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[LostDonkey]

Hope we're all enjoying a nice Bank Holiday weekend guys, just thought I'd drop a message about my Virgin Broadband service.

I only have broadband and weekend phone.

Its shit. Frankly. For the past few weeks ive had intermittent service, completely down in the evening, back up, off again....


My original contract was taken out in 2017 for 12 months and the price was introductory for £37 a month to 40 something after the 12 month period. Well, the price has kept creeping up ever since and the service has been getting worse. Its currently sat at £50.99 a month!!

So I just gave them a call to see what package I could change to. Now YMMV.

They tried telling me that I couldnt switch to a different package because Im under contract and I'd have to cancel which would then take 6 months.....what.

So I called their bluff and told them if they cant switch me to a cheaper option as Im out of contract (its now over 2 years since I signed a 12 month deal!!!) then I want to cancel.

They passed me to the cancellation team.

2 minutes later and my bill is reduced to £35 a month for the same deal Im on.

Give them a call. The prices are ridiculous.

Its now cheaper than it was when I first signed up 2 years ago and my speed has doubled since then.

Nuts.

 

[Husky]

No matter who you get your phone, internet, or cable from, call them twice a year to get your bill reduced. Was taught that in high school economics and it's been some of the best advice I've ever heard.

 

[V4skunk]

Virgin fibre optic here.
Blazing fast speeds all the time.
Go fibre.

 

[Shifty]

Aye, Virgin are pretty scummy when it comes to locking you in and bleeding you for cash. I once had them roll me over onto an un-cancelable extra year of service without being notified of it, ended up having to eat the cost and take the lesson.

Stay on top of your monthly services, kids.

 

[LostDonkey]

No matter who you get your phone, internet, or cable from, call them twice a year to get your bill reduced. Was taught that in high school economics and it's been some of the best advice I've ever heard.

The normal customer team were very rude and kept cutting me off when I was trying to explain. Once I was passed to the cancellation team she was very patient and even told me to call back in 6 months to review the prices!

 

[Husky]

The normal customer team were very rude and kept cutting me off when I was trying to explain. Once I was passed to the cancellation team she was very patient and even told me to call back in 6 months to review the prices!

with my ISP I bypass the initial support team by asking to speak with customer retention

 

[jdforge]

Virgin Media is the scum of the earth.

Pro tip if any of your providers increases your monthly bill you are able to break contract - as they have broken contract with you.

Well done on reducing your bill.

 

[bhunachicken]

Back when I was with Virgin Media (around 2007), I experienced a very poor service during the first two weeks. I couldn't even ping Google; the request always timed out.

Virgin told that this was due to the first two weeks being a "settling in period", where they would test my line until they found out what worked best. Well, two weeks went by and it was still crap. In the 3rd or 4th week I called to cancel because the service wasn't up to scratch. Guess what they said? That's right: I was now beyond the two week period in which I could cancel and so I was stuck with the contract. So - they tell me it will take two weeks for the service to settle down and it'll probably be crap until it does so, but after that you can't cancel. Well, after some comedy and lots of phone calls, I managed to get out of the contract by basically telling them how they'd lied to me. They closed the account and I switched to a new provider.

Now for the best bit.

A few months later I get a letter from bailiffs (repossessions men) telling me that they were coming to my house in a few weeks to remove a number of items to the amount of £X due to an unpaid bill to Virgin Media. After more phone calls to Virgin to find out what the hell was going on, it turned out that my account had been closed and my access removed, but some monkey had then sent the final invoice to the email address of the account they had closed, meaning I couldn't access the bill or was otherwise aware of it.

After more shouting at those prats they finally decided to waive the bill (as it was their bloody fault) and they also sent me a letter of apology for threatening me with legal stuff.

So, yeah, I don't use Virgin Media / Fibre / TV, whatever. @ LostDonkey : Try one of these, perhaps?

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/top10.php

 

[LostDonkey]

Back when I was with Virgin Media (around 2007), I experienced a very poor service during the first two weeks. I couldn't even ping Google; the request always timed out.

Virgin told that this was due to the first two weeks being a "settling in period", where they would test my line until they found out what worked best. Well, two weeks went by and it was still crap. In the 3rd or 4th week I called to cancel because the service wasn't up to scratch. Guess what they said? That's right: I was now beyond the two week period in which I could cancel and so I was stuck with the contract. So - they tell me it will take two weeks for the service to settle down and it'll probably be crap until it does so, but after that you can't cancel. Well, after some comedy and lots of phone calls, I managed to get out of the contract by basically telling them how they'd lied to me. They closed the account and I switched to a new provider.

Now for the best bit.

