VM reneging on ex-NTL competitive discounts

[Dunderhead]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Obviously, you mind is made as to why they are doing it, no matter what is said.

I was told why they were doing it by VM Customer Service: data cleansing as part of the billing consolidation had revealed customers with loyalty discounts.

Therefore, the letter claiming a billing "mistake" is dishonest.

Originally Posted by BenMcr

If VM were being completely honest though the letter would may have read (and this is completely my own take on this) "We can't work out what you are supposed to be paying, as it's not in either the VM or ntl price list. So we are going to put you on our standard price for the services you have. If you wish to talk to us about how much you pay please do"

Ntl historically never had any 'loyalty' discounts. Any 'price matching' was done by throwing stuff at an account and hoping it would stick. This is why there are all the problems now.

Only when it became Virgin (or about to be) were proper documented loyalty discounts introduced

My NTL bills clearly show: Loyalty Pack BB/ Phone.

My VM bills also show: XL for the price of L Upgrade

And the notes are on my account, according to VM Customer Service.

VM are not being honest and are stiffing their customers, similar letters appear elsewhere online. It's a change of policy, not a billing mistake.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Dunderhead

I was told why they were doing it by VM Customer Service: data cleansing as part of the billing consolidation had revealed customers with loyalty discounts.

Therefore, the letter claiming a billing "mistake" is dishonest.

No, what the data clense has revealed is incorrect discounts.

My NTL bills clearly show: Loyalty Pack BB/ Phone.

My VM bills also show: XL for the price of L Upgrade

And the notes are on my account, according to VM Customer Service.

VM are not being honest and are stiffing their customers, similar letters appear elsewhere online. It's a change of policy, not a billing mistake.

Well there we go. That is why this has happened.

The bundle rules state that you cannot have those two discounts together. It is only because of the incorrect error checking on the ex-ntl systems that allowed them to be applied together.

All Loyalty bundles by design exclude all other discounts.

The second discount was originally designed to reward those customers who upgraded their services. I.E. if you were on the 3 for £30 and paid for the upgrade to XL tv, you could also have XL BBI for the price of L.

In total you were getting £32 off your services each month. You will find the the Loyalty discount will remain. The XL BB for the Price of L is the one that will be removed. your bill will go up by £12 per month.

You should have never been offered the two in the first place.

and both discounts you have mentioned were introduced BY Virgin Media, not ntl

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Dunderhead

I was told why they were doing it by VM Customer Service: data cleansing as part of the billing consolidation had revealed customers with loyalty discounts.

Therefore, the letter claiming a billing "mistake" is dishonest.



My NTL bills clearly show: Loyalty Pack BB/ Phone.

My VM bills also show: XL for the price of L Upgrade

And the notes are on my account, according to VM Customer Service.

VM are not being honest and are stiffing their customers, similar letters appear elsewhere online. It's a change of policy, not a billing mistake.

As far as i see it you can have your services from VM or another company. That is the decision you have to make. Which one will it be because if i am reading this right you are not going to get VM to move on this. ?

[Dunderhead]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Well there we go. That is why this has happened.

The bundle rules state that you cannot have those two discounts together.

All Loyalty bundles by design exclude all other discounts.

The second discount was originally designed to reward those customers who upgraded their services. I.E. if you were on the 3 for £30 and paid for the upgrade to XL tv, you could also have XL BBI for the price of L.

You should have never been offered the two in the first place.

Sorry Ben...

but I didn't say that I had two discounts. I said that my NTL bills showed a loyalty pack (rebate) and then my [subsequent] VM bills showed an upgrade(rebate).

Either way my monthly rate remained constant across the NTL/ VM handover, which seems to take some doing as far as I can see, if there really was a billing mistake.

The bottom line is that my services and subscriptions have not changed at all.

I know that I am being stiffed. This was a problem in the IT industry a few years ago and we successfully campaigned against it then.

[on in an hour!]

on a more positive note (but still on topic) all fault techs have been instructed that on a fault visit they should politely enquire as to how much the sub is paying monthly,this is so we can endeavour to get the sub on a better deal ( a bundle,or XL+ or vip) most of these subs who have taken up the invitation have found they were SAVING money on their new deal

[Dunderhead]

Originally Posted by Sirius

As far as i see it you can have your services from VM or another company. That is the decision you have to make. Which one will it be because if i am reading this right you are not going to get VM to move on this. ?

