Never trust any ISP say freeze price for 18 months, cos they never do, they will increase price anyway!

Virgin did this to me in under a month of signing up to a contract. They said we won't raise your price until the end date. I'm sure you can guess how fuming I was when I called up billing and they go, "the price is correct" I explain and they go "you are right sir" "we will fix it" they say "I will speak to the manager" they put you on hold come back and go "the manager is busy, I will email and ask for the fix".
Nothing happens

I start a complaint and then contact the forum team, they then fix the issue in under three working days.

The issue was:
They decided that the agreed £31 a month was too little so they changed the whole contract without telling me from £31 for 18 months to £61 a month on a one month contract, they keep insisting that it was me who made the change, being in contract I'm not sure how I would leave a contract for a one month one, it's just impossible without them charging the full 18 months.
I put in a complaint and it's now £29 a month for M500 with a month free as compensation.

Ultimately price rises can be good, this is a perfect case of where Virgin have dug themselves into a hole and have forced themself into giving lower prices.

I can't comment for plusnet but felt it was a good example

In reply to a post by adslmax:

In reply to a post by professor973:

I see Sky proper are now doing broadband for £25 with no price increase for eighteen months, which is much the same by the end of the contract.

Never trust any ISP say freeze price for 18 months, cos they never do, they will increase price anyway!

That is not true, whenever I have been sold a fixed-price contract it has been honoured. It has to be. Sometimes you need to read the small print.

In reply to a post by Buggs8:

In reply to a post by adslmax:

In reply to a post by professor973:

I see Sky proper are now doing broadband for £25 with no price increase for eighteen months, which is much the same by the end of the contract.

Never trust any ISP say freeze price for 18 months, cos they never do, they will increase price anyway!

Oddly enough I've just been on the VM website and looking at the broadband only deals it says that across the top!

So everyone is at it.. although I guess that's right VM are not sneaky they are upfront about the price rises - and let you leave.. Unlike Sky and some others.

https://ibb.co/Fq2vc7x

The reason Virgin have to be upfront is so you can remortgage your house to be ready for their 200% increase.
Jokes aside they have done a substantial increase on my connection in the past.
They do give a months notice via letter normally, but you have to give a months notice to leave so you still get billed for one month of the increase.

For what it's worth, on behalf of a family member I recently called the Plusnet 'Customer Options Team' (on 0800 013 2632) to get a better deal just after they went out of contract on an FTTC connection.

They were paying £22.95 a month (this itself was a 24 month retention deal, which I think was a price match for Vodafone a couple of years ago - seems this deal kicked in before the annual CPI + 3.9% rise became part of the contract).

The out of contract price was £47 or so. As per the new Ofcom guidance, Plusnet sent an email offering to recontract for a "best price" of £24.99 (on an 18 months contract) with a link to the Plusnet customer portal where you could opt for this. However I was pretty sure I could do better than that.

I'd intended to call in the 10 days before the old contract ended but didn't quite get round to it, so I called just afterwards - meaning paying for one month at the out of contract price of £47 odd.

(Out of interest, at this point I followed the link for the £24.99 "best price" in the earlier email - this was no longer shown as being available, instead a message to call Plusnet was shown.)

A quick shop around showed NOW Broadband offering FTTC at £20 a month (12 month contract) - this had recently dropped from £21 a month - and Vodafone at £22 a month (24 month contract).

Armed with this, I spoke to a nice chap at the Customer Options Team in (I think) Leeds. His system still showed a price match for NOW at £21 a month rather than £20 - as I think NOW had only just dropped the price by a quid and Plusnet hadn't caught up with that yet.

Anyway I couldn't be bothered to quibble about the extra quid a month and so took it at £21 a month deal on a 24 month contract (though this time it does include the annual CPI + 3.9% rise), effective from the next monthly bill.

Also retained BT Sport app access, continuing to pay the price of £10 a month - for anyone signing up now via Plusnet it's £17.15 (with the CPI + 3.9% annual rise). I'm a bit hazy about the BT Sport app contract aspect but it seems to be a monthly rolling contract, so I imagine that legacy price won't last forever - particularly bearing in mind the upcoming merger of BT Sport into Warner Bros. Discovery's Eurosport operation. We shall see what happens on that front.

And in a couple of years time when this contract is up, FTTP might be available.


Long story short - my experience dealing with Plusnet's Customer Options Team aka retentions has been very easy going. I was prepared to call back another day if the agent couldn't offer a good deal, but there was no need.