A few months later I get a letter from bailiffs (repossessions men) telling me that they were coming to my house in a few weeks to remove a number of items to the amount of £X due to an unpaid bill to Virgin Media. After more phone calls to Virgin to find out what the hell was going on, it turned out that my account had been closed and my access removed, but some monkey had then sent the final invoice to the email address of the account they had closed, meaning I couldn't access the bill or was otherwise aware of it.

After more shouting at those prats they finally decided to waive the bill (as it was their bloody fault) and they also sent me a letter of apology for threatening me with legal stuff.

So, yeah, I don't use Virgin Media / Fibre / TV, whatever. @ LostDonkey : Try one of these, perhaps?

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/top10.php

Ive been considering switching for a while now so Ill check it out. Thanks.

 

[kraspkibble]

i'm with them too. works just fine most of the time but there are odd days where it will be down for a while.

i got an email recently that they're putting the price up to £46. probably gonna phone them up and get them to bring it down.

Virgin Media is the scum of the earth.

Pro tip if any of your providers increases your monthly bill you are able to break contract - as they have broken contract with you.

Well done on reducing your bill.

it's alright saying that but no other ISP can offer the speeds VM gives me. the rest are much slower.

 

[Grieves]

Expect your bill to go up in the next couple of months.

Every time I get a discount from them the bill goes up a couple of quid a couple of months later.

 

[I'm nobody]

I was VM now zen they are brilliant

 

[Spukc]

VM is only for virgins

 

[Rossco EZ]

i’m with virgin media too we have the tv, broadband and phone with them but for the past 3 weeks the service has gone downhill. tv breaks up, broadband goes down multiple times a day and when we call they just run checks and say everything is fine, demanded a engineer come out which they tried to make me pay for eventually got them to send one out for free which should be tomorrow. hopefully it’s a fault with the wiring at the property or router or i’ll be cancelling as they put the bill up almost every month now beyond a joke.

 

[Starlight Lotice]

They are proper wankers about this.

My family once paid like....£85 a month and we complained and it went back down to £50 but it is crawling back up.

Is this shit illegal? I am pretty sure they can't keep doing that without being looked into by Watchdog.

Better yet, when you complain they also upgrade your TiVo box too or else they will never let you know

 

[Breakage]

The dreaded mid contract price rise. Mine's currently at £19.50 for regular unlimited broadband.

 

[FF:Enhanced_Reality]

And here I use PlusNet, £35 a month and never had a problem. Rolling contract. Always called and offered any deals. Virgin and Sky are dicks.

 

[LostDonkey]

And here I use PlusNet, £35 a month and never had a problem. Rolling contract. Always called and offered any deals. Virgin and Sky are dicks.

What speeds are you getting with PlusNet?

Im on the 200 package but i get like 220+ most of the time with about 20 or so up. Its the reason ive stuck with Virgin for so long, nobody can match their speeds.

Vodafone are apparently offering a 500 meg service in the coming year or so according to a sales call I got but ill believe that when it happens.

 

[Hostile_18]

I was exactly the same. Felt Like every two months I was getting a price increase. I was on 100mb for around 37 pounds and they offered to cut it to 50mb for 36 lol. I said fine I'll cancel and they out me through to the cancellation team who offered me 50mb for 25 for the next two years.

 

[PumpkinPie]

OP, what good is a discount if the service is still shit? I'm on Plusnet fibre and it's terrible, if I put the microwave on it interferes with the router

 

[iNvid02]

You can do much better than that. A friend of mine is a contractor for them and his job is to retain customers in the customer retentions department

When you call in yourself the deals and offers they can give are limited because every joe blow calls in thanks to facebook and moneysavingexpert. What you have to do is call their bluff and throw in the cancellation notice, that gives you 30 days before your services are stopped. During this time their outbound retentions department will call you up and try to keep you as a customer with the best offers - just make sure your contact number on file is accurate and your mobile, otherwise it'll go to your landline while you're at work.

If on the rare chance they don't call up, you have those 30 days to call back yourself and go with the previous deal offered or negotiate again without service interruptions

I do this dance once a year to get or maintain the best price possible and offset any of the usual annual price increases. It has to be done this way because they literally make millions off people's apathy and inability to chase up on stuff like this

 

[jay2]

Been on 100Mb with VM for a while now, was just over 43 quid a month, i also have sky for tv.
Got the email from VM about the price increase and thought you know what? im gonna use this to my advantage.
I was paying over 100 quid for both VM broadband and Sky Q, so why not have the tv with VM.
After a lengthy live chat with VM i got my broadband speed doubled, their Maxit TV Package for 57 quid a month.
Nearly halving my monthly bill.