Dead right, that is a decision I have to make and I will be changing my service arrangements so that VM do not see any benefit from stiffing me and so that I don't lose out either.

Regardless of what I choose to do, the two big questions will remain though:

1) how can anyone sincerely say that the "billing mistake" letters are not fundamentally dishonest?
2) has VM resurrected the IT supplier practice of stiffing the installed base?

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Dunderhead

Sorry Ben...

but I didn't say that I had two discounts. I said that my NTL bills showed a loyalty pack (rebate) and then my [subsequent] VM bills showed an upgrade(rebate).

Either way my monthly rate remained constant across the NTL/ VM handover, which seems to take some doing as far as I can see, if there really was a billing mistake.

The bottom line is that my services and subscriptions have not changed at all.

I know that I am being stiffed. This was a problem in the IT industry a few years ago and we successfully campaigned against it then.

If you didn't have any services above the minimum then the upgrade discount will have been removed because you hadn't upgraded any of your services.

Can you post all your current charges?

Originally Posted by Dunderhead

Dead right, that is a decision I have to make and I will be changing my service arrangements so that VM do not see any benefit from stiffing me and so that I don't lose out either.

Regardless of what I choose to do, the two big questions will remain though:

1) how can anyone sincerely say that the "billing mistake" letters are not fundamentally dishonest?
2) has VM resurrected the IT supplier practice of stiffing the installed base?

1) Mistake: noun 1 a thing that is incorrect. 2 an error of judgement.

Bill: noun 1 a printed or written statement of the money owed for goods or services

So if the bill was incorrect, i.e. did not match the official price list that Virgin have, then it is a mistake. How it came to be wrong could be one of many different things however. In your case, it was a Virgin Employee offering something they shouldn't.

2) No

At the end of the day I actually agree with what Virgin are doing. Yes it my cause short term issues, by the long term benefits for accurate and consistant billing, outweigh that.

If you took as much time, like Akia said, to talk to Customer Relations as you have done posting on here, I'm sure an appropriate bundle could have been arranged. It is your choice not to do so, and leave, but those are the two options you have. Virgin will not continue with offers not based on the official price list they have (and nor should they)

[lostandconfused]

Its a billing mistake because you should not have been offered that discount in the first place, and that discount shouldnt have been allowed to be put into the system in the first place.

[moon_t]

Originally Posted by lostandconfused

Its a billing mistake because you should not have been offered that discount in the first place, and that discount shouldnt have been allowed to be put into the system in the first place.

Couldn't agree less with you I'm afraid, Dunderhead makes a totally valid argument as to VM blatantly disregarding peoples existing packages, making changes without notice! unless you can count the monthly bill showing extra cash to be removed from your bank account with no explanation as to why. Even the customer service staff you talk to can't give you a consistent reason as they don't understand the so called "mistakes" (aka. legitimate existing package) on the bill. I obviously speak from personal experience here.

Blatant profiteering at the expense of a customer and blaming it on the previous ownership, full stop!

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by moon_t

Couldn't agree less with you I'm afraid, Dunderhead makes a totally valid argument as to VM blatantly disregarding peoples existing packages, making changes without notice! unless you can count the monthly bill showing extra cash to be removed from your bank account with no explanation as to why. Even the customer service staff you talk to can't give you a consistent reason as they don't understand the so called "mistakes" (aka. legitimate existing package) on the bill. I obviously speak from personal experience here.

Blatant profiteering at the expense of a customer and blaming it on the previous ownership, full stop!

Legitimate packages are those which were either part of ntl/telewest price list and ARE part of Virgin's authorised price list. Anything else is not.

Any agent that offers a price on purpose not valid against the price list would have disiplinary action taken again them, because they should not be doing it, and would basically be theft by that agent of revenue. Exactly the same as if a cashier 'forgets' to scan an item through the till etc.

However, as has been said god knows how many times on this now, if a price is quoted as part of a minimum term deal then Virgin should (and do) honour it for the term of the deal. But that is a maximum of 12 months.

I have seen it myself where Sales agents has misquoted by a couple of ££ as a genuine error and it has been honoured till the end of the 12 months after which it reverts to the published price they should have been charged all along.

And what previous ownership? Virgin Media is a merger of ntl and telewest rebranded.

