. I've been with them for 15 years or so and thats always been the case
Phone and ask to speak to Rententions; Just say the magic words 'I'm thinking of leaving Virgin media, Do you have any better deals' i'm on bundle package 350bb,Telephone, MixTv £41.
Just be cheerful and really calm with them. If your pushy or sound angry then that wont help.
Note if your on a lower Broadband package like 100MB or 200MB and its enough for you & your happy with it! my advise Stick with it, as Once your on Higher Broadband package its very hard to get onto the lower BB with a decent price.

[Jonj1611]

They don't pass you through to retentions anymore. You have to wait for them to ring you.

Not sure when you last tried it but I did a couple of weeks ago and couldn't get any better deal, just was told that's for new customers, in fact was told I was better off leaving and then rejoining!

So I did leave and then get retentions call

[Smudger]

They don't pass you through to retentions anymore. You have to wait for them to ring you.

Not sure when you last tried it but I did a couple of weeks ago and couldn't get any better deal, just was told that's for new customers, in fact was told I was better off leaving and then rejoining!

So I did leave and then get retentions call

Same. Their 'best offer' was £2 more than I'm currently paying. Asked to cancel, confirmed that yes, I wanted to cancel. Got all the e-mails through etc, then the next working day, got a call offering me the above.

[Jace007]

BT - FTTP Build In Progress in St Albans Shame your outside in a village but fingers crossed they might do it within the next 2 years. They really seem to be doing alot of the infrastructure works around St Albans. They've installed about four 5G masts already close to where i live.
Long term as soon as BT bring Fibre around here I'll be glad to see the back of VerminMedia!

Currently can only get BT 38Mb package. Not enough for my needs - Latency for VM is horrible if your a Gamer, Their HUB is crap and the quality of their line is just as bad - the Switch over to DOCsis 3.1 will improve things but thats going to be towards end 2021/22. There is'nt much improvement to gain from HUB 4 from comments on the net, it comes down to a flawed Chipset.

[Smudger]

BT - FTTP Build In Progress in St Albans Shame your outside in a village but fingers crossed they might do it within the next 2 years. They really seem to be doing alot of the infrastructure works around St Albans. They've installed about four 5G masts already close to where i live.
Long term as soon as BT bring Fibre around here I'll be glad to see the back of VerminMedia!

Currently can only get BT 38Mb package. Not enough for my needs - Latency for VM is horrible if your a Gamer, Their HUB is crap and the quality of their line is just as bad - the Switch over to DOCsis 3.1 will improve things but thats going to be towards end 2021/22. There is'nt much improvement to gain from HUB 4 from comments on the net, it comes down to a flawed Chipset.

I'm pretty agnostic about my BB provider, but it would be nice to have a fallback in case VM ever call my bluff about leaving...

[DanceswithUnix]

Partly, it's because I do suffer from the inertia they rely on and if they actually make me go to the extent of cancelling, that stubborn streak makes me go through with it.

I get that. I hate having to re-phone every year to get a new deal as well. I left the RAC for that reason, the price if I didn't complain was mental.

That's partly why I am on Zen as an ISP. They have a price list, at the end of a year I can stick with what I have or phone up and migrate to a new setup. No bundled TV though, possibly a deal breaker for some people.

[Jonj1611]

Currently can only get BT 38Mb package. Not enough for my needs - Latency for VM is horrible if your a Gamer, Their HUB is crap and the quality of their line is just as bad - the Switch over to DOCsis 3.1 will improve things but thats going to be towards end 2021/22. There is'nt much improvement to gain from HUB 4 from comments on the net, it comes down to a flawed Chipset.

I was under the impression they patched the chipset problems a long long time ago, my latency on Virgin is better than it was on BT or Sky

[Jace007]

Jon its a flaw in the Puma Chipset, The updated Firmware can offload the processing to another processor and/or mask some issues (SH3 Ethernet Port Flapping) but you cant fix a fundamental flaw in the Chipset. its well documented on the Virgin Media forums. HUB 4 still has the puma chipset hence people not seeing massive improvements in the hardware device.

[Jonj1611]

I know what the flaw was but Virgin has said that was patched months and months ago. I must admit I have not seen the Virgin forums recently, do you have a link to where people are still having problems with the Hub 3 and latency due to the chipset issue.

Also as I mentioned my latency with Virgin is far lower than than that of BT and Sky which I have both had here in the last year. So not sure you can make a sweeping statement that Virgin is horrible for gamers. I am sure it was a couple of years ago they sorted it.

Edit : Yes was in 2018, here is a good thread, showing the latency before and after the update : https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/th...rgin.18826048/

If you are still having issues I would contact Virgin mate

[Saracen999]

I get that. I hate having to re-phone every year to get a new deal as well. I left the RAC for that reason, the price if I didn't complain was mental.

That's partly why I am on Zen as an ISP. They have a price list, at the end of a year I can stick with what I have or phone up and migrate to a new setup. No bundled TV though, possibly a deal breaker for some people.

I wouldn't give a hoot for the TV. A few years ago, maybe, but I don't watch that much these days and besides, have access to a family Netflix account. The wife, though .... her primary wind-down method is to vegetate in front of TV. I'm not getting between her and her TV.

[ik9000]

I know what the flaw was but Virgin has said that was patched months and months ago. I must admit I have not seen the Virgin forums recently, do you have a link to where people are still having problems with the Hub 3 and latency due to the chipset issue.

Also as I mentioned my latency with Virgin is far lower than than that of BT and Sky which I have both had here in the last year. So not sure you can make a sweeping statement that Virgin is horrible for gamers. I am sure it was a couple of years ago they sorted it.

Edit : Yes was in 2018, here is a good thread, showing the latency before and after the update : https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/th...rgin.18826048/

If you are still having issues I would contact Virgin mate

OCUK has a thread with a lot of people still bitching about problems with hub3 AND hub4 even after this "fix". It's a hardware issue. Software can only mitigate. It will not FIX it.

[Jonj1611]

I used to have that problem and the patch fixed it for me, so it obviously works for some and not others. As I said I have had BT and Sky within the last year and Virgin latency is far lower than either.

So it did FIX it for me, sorry it hasn't worked for those people on the ocuk thread.

Edit : I was going to have a read through that thread but couldn't find it, do you have a link? I found the long Virgin thread but not many people mentioning latency issues, so I am guessing I am missed the thread somewhere

[ik9000]

no it's intwertwined in those 990+ pages sry. There is also an ispreview article (more than one IIRC) and spin-off grumble thread as well as virgin's own forum/help pages although they are littered with angry but clueless nonsensical posters which dilute their usefulness. But the fundamental issue is a problem in the chip/chipset design itself and thus software can only mitigate, it cannot fix. Just like intel's spectre and meltdown fixes etc. The thing is baked. There is only so much that can then be done without changing the chip itself.