No retention deal offered.

I've been with Zen for 3 years. Overall I have been happy with their service.
I am currently on an out of contract rate with them. I would of normally negotiated a new contract with them but at the moment I don't want to commit to a 12 month contract.
I have been looking at Pulse8 as their contracts are rolling 30 day contracts.
I called Zen yesterday to to ask if I needed to send back the supplied router as I was thinking of moving to a new supplier. The agent said no, it's mine to keep and that was it. He didn't ask why I wanted to leave them or start any dialogue regarding retention deals. It was simply keep the router and that was it.
It seems they are not bothered with retaining customers. They must be doing really well in these uncertain times.

I think when you get to a certain level, some companies don't do discounts or deals. You won't find many Apple products on sale cheap, Leica won't sell you a new camera at a discount because you've had one for years.

Zen are a level up from the pile 'em high ISPs, I don't think they do deals.

But happy to be proved wrong!

In reply to a post by funkydan:

I've been with Zen for 3 years. Overall I have been happy with their service.
I am currently on an out of contract rate with them.

No you aren't.
Zen don't have out of contract rates any more.

They didn't offer a retention deal because they don't do retention deals.

What is the Zen Lifetime Price Guarantee and
how does it work
The Zen Lifetime Price Guarantee applies to fixed monthly price of eligible broadband and line
rental products for both new customers and existing customers who re-contract for these prod-
ucts. As long as you stay on an eligible product the price for that product will not change and at
the end of your contract, your bill will not increase.

https://www.zen.co.uk/resources/docs/default-source/...

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

In reply to a post by funkydan:

I've been with Zen for 3 years. Overall I have been happy with their service.
I am currently on an out of contract rate with them.

No you aren't.
Zen don't have out of contract rates any more.

They didn't offer a retention deal because they don't do retention deals.

What is the Zen Lifetime Price Guarantee and
how does it work
The Zen Lifetime Price Guarantee applies to fixed monthly price of eligible broadband and line
rental products for both new customers and existing customers who re-contract for these prod-
ucts. As long as you stay on an eligible product the price for that product will not change and at
the end of your contract, your bill will not increase.

https://www.zen.co.uk/resources/docs/default-source/...

You're right, the price stays the same, my bad....BUT to put the cat amongst the pigeons. Since I posted I have been going through my orders with them for services and old emails.
I originally signed up for ADSL2+ with them at a cost of £28 pm. In January 2019 I received some emails stating they are giving me a free regrade to FTTC 40/10 service at no extra cost. One of the emails concerning the free regrade received on 14/01/2019 states "Additionally, we can also confirm that this upgrade will not result in any price increases once your existing contract ends".
My bills then went up to £32.99 pm and I have been paying that since.

I will now be contacting them again as even though the email stated there will be no price increases there was an increase of £4.99 pm.
It's my own fault for not remembering what was in the email and not querying that the bills had increased. I'm now hoping I can have my bill reduced back down to the original £28 pm and I can have the extra I have been paying credited back to me.

Am I correct with my thinking?

ISP's are allowed to raise the price mid contract as long as they tell you about it.

Upon notifying you of any price rise you have 30 days to leave penalty free.

I believe ISP's are allowed to increase the price by CPI level of inflation without having to let you leave.

If Zen notified you about the price rise and at the time you did nothing then there's nothing you can claim back.

If the price went up at the same time they gave you a "free" upgrade then I would definitely query that, particularly if it was accompanied by emails promising no price rise.

Edited by j0hn83 (Fri 17-Jul-20 14:56:46)

In reply to a post by funkydan:

You're right, the price stays the same, my bad....BUT to put the cat amongst the pigeons. Since I posted I have been going through my orders with them for services and old emails.
I originally signed up for ADSL2+ with them at a cost of £28 pm. In January 2019 I received some emails stating they are giving me a free regrade to FTTC 40/10 service at no extra cost. One of the emails concerning the free regrade received on 14/01/2019 states "Additionally, we can also confirm that this upgrade will not result in any price increases once your existing contract ends".
My bills then went up to £32.99 pm and I have been paying that since.

I will now be contacting them again as even though the email stated there will be no price increases there was an increase of £4.99 pm.
It's my own fault for not remembering what was in the email and not querying that the bills had increased. I'm now hoping I can have my bill reduced back down to the original £28 pm and I can have the extra I have been paying credited back to me.

Am I correct with my thinking?

Yes you are, I think the time limit for claiming is 6 years.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

ISP's are allowed to raise the price mid contract as long as they tell you about it.

Upon notifying you of any price rise you have 30 days to leave penalty free.

I believe ISP's are allowed to increase the price by CPI level of inflation without having to let you leave.

If Zen notified you about the price rise and at the time you did nothing then there's nothing you can claim back.

If the price went up at the same time they gave you a "free" upgrade then I would definitely query that, particularly if it was accompanied by emails promising no price rise.

I have every email they have sent me from when I joined including the email telling me when the router would be delivered and every direct debit notification.
There are no emails saying anything about a price rise

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

I wouldn't know about 'deals' as such from Zen but last December I was with Plusnet. 14 days later I was with Zen, simply because their 'deal' was better than what I was paying PN at the time. Not small fry either, nearly £9 a month cheaper. To me that was a good 'deal'. Plusnet also supposedly will do a deal of sorts but 1. you have to phone up and 2. from what I've heard it still isn't that 'new customer' rate and Zen's deal, at the time, nigh on matched that.

The couple of icing layers on the cake were a pretty decent free router and my download speed has increased by nearly 8Mb's. With PN I used to sync at 72Mb with Zen I'm bouncing around the 79/80Mb mark. Well worth changing. And having used Zen on a line fault, good service.

Yes, there are some good deals out there - I could have saved nearly £17 a month but whether that network is any good, who knows. Sometime one can jump ship only to inherit problems.

Update. I contacted Zen about the billing. The girl I spoke to said she couldn't deal with it as it was not her department and someone would call me back. 2 Weeks later I was still waiting for someone to call me back.
On Friday just gone after just over 2 weeks and a few nudges from me it finally got a resolution.
They have credited back all the over payments they took and have dropped the price down to £28 pm still on a rolling monthly contract as well.
I've decided to stay with Zen as what I'm paying now is better than what Pulse8 are offering. Not on a TalkTalk backhaul either.