Zen changing pricing again

Following on from the previous thread about Zen not moving existing customers when the plan prices reduce I see they have done it again. UF1 is now £29.99 for new customers while UF2 stays at £38. Can anyone who took out a new 12 month contract for UF1 at £37 advise if Zen are automatically reducing thier monthy charge?

I'm really [censored] off with Zen as I moved on to UF2 since it was only £2 a month more & I certainly wouldn't have done that if the difference had been £10, as it is now.

This is really shoddy practice by Zen & smells of desperation to sucker customers in to new contracts. The issue it it's loyal cutomers who have been with them for years who are getting shafted. I've ben done over twice now & I'm definately off elsewhere.

I am not sure I understand your compaint. Zen reducing their prices for a lower tier is surely good news. Just because you renewed your contract/deal when the service was not available for that price shouldn't mean that a company has to ensure it remains a set price forever. This is the point of a competitve market.

When purchasing anything you have to consider if the product is worth the advertised price *at that point in time*. Prices can go down, or they can go up. Modern society seems to have an entitlement problem. If Asda increase the price of your shopping basket a week after buying the goods would you be happy for them to phone you up and force you to pay the new price?

Whether it is £1 or £10 more, you are indeed getting a 'superior' product and you are still paying the same as what a new customer thus still remain fair. This example is something you have to chalk up as life, you pays your money, you take your chances.

Do you think Zen should drop the price of UF1 down for those who have just taken up a new 12 month contract at £37? After all, their website says that can reduce the price but not increase it.

It's an issue about treating longstanding customers (over 10 years in my case) fairly & not disadvantaging them in relation to new ones. It's exactly the same issue as banks, building societies & insurance companies excluding current customers from the deals they offer to new ones. Why should existing customers not be on the best rate? I'm pretty sure there are a lot of loyal customers still paying over £40 for UF1 & I doubt Zen have contacted them to advise them of the new rate.

Have I missed something? Isn�t UF1 their 40/10 unlimited fibre and UF2 their 80/20 offering?

Don�t know that much about Zen and their recent price changes.

In reply to a post by mondeoman:

Do you think Zen should drop the price of UF1 down for those who have just taken up a new 12 month contract at £37? After all, their website says that can reduce the price but not increase it.

No (unless within a cooling off period) as that was the price at the time the contract was agreed to, so as long as there was no underhandness (think a notorious sofa sale) then it is what it is. The reason for this is at the time the new customer and the renewal cost for existing customers was the same. However I do think your point about being out of contract and milked is certainly valid and that is unfair if for example the company would not offer the same deal as a new customer and insisted you always had to pay more.

Loyalist in this market is relatively pointless here is a post I made on the virgin media forum which I think is relevant.

Companies with ethics (or at least ones pretending to have) will usually ensure their loyal customers are treated equally fair to new customers. Yes, new customers might get a few bauballs but the price is usally matched. There are companies like this about, just quite few in the telecoms industry.

What you see with companies like Virgin, BT & Sky is a lack of ethics, and it's an American influence which is affecting even once 'fair' companies of old. Unfortunately to companies like VM, Sky etc, loyality means 'suckers'. Because the companies have no real ethics we the customers need to follow the same drum (until this short term business illness is kicked in to the pages of history). By this you have to ensure you shop around the moment the contract is going to expire. What you will find is that people who move around each year will certainly be offered a deal, where as people like yourself will not. The reason for this is they have seen you have not left after 12-18months. You are what is known as a 'sticky' customer. Companies see these customers as soft targets and see no point in offering anything.

Play them at their own game. I know it's not very "British" of us and we like to see ourselves as loyal. But loality in this market is taken advantage of by big business and the sooner more people vote with their feet the cost of CHURN will make them sit up and take note as it's certainly not sustainable if even 50%+ of people switched each year.

Might sound harsh, and sometimes you might have to play hard ball and passive aggressive but you will certainly win in the long run. BT seem to think their ancient copper is worth £50 per month, yet for some people that is enough to produce, transport, maintain and bill a families gas and electricity.

Stick your notice on the account, and within the next 14 days someone will be on the phone offering you at least as good a deal as a new customer. If they don't then milk Sky for their discount and return in 12-18months on a low deal.

