Quote:
Originally Posted by Kursk
Well, you haven't  |
I guess that point went over your head. When you start dismissing people's point of view just because you don't agree with it, then it makes you wonder why people should pay any attention to yours. Why is your point of view more important, more valid and more correct than anyone else's? That's a rhetorical question by the way - because it's not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kursk
Business is indeed business and customer-focussed business practice is crucial in a competitive market. That's why this is an issue: students in their hundreds of thousands will want to know what they are paying for especially if it's been paid for before. This kind of thing travels like wildfire on facebook and twitter so grateful to you for keeping its legs;
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Except it's not an issue. This isn't some new policy, this is how it has been working for
years. If there was a sliver of truth in what you're saying, then where is the social media outcry? Where are the damning posts on Facebook?
Apparently you're so shortsighted, you can't seem to understand how a business like this works. You can't usually cover all of your costs after the first month. By the time you've paid for the insall engineer, the equipment, the CS agents who set up the account, etc. it usually takes months for a customer to return profit. As others have stated, Virgin simply puts an upfront cost rather than charging more per month. It minimises their risk and allows them to offer these shorter contracts. Otherwise, why on earth would they bother having 12 or 18 month contracts at all?
Perhaps their only real crime is calling it an "installation fee". If it had been called an account administration fee, you wouldn't have the "but it has already been installed!" argument.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kursk
ah, I notice you're an ex-vm employee  |
So you
can read. You don't have to have worked for a company to get basic and simple business sense. You just have to have a bit of common sense. More often than not, markets dictate business trends. If a business can get away with charging more because they offer a better service, they usually will. In fact, if they don't, shareholders can often take legal action as the company has promised to make them money.
For the record, yes I used to work for VM over 3 years ago. I hold no warm and fuzzy feelings for the company. They didn't treat me particularly well, they certainly didn't pay me very much and they treated a lot of my friends who also worked there even worse than me. I still have an ongoing grievance with them regarding a personal matter that will almost never get resolved as well, so rest assured when I defend them for something, it's not willingly.