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chrisd

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I’m no mug...I simply want to pay a fair and set price for a product.

I wasn't trying to be rude.

The point is that the sellers don't play fair, the best price goes to the new customer. Then the ones that will haggle, often being willing to drop the supply if necessary get rewarded. I switch Sky between me and Mrsd so that if the new customer price is the best then whoever is on the old deal cancels and the other signs up.

They dont value your continued business and why should you favour them with it?
 

Piece

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Yes it is if the people, I.e. the old and vulnerable are not able to price check. They are not able to get online and do the simple checks we can.
When taking over the affairs of my parents and my parents in law I was horrified at the amounts their banks were charging them for house and contents insurance (they trusted them to supply this service as “they had been with them for over 40 years”), they were paying over 3 times the highest price I could find online.
The car insurance had been automatically renewed as they thought they had been loyal customers so they would be given the best deal wouldn’t they? .......er no, they were being badly ripped off in this too. Of course with little or no internet knowledge they had no way of sensibly doing comparisons.
Similar for utilities.
This must be repeated many times across the country.
As I say, preying on the elderly and vulnerable.

Indirectly this is very true. I took over my parent's finances and the above rings very true. They are from an age where they believed that loyalty is rewarded with best price - we all know it's the exact opposite. Even these sell-all type catalogues inflate their prices compared to market. I had to stop my Mum from buying a Swann microwave from them as it was TWICE the price as you can get from Amazon.

Companies don't "prey" on the old and vulnerable, it's just that the old and vulnerable just don't understand.
 

Blue in Munich

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Indirectly this is very true. I took over my parent's finances and the above rings very true. They are from an age where they believed that loyalty is rewarded with best price - we all know it's the exact opposite. Even these sell-all type catalogues inflate their prices compared to market. I had to stop my Mum from buying a Swann microwave from them as it was TWICE the price as you can get from Amazon.

Companies don't "prey" on the old and vulnerable, it's just that the old and vulnerable just don't understand.

Very true, but neither do they go out of their way to help them.
 

Slab

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I wasn't trying to be rude.

The point is that the sellers don't play fair, the best price goes to the new customer. Then the ones that will haggle, often being willing to drop the supply if necessary get rewarded. I switch Sky between me and Mrsd so that if the new customer price is the best then whoever is on the old deal cancels and the other signs up.

They dont value your continued business and why should you favour them with it?

In an open market what should the sellers do though?
 

D-S

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Indirectly this is very true. I took over my parent's finances and the above rings very true. They are from an age where they believed that loyalty is rewarded with best price - we all know it's the exact opposite. Even these sell-all type catalogues inflate their prices compared to market. I had to stop my Mum from buying a Swann microwave from them as it was TWICE the price as you can get from Amazon.

Companies don't "prey" on the old and vulnerable, it's just that the old and vulnerable just don't understand.
These companies must realise that some of their own customers are paying 3 or 4 times their normal price for a product. They must be aware of their own pricing ranges.
Nat West were charging my in laws over £1500 for insurance of their house. When we took over their affairs and we challenged them they dropped it to less than £400 the same day. They had been regularly increasing the price by well over inflation and their product inflation for years, when the vast majority of their customer base would have been paying a fraction of the price. If a company is not aware of how their regular hugely inflationary price rises were ending up charging extortionate prices for their products for a particular section of their customer base (the elderly) they either have no idea of what they charge to who or it is deliberate. I belive the latter is an understood business strategy.
 

Hogieefc

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Update, so the fella from Sky never rang back yesterday so i am going to call back next Friday which is the day they allegedly have the deals, if they fail to come up with something decent then i will tell them i am leaving.
 

Hogieefc

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Finally sorted, Sky signature, Sports, HD, Netflix and super fast broadband with new boost broadband router for £72 month.

Fairly happy with that as we didn`t have Netflix before and our current broadband speeds with sky are averaging around 64 mb/s.
 
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