Do the same with banks, insurance, utilities. Loyality is pointless unless the company is offering a differentiating service where the extra cost of loyality is worth something (be that great CS/Support, an ethical company to it's employees, community and customers, or simply does everything at the Rolls Royce level of service).

Same here been with Zen for ages and paying £35-40 for just connection as phone line is with another company .
Mailed them asking why new customers are paying a lot less than me but no reply !!
waste of time , will be looking else where shortly

(Replying simply to the latest post as I'm not answering any particular one).

A few years back I joined AAISP on their Home::1 service at £45pm for 100GB allowance on the 80/20 product.

After quite a while they double the allowance to 200GB. All existing customers on the same product as me got the upgrade. (And similar happened on higher allowance products).

Then, (I forget which came first of the next two changes), they decided to scrap the £35pm 40/10 product. They upgraded everyone on it to the 80/20 one but kept the price at £35. Simultaneously they dropped the price of 80/20 to £35pm for both new and existing customers on it.

Finally they introduced a rolling/cumulative carry-forward of half the user's unused allowance at the end of the month to the following month. (Cumulative in that half of what then remained at the end of the second month was carried forward). I ended up with just over 350GB allowance at the start of each month.

That is ethical .

Have you actually tried calling them to see if you can reset your contract at the new price?

Its not unusual for a business to let you start a new contract before the old one has finished, you just can't cancel an existing one outright within the contract period.

Edited by alexatkin (Sun 24-Mar-19 00:38:29)

I've been with Zen a while and it would have made me a lot more loyal if they had proactively contacted their existing customers flagging that these deals were available (subject to 12 month contract). It's a significant difference in cost (particularly for me who only gets slightly above 40/10 anyway on Unlimited 2 so I might as well go to Unlimited 1). I've just put through a service "upgrade" request in the portal.
It's one thing I love about GiffGaff, every month with their bill they say "based on your usage we reckon you should probably go on the cheaper tariff".

Try calling them - I reckon you will get a result if you talk to them.

Waste of time emailing Zen

In reply to a post by mondeoman:

Following on from the previous thread about Zen not moving existing customers when the plan prices reduce I see they have done it again. UF1 is now £29.99 for new customers while UF2 stays at £38. Can anyone who took out a new 12 month contract for UF1 at £37 advise if Zen are automatically reducing thier monthy charge?

I'm really [censored] off with Zen as I moved on to UF2 since it was only £2 a month more & I certainly wouldn't have done that if the difference had been £10, as it is now.

This is really shoddy practice by Zen & smells of desperation to sucker customers in to new contracts. The issue it it's loyal cutomers who have been with them for years who are getting shafted. I've ben done over twice now & I'm definately off elsewhere.

I am on the 2 year "Big Deal" contract with Zen. It ends in August. I imagine there will be quite a lot of people who's BD contract will be running out at the same time. I'm on UL1 with £6.50 a month for unlimited calls to standard landlines, costing £39.50 a month all in. When I go to renew I had better get the cheaper UL1 option on a new 12 month contract offered to me when I contact them about it.

I've been with them since 2006 and if I don't get a new 12 month contract at £36.50, (am I right on the price ) ? Well, I'm voting with my feet, and I'm going to diss Zen all over the Internet

Should I phone them now to discuss this, or wait until the beginning of August ? My August bill is due on the 18th of the month.

Hi, When you're coming to the end of you're existing contract give our sales team a call. We'll be more than happy to offer you a new contract on the latest deal.

All the deals advertised on our website are available for both new and existing customers who are out of contract!

In reply to a post by ajays:

Hi, When you're coming to the end of you're existing contract give our sales team a call. We'll be more than happy to offer you a new contract on the latest deal.

All the deals advertised on our website are available for both new and existing customers who are out of contract!

It seems to me that the bit in BOLD can be read in one of two ways. I should add that I e-mailed Sales 10 days ago about the latest FTTC offer and I have yet to get a reply.

Edited by lexden16 (Tue 02-Apr-19 16:51:02)

It's not meant to be read in two ways. The deals advertised on our website are available to all customers taking a new contract.

So, Unlimited Fibre 1 is available for £29.99 per month with a 12-month contract

As for your email, I'm not sure what has happened. The sales team typically reply quickly. Feel free to PM me your details and I'll follow up for you. Or call the Sales Team and they'll happily make the change for you.

