Discount randomly stopped

pooper · 24-08-2009, 18:23

Ages back, I was promised a 'permanent' reduction on my 20Mb BB costs, because of billing screw-ups (basically they continued to bill me despite the fact that i had clearly notified them that i was in the process of moving home and wouldn't have a fixed address for around 6 months).

Anyway, about a year ago, my bill went back to the 'normal' price, so i wrote and complained - and the price was put back to the agreed 'discounted' price.

Now the same thing has happened again, except this time, I got the reply "sorry this was only a 12 month 'goodwill gesture'" Which is rubbish because i've been getting this discount for about 3 years now.

Do I have a leg to stand on, if i kick up a fuss?

It's really annoyed me

TIA!

devilincarnate · 24-08-2009, 18:34

What you may need to do is to contact them again as when i worked for o2 they were only able to add the discount for either 6 or 12 months at a time . So you will need to contact them and aske them to check fully over the notes again so they will be able to see what has transpired and if they say to you that they are not able to see when this was offered they will be able to contact the archives dept and they will be able to pull all the files that they hold on you . You could also pay them Â£10 and request all the data that they hold on you and all the calls that you have made to them .

Toto · 24-08-2009, 18:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by pooper

Ages back, I was promised a 'permanent' reduction on my 20Mb BB costs, because of billing screw-ups (basically they continued to bill me despite the fact that i had clearly notified them that i was in the process of moving home and wouldn't have a fixed address for around 6 months).

Anyway, about a year ago, my bill went back to the 'normal' price, so i wrote and complained - and the price was put back to the agreed 'discounted' price.

Now the same thing has happened again, except this time, I got the reply "sorry this was only a 12 month 'goodwill gesture'" Which is rubbish because i've been getting this discount for about 3 years now.

Do I have a leg to stand on, if i kick up a fuss?

It's really annoyed me

TIA!

You'll find that a permanent reduction is not going to happen - trust me when I say this, if your costing money to be kept on as a customer, they will dump the discount and take the flak.

You have my sympathy if you've had a lot of poor service, but lifetime discounts are not going to happen, despite what the former company may have told you. Sorry.

Sirius · 24-08-2009, 19:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

You'll find that a permanent reduction is not going to happen - trust me when I say this, if your costing money to be kept on as a customer, they will dump the discount and take the flak.

You have my sympathy if you've had a lot of poor service, but lifetime discounts are not going to happen, despite what the former company may have told you. Sorry.

Been saying this for a while now. Why should virgin take a lose over a long time.

BenMcr · 24-08-2009, 20:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by pooper

Do I have a leg to stand on, if i kick up a fuss?

I would say you have no chance.

3 years reduction is extremely good going.

You now have the choice of either accepting the new price or leaving if you don't want to pay it

Tarantella · 25-08-2009, 21:20

If you don't like the idea of subsidizing new customers become a new customer!

frazzeld · 25-08-2009, 23:00

If you didn't get it in writing there's nothing you can do and like BenMcr says you have had it good for 3yrs

scrotnig · 25-08-2009, 23:23

I've had a discount for several years now, I sort of have several but I am apparently correctly entitled to them all. I think most of them are just the VIP discounts to get the package price right, but I also have a discounted second (non-V+) box (only about Â£1.50 off though or something) and some sort of other small discount that was done to price match a Sky deal.

I too was told that last one was permanent on condition I didn't drop down the package at all, which is fair enough. If it were to disappear the package would no longer be competitive and I'd have to switch most services to Sky.

BenMcr · 25-08-2009, 23:53

Thats different though. Multiple discounts for an appropriate deal are fine.

However what the OP had was a recurring manual credit - which can only be applied for a maximum of 12 months on the current system. Older systems were not so robust when it came to correctly discounting services

scrotnig · 25-08-2009, 23:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Thats different though. Multiple discounts for an appropriate deal are fine.

However what the OP had was a recurring manual credit - which can only be applied for a maximum of 12 months on the current system. Older systems were not so robust when it came to correctly discounting services

Fair enough. I'm not sure how these things ever came about, I guess it was some of the legacy systems.

In my days as a Manchester Retention agent, using ICMS, we did have various retention discounts available but most were fixed periods...three, six or 12 months, they then dropped off automatically. They were generally aimed at making the customer stay the length of the discount...it wasn't technically a new minimum term, we just used to say that if they left before the discount finished, the amounts already applied would be taken away and added back to the final bill. Don't think this was ever policed, and the system would not do it automatically, it would have be done manually.