Anyone else had the email about the £4 rise from March?
I hate doing this every year: call them up, say you're leaving, transfer to another department, get the price rise cancelled, get on with your life.
I wonder how many people just accept it? Must be a few or Virgin wouldn't bother.
I must admit, it's enough of a drip feed that I've generally accepted the price rises.
I looked at Sky and BT recently, but honestly for anything like the same service I was paying maybe £50 - £80 a year less.
As I have 200MB (actual, not theoretical) Broadband and do all my work online and from home (although sadly it's no longer funded), I'm loathe to move away from them, but I probably should get onto them and threaten to leave as we've been customers of them since they were Cabletel!
M
Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
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Last edited by leechman; 8th January 2021 at 17:18. Reason: Mistake
I'm in exactly the same position (and no doubt Virgin know many of us are). Can't afford to be risking changing supplier and losing coverage so just grit our teeth and carry onOriginally Posted by snowman
Same here. I’m in the midst of an 18 month contract and can’t risk them calling my bluff. I’ll just use it as extra ammo for they try and hike up the prices at end of contract as they did last year. Such a waste of time pretending to leave and then having them bend over at the last minute just to give me the same price as a brand new customer.
I know what you mean but they don't know that and will always back down.
I went the whole way in 2019 and started the 30-day cancellation period. I then spent the next week smacking myself in the face and wondering where I was going to get broadband and TV from? The following week they called and offered me a bigger package (ooo-er) for 50% less.
I might take some brave pills later and give them a call. Thanks. I quite fancy getting 200MB for same same current price of my 100MB
Yes I had that email. And I'm recently out of contract so (clearly wrongly) assumed those things were connected.
I don't suppose anyone has a number which by-passes the menu options and gets one direct to a human who will do the deal? ...
I never bother talking to them about price without giving the cancellation first. They can always do more 24 hours+ after the cancellation has formally been given. Typically you give your cancellation to someone in a different country then within 2 or 3 days someone in the UK calls you back with a much better offer.
I have and was kind of expecting it, because my contract (and annual haggling session) was coming up for renewal in the first week of February.
But perhaps this is in addition.
I don't even threaten to leave any more. Just call them up before contract ends and say 'can you do me a deal?'...I generally get about 20% off and don't think about it for another 18 months. I'm sure I could haggle harder...but I kind of lose the will to live during the process.
Bizarrely, it was very very simple this time around. No need to go through the charade, and it was £1 extra per month for the same deal plus a SIM card..
Yeah I got the email as well. We have had such bad service from them since Xmas I am actively looking to go somewhere else. They are the worst internet provider and that’s saying something.
We either get a service boost or a price reduction each time we go through this.
My wife does it and then moans at me that it's her job not mine.
Yep. Did the same myself. I reckon 75% suck it up.
Going to use it as a chance to try get a deal on the M350 package. The M500 is tempting and the same price as 1Gig but that's excessive as we're on only M200 now. Painful rodeo but pretty normal these days annoyingly.
I had the email, I’m broadband only no phone or tv. Thing is if they call my bluff I have no other option.
Despite being in zone 3 London BT are still way behind and only offer 6mb!? What also bizarre is I’m the only resident out of 14 flats with 100mb Internet because originally previous resident had NTL and when bought out by virgin they were duty bound to continue offering a service so they ran a cable to my flat but will not offer it to other residents?!
I had the same message and made the call to Virgin. whilst they offered to remove the increase from the account I still chose to move to Sky. I was thinking about leaving so this was the final push.
Overall, I wasn’t a massive fan of what virgin had to offer, I thought the TV package was not a slick as the equivalent from Sky, but never really had a problem with their broadband.
Without fail every year I give my 30 days notice. This time my package went from £60 to £112. Rang up and my “one time offer” was down to £86 so gave my 30 days notice and within 24 hours they rang back from the “special back room team” and I now have an 18 month contact for the same package for £60.86 with no increase in March!
I have done this for the last 5 years, it’s frustrating but only takes half an hour.
Cheers
Ross
Do this with BT pretty much every year as well - otherwise the price rise is even more
I spent 20 minutes on the phone to them this afternoon and they have just halved my bill for the same package!
Did this annual dance with Virgin this morning. Received an email saying my monthly fee was going up from £60 to £78 per month when my contract expires on the 11th January. Their first offer when I said that wasn’t good enough was down to £67 per month. I said I’d rather just leave and asked if they’d put me through to the cancellations dept. At this point, they then dropped to £62 per month for an 18 month contract. I’m not saying that’s a great result but by this point I was bored of wasting my morning and I was reasonably content with the outcome.
Does anybody have the virgin 360 tv? Am currently fibre only, and about to ring up and do the end of contract dance, but would consider taking tv package too if the deal is right.
I just stumbled across the 360 stuff today and it looks impressive - we currently have now tv which is great as can watch in multiple rooms, but looks like the 360 takes care of this as well.
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This thread gave me the nudge to do something about our package - thanks OP!
Been with VM since they started and got into the habit of haggling every couple of years with reasonable success when we had a a fairly large bundle. Tried probably 3 years ago and they wouldn't move enough so downsized the package; 100mb b/band, weekend calls and basic TV...good enough for us as we started using Netflix etc.
Had the notification of a due price increase to the current £64.00 month and just called them with the hope of getting a modest decrease to the monthly outlay or giving notice which I didn't want to do, their service has been just about perfect and I can only recall losing internet a couple of times since being with them. Thought I'd try and push my luck and tell them the maximum I'd want to pay for the same package would be £35.00/month.