It is not ntl the company that was at fault. Multiple times it was briefed (and still is) to not offer deals that cannot be kept as valid. It was the systems they used and the lack of rules built into it

[Dunderhead]

Originally Posted by lostandconfused

Its a billing mistake because you should not have been offered that discount in the first place, and that discount shouldnt have been allowed to be put into the system in the first place.

I'm sorry but it isn't a billing mistake because I have been billed exactly what I was asked to pay and what I agreed to pay.

As a customer dealing with a supplier representative, there was an element of trust on my part that the supplier would have adequate business processes in place to manage their business.

Throughout this thread I have been advised to negotiate a new deal. I have tried this before I came here, without success. And, of course, if I had successfully negotiated a new deal, how long would it have been before I received another letter claiming my agreement was just a billing mistake?

VM don't seem to realise just how much collateral damage is being done to their reputation and customer trust.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Dunderhead

I'm sorry but it isn't a billing mistake because I have been billed exactly what I was asked to pay and what I agreed to pay.

As a customer dealing with a supplier representative, there was an element of trust on my part that the supplier would have adequate business processes in place to manage their business.

Throughout this thread I have been advised to negotiate a new deal. I have tried this before I came here, without success. And, of course, if I had successfully negotiated a new deal, how long would it have been before I received another letter claiming my agreement was just a billing mistake?

VM don't seem to realise just how much collateral damage is being done to their reputation and customer trust.

Again, it is short term damage for long term gain.

If you have/do renegotiate a deal then it will not be removed as it will be based on the official authorised price list, again as has been said before.

We are just going round in circles here.

Either leave or don't leave. Your choice. You know where Virgin stand. If you don't like it, dont continue with services.

[Dunderhead]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Again, it is short term damage for long term gain.

If you have/do renegotiate a deal then it will not be removed as it will be based on the official authorised price list, again as has been said before.

We are just going round in circles here.

Either leave or don't leave. Your choice. You know where Virgin stand. If you don't like it, dont continue with services.

Or alternatively, I could hope that VM [belatedly] develop a sense of decency and abandon the practice of being dishonest with their loyal customers, rather than a take it or leave it attitude?

A good start would be for Trevor Elliott to re-word the dishonest "we've made a billing mistake" letter.

[lostandconfused]

Originally Posted by Dunderhead

Or alternatively, I could hope that VM [belatedly] develop a sense of decency and abandon the practice of being dishonest with their loyal customers, rather than a take it or leave it attitude?

A good start would be for Trevor Elliott to re-word the dishonest "we've made a billing mistake" letter.

Would it have made a difference if mr Elliott had sent a letter, saying I have had a look at your account and the discount you have, isnt releated to any published price list under either, Virgin Media or ntl:telewest so it is being removed. Either way your discount has been removed, just a letter was worded differently.

Also the letter that you have recieved is a standard letter that is automatically sent out when incorrect discounts are removed.

You could look at it a different way, and see that VM are being honest and upfront and are trying to get all customers paying the same amount for the same products, making it fairer for all.

But then, that wouldnt help you get your services on the cheap so wouldnt really benefit you.

It seems this discussion is going round in circles as you are clearly not intersted in listening to any other members views.

[Dunderhead]

Originally Posted by lostandconfused

Would it have made a difference if mr Elliott had sent a letter, saying I have had a look at your account and the discount you have, isnt releated to any published price list under either, Virgin Media or ntl:telewest so it is being removed. Either way your discount has been removed, just a letter was worded differently.

Bingo! That would have been an open and honest way to deal with customers.

Originally Posted by lostandconfused

Also the letter that you have recieved is a standard letter that is automatically sent out when incorrect discounts are removed.

So why aren't the letters reworded? Because the "incorrect discounts" are actually customer agreements. That's not just my personal opinion but a point of law.

Originally Posted by lostandconfused

You could look at it a different way, and see that VM are being honest and upfront and are trying to get all customers paying the same amount for the same products, making it fairer for all.

But then, that wouldnt help you get your services on the cheap so wouldnt really benefit you.

It seems this discussion is going round in circles as you are clearly not intersted in listening to any other members views.

Or perhaps it's because I look at a letter which isn't open and honest, and therefore dishonest, while other people try to rationalise the letters by relying on the motivation for the letters.

So it's not a question of me not listening to other opinions, it's a question of dealing with the facts: VirginMedia are not being open and honest. They may have sound commercial reasons for their actions but they are pursuing them in a wholly devious and distrustful manner.