A woman claims she’s saved a staggering £684 on broadband bills after haggling with Virgin Media – and she owes her success to Martin Lewis’ MoneySavingExpert (MSE).
‘Dawn’, who is a fan of the financial guidance site, explained that her bill was set to increase to a staggering £64 a month, at a time when millions of customers are also facing up to an 8.8% price hike in broadband bills, according to Uswitch.
Concerned by the additional expenses, Dawn then attempted to haggle this down by following MSE’s step-by-step advice and was pleased to be met with a new monthly offer of £26. ” I wanted to write and thank you for the information on your website about haggling with your broadband company,” she wrote in an email to MSE.
“This will save me £684 over the contract term!” Dawn certainly isn’t alone in this either, as several more MSE fans emailed the financial gurus to discuss their own haggling successes.
Anita is among them, claiming she called up her broadband company twice to see if she could slash her bills. At first, they could offer no less than £68 a month but on the second try she cut this down to £21 a month. In total, this is saving her a whopping £564 each year.
But how did these savvy hagglers really do it? In August, MSE unveiled some game-changing advice on the top 15 companies to haggle with. Remarkably, this included Virgin Media which hagglers reported an over 80% success rate with, when it came to slashing bills.
To get this right, MSE recommends following a simple set of instructions. For starters, this includes telling them you’re happy with Freeview on TV while identifying any channels you don’t watch and don’t want to pay for.
They also stress that haggling works especially well when you’re nearing the end or beyond the end of your current contract and speaking to the cancellations department is the best course of action.
Keeping up the charm and asking questions about ‘the best offers’ they can do will help you to secure a good deal too. MSE experts advise: “Haggling may sound straightforward, but perfecting it is an art.”
