Stupid pricing on XXL BB

[bladesew]

I upgraded from XL BB to XXL BB and my charges went from

Advance charges£42.50
Main services (Provided by Virgin Media Ltd or Virgin Media Payments Ltd) £42.50

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Description Date/period Amount
T V Size: X L 17 January - 16 February £25.00
V+ HD Box 17 January - 16 February £0.00
B B & T V Bundle Saving 17 January - 16 February £-7.50
Broadband Size: X L 17 January - 16 February £37.00
B B X L For Price Of B B L Bonus 17 January - 16 February £-12.00

to

Advance charges£63.50
Main services (Provided by Virgin Media Ltd or Virgin Media Payments Ltd) £63.50

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Description Date/period Amount
T V Size: X L 17 February - 16 March £25.00
V+ HD Box 17 February - 16 March £0.00
XXL 50Mb Broadband 17 February - 16 March £45.00
Broadband XL Or XXL & TV Discount 17 February - 16 March £-6.50

an increase of £21 - mainly because of removal of discounts. I upgraded via the website - which doesn't tell you what you will be paying - and received no notification of the changes. I expected it to go up by the difference between XL & XXL BB on the website - i.e. £8.

When I phoned and spoke to customer services they told me this was the cheapest they could offer the two services. However, it would be cheaper if I took a phone (which I don't want). In the end I cancelled my TV service and will now be paying £35 a month for XXL BB - so that's £10 a month cheaper than if I had an additional service (XL TV)!???!

The poor woman agreed with me that this made no sense but couldn't do anything about it. Idiotic situation. Don't Virgin realise you can get a lot of TV through the internet these days - especially with a 50Mb BB connection - you would think they would encourage people to take additional services.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by bladesew

I expected it to go up by the difference between XL & XXL BB on the website - i.e. £8.

The price difference of £8 on the website is when you are paying the advertised price for services you are upgrading from.

One of the reasons the existing customer bit currently doesn't give you a price difference, is because not everyone is paying the same price for the existing services and at present it doesn't read far enough into the system to give a correct cost change.

For instance you were paying £42.50 for your services whereas a new customer would pay £58 for the same thing - so would have only cost £5.50 to upgrade to XXL.

so that's £10 a month cheaper than if I had an additional service (XL TV)!???!

Except it isn't. BB XXL will still show on the bill as £45, it will just have a £10 reduction on it each month

you would think they would encourage people to take additional services.

They do - they would like everyone to take a phone service, which is why bundles including it can be cheaper than not.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Except it isn't. BB XXL will still show on the bill as £45, it will just have a £10 reduction on it each month

That's the point. He gets a £10 discount for taking it on it's own, and only a £6.50 discount for taking it as part of a bundle!

Description Date/period Amount
T V Size: X L 17 February - 16 March £25.00
V+ HD Box 17 February - 16 March £0.00
XXL 50Mb Broadband 17 February - 16 March £45.00
Broadband XL Or XXL & TV Discount 17 February - 16 March £-6.50

£45 - £10 = £35 on it's own
£45 - £6.5 = £38.50 with TV (plus £25 for TV), totalling £63.50

In fact, a new customer taking XL TV, XXL broadband and M phone would only pay £62.49 for all three together, whereas bladesew is paying 1p more without phone.

[BenMcr]

With 30Mbit, 50Mbit and likely 100Mbit it's cheapest overall when you take the phone line

[qasdfdsaq]

Yes, but you're missing the point.

Taking broadband and TV as a bundle is costing bladesew more than taking broadband on it's own plus TV on it's own. He's getting a lower bundle discount for a BB + TV bundle than a BB on it's own without a bundle.

I think that's stupid.

[Marcus125]

No living thing not man nore beast understands VM'ss billing system. You can actually hear the sigh of dispair when you ask a customer services rep to explain your bill lol.

Hopefully now I only have BB 50mb and phone£12.50ish which is £37 a month no more no less unless we use phone we will be ok.[COLOR="Silver"]

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Marcus125

No living thing not man nore beast understands VM'ss billing system. You can actually hear the sigh of dispair when you ask a customer services rep to explain your bill lol.

Hopefully now I only have BB 50mb and phone£12.50ish which is £37 a month no more no less unless we use phone we will be ok.

---------- Post added at 19:39 ---------- Previous post was at 19:35 ----------

No living thing not man nore beast understands VM'ss billing system. You can actually hear the sigh of dispair when you ask a customer services rep to explain your bill lol.

Hopefully now I only have BB 50mb and phone£12.50ish which is £37 a month no more no less unless we use phone we will be ok.

VM's website says 50meg is only £35 without a phoneline why is the op paying £45 as stated here..

Description Date/period Amount
T V Size: X L 17 February - 16 March £25.00
V+ HD Box 17 February - 16 March £0.00
XXL 50Mb Broadband 17 February - 16 March £45.00
Broadband XL Or XXL & TV Discount 17 February - 16 March £-6.50

I take that you never read the OP's first post where he stated he will be paying £35 a month from now on with his reduced package and the post where Ben explained that it will also be listed as £45 on his bill but with a £10 discount as well to get the reduction on his next bill.

[Dave9946]

I myself kind of get it. But can I ask when the vast majority of VM bills has about discounts when taking this, that at the other?. Why do VM do the bills this way and why cant they have a basic price structure that applies to all current and new customers?.

To have a policy of adding this that and the other for xx discount makes anyone understanding there bill very hard to grasp.

[Gazjam]

Originally Posted by Dave9946

I myself kind of get it. But can I ask when the vast majority of VM bills has about discounts when taking this, that at the other?. Why do VM do the bills this way and why cant they have a basic price structure that applies to all current and new customers?.

To have a policy of adding this that and the other for xx discount makes anyone understanding there bill very hard to grasp.

Indeed.
Makes you think its deliberate...

[Hugh]

Or it could be the fact that VM consists of companies who had their own billing systems (ICOMS, ICMS, Bytel amongst some of them), and are trying to migrate from those systems to a standard system......

And considering one of the previous migrations took five years, this may be one of the reasons.

[Wild Oscar]

It might have been easier to take the phone line anyway .. you don't have to plug anything into it if you don't want to!

[Exorcist74]

But you have a phone line that you don't/never use and still have to pay the £12.00 month for that service..

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Exorcist74

But you have a phone line that you don't/never use and still have to pay the £12.00 month for that service..

It depends on the package as sometimes no phoneline means a much more expensive price, no t worth commenting on unless you know the details.

[Exorcist74]

I made that remark as I have to pay £12.50 for a utility that has no use to me, because I am already with BT, and have been since the dawn of time....
And i don't get discount on the services I get, because it is taken off the BB deal only, but VM will penalise you for not taking the phone.
Catch 22

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Exorcist74

I made that remark as I have to pay £12.50 for a utility that has no use to me, because I am already with BT, and have been since the dawn of time....
And i don't get discount on the services I get, because it is taken off the BB deal only, but VM will penalise you for not taking the phone.
Catch 22

If you get an overall cheaper package then having the phone line is worthwhile for when you have to call Virginmedia as it is free, so the are advantages.