In reply to a post by ajays:

It's not meant to be read in two ways. The deals advertised on our website are available to all customers taking a new contract.

So, Unlimited Fibre 1 is available for £29.99 per month with a 12-month contract

This is good Ajays. However might it not be useful to send out e-mails, or make it VERY clear on the Zen website that the lower cost 12 month contract is available to all Zen users new and old ? It is a notable saving per month.

If not I believe that you could, possibly, have a situation where many people could be paying more per month for the same product than others who had taken up a new contract. I found out about the lower prices here on the forum, not from Zen, and I intend to get it at that price

If I recall correctly our most recent newsletter included this in an article about our lifetime price guarantee. Perhaps we need to do more to make it clearer.

In reply to a post by ajays:

If I recall correctly our most recent newsletter included this in an article about our lifetime price guarantee. Perhaps we need to do more to make it clearer.

Heh. although I subscribe to the newsletter I don't often read it
Also I don't visit Zen's website very often. Forgive me if I sounded a bit hostile in any previous posts. I like Zen. I recommend Zen to people. I find the service good. Any problems I've had historically have been solved as well and as fast as possible. I think it could maybe be made clearer though. How ? Some form of proactive message to customers telling them they could re-contract at a lower price ? I don't really know what would work best.

In reply to a post by ajays:

Hi, When you're coming to the end of you're existing contract give our sales team a call. We'll be more than happy to offer you a new contract on the latest deal.

All the deals advertised on our website are available for both new and existing customers who are out of contract!

This is the bit I dont like, I have been with Zen for may years and love the service but am currently looking to buy a house so may move in the next 12 months I am stuck paying an extra £8 pm.

If you're planning to move house we're more than happy to move your service. When you've found your new home give us a call and we can move the service to your new address. We can do this even if you are still in your minimum contract term.

If the exact same product isn't available we can offer you an alternative. e.g. FTTP rather than FTTC or an alternative speed FTTC package etc.

In reply to a post by ajays:

As for your email, I'm not sure what has happened. The sales team typically reply quickly. Feel free to PM me your details and I'll follow up for you. Or call the Sales Team and they'll happily make the change for you.

I suspect it was because I asked a question which was not straightforward. I asked whether Zen is able to takeover an existing BB connection which uses a copper pair and not a telephone line? If so, at what cost?

I am posting the question publicly as the answer might be of some interest to others looking to switch to Zen in similar circumstances.

Hi, I assume you're referring to an MPF copper pair. If that's the case the answer is yes, but we'd also have to take over the copper pair and convert it back to a phone line.

This isn't because of a Zen policy. It's a technical requirement of the Openreach MPF product. The MPF product cannot be "shared" between providers.

But, we only charge an extra £10 /month for broadband and line rental compared to broadband alone (and the line with a 3rd party). This is a similar amount as others charge for a copper pair.

Fair enough but still no response from Zen Sales. Zen pricing is attractive but in my previous 3 years with Zen, I never achieved stats like these:

DSL active since:
128 days, 12 hours, 11 minutes

77.2D/20U. Distance 384M

If you had asked can I move from a Sky full LLU (or pick name of other MPF service) service to a Zen one suspect they'd answer quicker.

I'm happy to investigate for you. Just PM me some details, email address etc.

The team would normally give me a should if they have a query they're not sure about.

Regards,

Andrew

Post deleted by deezel

I was going to call them but after seeing rubbish speeds after 6 PM and 2 days running connection dropping even though modem has been on line 77 days and never ever switched off
netflix is buffering with single speed threads been so rubbish at times so just looking for another decent provider at the moment I'm not paying £35.40 for such a [censored] service

In reply to a post by deezel:

so just looking for another decent provider at the moment I'm not paying £35.40 for such a [censored] service

Have you ever actually been with a provider other than Zen on a FTTC. I see from your posting here you only came out from the dark ages of ADSL in Oct 2017, and your only postings since have been related to Zen. If you're doing to say you'll look for a "decent provider", you might as well tell us what you mean by "decent", because in general, all ISP are about the same in terms of quality of internet. They all use the same cable to your house, and from the cabinet to the exchange. There may be some differences due to peering and backhaul network, but the real differences, and the differences you actually pay for, is the customer support you get.

