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A loyal customer does not need new equipment every year, or a new account setting up, therefore the ongoing cost is less to the supplier. It would make good business sense to reward such customers.No - it's likely that the initial year is run at a loss so as to attract new custom. The CPs hope to claw back the difference and get to profit in subsequent years. There's not many services where you get a discount for staying on. Those that do exist such as insurance products are usually discounts for not making use of the service which is not the same thing.
What you got was an introductory offer and after the first year you are paying for the service you are getting. Expecting discount after discount makes no sense to me since it effectively means the service cannot be priced. Or at least you never pay the price advertised which is equally daft.
If you want to chop and change then you are free to do so and you can save money. You might (or might not) care that you are doing it at the expense of those who don't change as often.
I'm not objecting to you wanting to 'live' on introductory offers. Nor am I interested in debating the merits or otherwise of VM since I don't live in a cabled area and doubt I'd go with them if I did. I'm just puzzled as to what life experience has led you to the point where you expect to get a loyalty discount. Maybe I've been buying the wrong services from the wrong places but at nearly fifty years old I have yet to encounter any business that reliably and consistently does what you claim to be expecting. It seems to me that this expectation of yours is just going to cause you angst and grief because it's unrealistic.
VM are not making huge profits. Until a couple of years they'd never made a profit. Even now most of their 'profits' are being ploughed into network expansion. Being an ISP has never been a hugely profitable endeavour. The idea that any ISP in the UK is making vast sums of money by overcharging its customers is just wrong.
If you look back to the first post in this thread, I stated that I had been a customer for 20 years. Back then there were no introductory offers and I've not chopped and changed ISP's at all. What I will agree with is that doing so is at the expense of those who don't change as often, which is a point I made. "...the initial year is run at a loss so as to attract new custom" is probably correct for those joining in more recent times.
Because of the sheer length of time I've been with them I would expect some 'loyalty' consideration, if only to provide good customer service, the very reason why I was frustrated with them. The main reason for starting this thread was that they had taken off an ongoing 'loyalty' discount that should have remained in place. It seems that their people make up the rules as they go along as it was supposed to be a 12 month discount, then got chopped after 7 months. The next person I spoke to said it would only last 6 months, another suggested as low as 3 months. In other words, they don't have the foggiest.
Virgin Cable (200/12) + EE Mobile BB