What is this Line Rental Rip-off

[Conniff]

BT claims it has 18 million UK customers, it charges £15.99 per month line rental. (Price increase from 4th Jan)

 

Using those figures, it is bringing in £287,820,000 (two hundred eighty-seven million eight hundred twenty thousand) per month.

 

Or £3,453,840,000 (three billion four hundred fifty-three million eight hundred forty thousand) per year.

 

I've used BT, but they all charge around the same amount.

 

What are we actually paying for ?

 

If we rent a car, there is paintwork, engine wear and tyre wear to be taken care of plus servicing, but wires don't suffer from any of those things.

Edited January 3, 2014 by Conniff

[stu007]

Virginmedia are hiking up their prices by 6.7% in Feb 2014

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24911042

[Conniff]

I'm Virgin, they are adding an extra £5.76 to my bill from next month. Weren't we all told we were getting 'FREE' broadband boost.

That is three years in a row they have increased prices. I'm looking at BT and then the sheer scale of these rip-off line rental charges hit me.

 

My monthly bill has risen by more than £12 since they announced the free upgrades, I'm now on 150 mbs so it ain't been free.

[stu007]

Ah Virginmedia have been sneaky with this, have you actually received a letter from them informing you of the increase and the 30day period to cancel from date of letter.

 

I for one am still waiting on that letter but will be contacting the 'Retentions Dept' to do a bit of renegotiating or I go bye bye

[Conniff]

My letter says:

 

The price of your Virgin Media services is going up.

But you'll keep on getting great value technology and entertainment.

 

Dear Sucker,

 

We wanted to let you know that from 1st February 2014, the price of your Virgin Media services will go up by £5.75 per mongh, Plus, any calls you make to UK landlines outside of your talk plan will increase by less than 1p per minute. It's never nice when your bill goes up, but it means we can keep making all the things you enjoy about Virgin Media even better.

 

And because you've opted for ebilling and Direct Debit, the good news is you already save over £80 a year.

[stu007]

I would still advise anyone to contact them to try renegotiating a better deal and if advisor wont help then insist they put you through to the 'Retentions Dept' as they have greater authority to renegotiate but remember they may not and only cancel your subscription after you know their will be NO penalties ie leaving early.

 

I will be doing battle tomorrow as not happy I pay £76 for TV-L, Broadband 60mb, Phone-XL and a friend joined recently and is paying £48 for TX-XL, Broadband 120mb, phone-XL. So it seems new customers are getting better treatment than existing customers but like everything loyalty means nothing over profit.

[Consumer dude]

Can't see the point in having a land line these days. Mobile is good enough for me..

[renegadeimp]

Sadly stu its always been that way. Especially with Bt and virgin.

[Conniff]

You are bing ripped off Stu. I pay £86 and have the top on all three, no phone call charges.

[stu007]

Exactly what I thought and cant wait to renegotiate as I can get better deals else where at half the cost with more included.

[Conniff]

I'm just looking but there is a £100 Sainsburys voucher with BT until the 7th.

[honeybee13]

Stu, we're about to talk to Virgin too. We have basic cable TV with them, plus phone and broadband.

 

Our friend who has the same deal is paying quite a bit less than us. We think we're paying more than new customers even though we got a reduction last year. This year we're going to be researching very carefully.

 

HB

[stu007]

From my research it does seems like not just Virginmedia but a few well know ones are giving the best deals to there New Customers Only as they know a lot of existing customers are fixed into a contract and to cancel would cost that customer for early cancellation which they are fully aware of.

 

Sadly for them I aint one of then as my actual contract ended 1yr ago so they either give better deal or bye bye.

 

I would advise anyone to Firstly check that there Contractual Period has end and if it has to contact there provider and renegotiate. If the advisor on the phone wont budge then ask to get put through to either cancellation/retention dept and renegotiate a better deal (try reasearching different providers deals and keep to hand to quote to provider).

[Conniff]

I think you are right in your assumption Honeybee. We have been with them since cable was first laid about 15 or more years ago and they take advantage of us.

 

When I have been through them both, (could only consider BT or Virgin as there is nothing to touch the reliability and speed of cable), I will put those comparisons up here.

 

I just heard from my son who is a BT engineer and he says the line rental is to pay for the 30,000 Openreach engineers.

[stu007]

What the openreach engineers that you pay £140 to check your line.

 

When I move to my property approx. 4yrs ago had to do the usual to get new line with BT as didn't know at time we had fibre optic broadband.

 

Engineer was arranged to check BT line this is the funny part for £140 at that time the engineer came out attached a test box to the BT socket internal of property then walked outside property to BT exchange (a matter of 1metre from property) pushed a switch and came back inside re attached test box to BT socket all ok up and running £140 for 5 minutes work not bad.

 

Well I didn't let this drop £140 for 5 mins work I demanded from BT a full breakdown of the costs and low and behold at that time they couldnt justify it and was refunded the full amount.

[citizenB]

Didnt they stop banks offering better deals to new customers than existing customers ?

[Conniff]

Have done the deal.

 

I have signed up to all 3 top packages from BT services and cancelled my Virgin account which I have been with for well over 15 years, (had other names before Virgin). also by paying the line rental 12 months in advance, I save a further £50.

 

My monthly cost will be half of what I was paying Virgin and the service should be activated at the end of the month.

 

Virgin did offer me, (and I was on all 3 top packages from them), a Tivo box, (wouldn't give me one last week when I asked), and knock £20 per month off my bill, £25 for six months.

[Surfer01]

We would love to drop our landline, but sadly reception for mobiles is very poor in our area and virtually non-existent indoors.