Without investigating I can't be said for certain, but I put forward the suggestion that a speed issue in the evenings is probably not related to Zen. If it's happening constantly in the evenings about the same time, that sounds like contention, and simply switching provider isn't going to make the connection better - though you may be paying less.

There are lots of topics on this Forum where people have had peak time slowdowns particularly on single threaded downloads which have been cured by changing provider.

We have recently moved our FTTC connection from a budget provider to a premium service. We are on what used to be a Market 1 exchange with no LLU presence at all so our connection to the internet spine has always been by the one route. Just before the move we had a line sync'd at 66999 and a 6dB SNR and were regularly seeing single thread download speeds of well under 10Mbps at peak times which meant that sometimes streaming was a frustrating experience. Since we have moved and are on the same copper wires and fibre connection to the internet spine our sync has gone up by 10Mbps, SNR has stabilised at just over 3dB and we haven't seen any evidence of single thread problems.

The slowdowns are probably as much to do with how much the supplier has invested in backhaul as any local contention issues. The lesson is that you get what you pay for.

Yes I've been with lots of providers but only on FTTC with Zen who used to be a very good connection with decent speeds of up to 73 Mbps
Plus nothing wrong with my gear here as I've paid a local PC guy to check it out and told me there's nothing wrong with it

I'll well aware thank you that it could be useless BT with their 100 year old copper wires and congestion

plus regarding a decent isp from what i've been reading AA isp has all the best reviews ,and your wrong about connection been the same if you change isp ,i've seen a friends connection going from [censored] to very good when he changed his provider

Single thread !!!!!

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/15548401156...



Quality 2.58(E) is worse than average 0.25 on your ISP(A) for VDSL2/FTTC

Always used to A before , gets worse every day

Have you actually raised this with Zen�s support? What exchange are you on?

Phoned ages ago ,waste of time still as poor

Tonight is really bad ,iv'e has better speeds on the old ADSL+

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/15550140421...

Anyway I'm leaving them just can't be bothered any more , just done a BT test here are the results

Download speed achieved during the test was - 4.08 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 40 Mbps-70.61 Mbps .
Additional Information:
IP Profile for your line is - 70.61 Mbps

2. Upstream Test: -provides background information.

Upload Speed
12.29 Mbps

Upload speed achieved during the test was - 12.29Mbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 20 Mbps

This test was not conclusive and further testing is required.This might be useful for your Broadband Service Provider to investigate the fault.
Please close the window using 'Exit' button and contact your ISP for further assistance with these results.

Zen are having a genuine issue tonight (not isolated) - I am on thier 150mb FTTP service and am currently getting 4mb down and 30mb up, first time I have experienced an issue with them on a personal level in a few years.

They have posted updates here:

https://servicealerts.zen.co.uk/active/5/5320

Have been with Zen for a while and use them with over 80 connections at work - whenever I have had to call them, they have always given great service - excluding the nationwide issue tonight, might be worth trying to send an email to support and ask for a senior technician to take a look, as there is some different things they can try to tweak your connection.

The speed issues should be resolved now, would you reboot your modem/router and retest please?

You contacted them once ages ago? How do you expect it to get resolved if you are keeping this to yourself?

In reply to a post by deezel:

Yes I've been with lots of providers but only on FTTC with Zen who used to be a very good connection with decent speeds of up to 73 Mbps

So the answer is actually "No, I've not been with anyone else on FTTC"

In reply to a post by deezel:

I'll well aware thank you that it could be useless BT with their 100 year old copper wires and congestion

plus regarding a decent isp from what i've been reading AA isp has all the best reviews ,and your wrong about connection been the same if you change isp ,i've seen a friends connection going from [censored] to very good when he changed his provider

Well, your attitude basically shows you have no appreciation for the fact this issue might not be Zen's fault. I wouldn't go changing so fast if your connection basically dropped from 70Mbps to essentially nothing. That sounds like a massive failure of something. Do you really think Zen would simply not notice that if it was something on their end of the network?.

If the speed issue is related to contention or some other physical issue, switching ISP won't change your speed significantly. In your example, if it suddenly got massively better after switching, perhaps the connection was under DLM. That would be reset when switching provider.

And even if it is Zen's fault, like everyone else is saying. If you have a problem, you need to keep following it up if it is still an issue.

Edited by Stealthbird97 (Sat 13-Apr-19 00:31:41)