Their answer? OK not a problem and the price increase will not apply, your next monthly bill will be £17.00 and £34.99 thereafter until July 2022.
Looks as though my trying to save £30/month was under-ambitious! Remarkably pain free and worthwhile :)
Not with Virgin at the moment but the contract with current provider is up soon, the cabling for Virgin was laid in the street last year and thought about trying them, unfortunately I watched a neighbour get connected and not sure if I want to risk the garden being messed up as much theirs or the a path being disturbed, anyone any experience of getting things put right after installation.
Just signed 512mbs service when we move house on Thursday
Seeing as I’m currently getting 6Mps, I’m quite excited
Got £110 on Quidco and £45 a month for 18 months…. Felt pretty reasonable to me
Well I would cancel / renegotiate if I could get through to them on the phone!
Well I’ve not got the best result. Going through the IVR to the cancel option they’re now offering a discount of the £3.50 for 6 months. I said no to that to continue on to cancellations.
An hour later I get through and without any argument, they say the email is incorrect and I won’t actually be charged the extra £3.50 until end of my contract in 2022.
We’ve both now read and re-read the email and it clearly tells us there is a price increase of £3.50 from March 1st.
I think VM must have been surprised at the amount of people cancelling or squeezing them for more discount. Therefore they seem to just offer the discount of £3.50 until the end of the contract. I was kind of hoping the price rise would have applied to me so I could have argued for 200MB for £25 instead of the 100MB I have today.
Can’t wait for the end of my contract now so I can squeeze them hard.
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Pretty dodgy. Do squeeze them hard. I feel like they see themselves as a premium brand but the quality of the service hasn't really reflected that.
Since I agreed the new contract with them earlier today (lower speed for lower bill), they've sent me an email saying my new contract will be for the same speed and a small discount. This works out for me but it's not what we agreed on the phone
Help! Have they called my bluff?
This thread motivated me to go through the dance, so I called, was offered a derisory reduction, declined and stated I'd like to cancel please. I was put through to someone clearly in a UK call centre who processed the cancellation and I'm being cut off on 11th Feb. I've since received an email confirming same.
So I've been sweating ever since in the hope of a phone call offering a better deal. Daren't tell my wife who would hit the roof (all 4 of us are entirely dependent on a connection for home-working/studying).
Should I call back with my tail between my legs and ask to "cancel the cancellation"?
Perhaps ring them back and say that upon reflection you’d like to renegotiate the contract instead of leaving? Worth a punt....
Dont worry you'll get a call back from them trying to persuade you to stay, make sure you answer, they will only try a few times and then no more. Once it gets past a certain amount of time things are in progress, you cant undo it. You could however open a new account in someone elses name in your household.
Yep maybe even with a new customer deal? Just claim that the new account holder is unrelated to the previous.
It's ridiculous how VM and other companies do not reward loyal customers and put all their effort on new ones. I would think it's more costly to focus on new customers than retain their current ones.
This is exactly what happened to me. I was sweating for two weeks before they called and gave me a mega deal. Give it a week or so.
The worst that can happen is you have to cancel the cancellation. They won’t turn you away.
I’m surprised you manage to call them. When I wanted to cancel my contract (I was moving out of a shared accommodation) with them they just kept hanging up on me, or transfer me to a non existing number.
I finally had to do it in writing. I will never have anything to do with that company again after that experience.
Keep logging into your account and a deal may pop up, last time I cancelled I had a phone call a week before the disconnection got more than I wanted originally and 100 pound credit for wasting my time...they also put a 100 credit on my mobile account which I didn't agree to, I was going to complain but it sort of slipped my mind .
If your cancellation does go through just reconnect on a new deal with a self install kit and new 360 boxes .
Only downside is mobile internet for a week and getting up the ladder to straiten the TV aerial .
Just done the dance for my mums account cancelled it on Saturday, hers is £66 a month they rang today to checking I still wanted to cancel as BT etal aren’t doing new installs now due to COVID and could leave my mum without broadband and phone line etc emotional blackmail, stuck to my guns far too much money blah blah times of austerity struggling to buy food never mind pay for tv.
Result £36 a month for 18 months exactly the same tv package and faster broadband, you really couldn’t make it up almost half price
Thanks all. Not going to go down the route of signing up as a new customer as I can’t afford any downtime in service (which would be likely). Also believe I’ve read in the past that a year must pass before a former customer is classified as a new customer.
I’’ll give it another week and report back here
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I just renewed my contract in January, not that great a deal but I got 100mb internet, home phone line and a mobile sim for £29 a month for the next 18 months.
How did you get in contact with them? I called their number (0345 454 1111) and it says this persons phone is switched off!
I just made the call and didn't even need to speak to anyone to get the £4 price rise cancelled.
I'm already happy with the deal I got back in September when I brazened out a full cancellation (nail-biting at the time). They got in touch and offered me Maxit TV, 200 broadband and phone with free weekends (we never use it anyway) for £56 a month until March 2022. I've never had any problems with the service here and since lockdown and working from home with two kids using iPads and iMacs for home schooling, it's been fantastic with only a very occasional lag lasting a couple of minutes or less.
When I went through the options today the recorded message said it could offer me a £4 discount instantly, so I've taken it. No waiting on the phone for hours, no sparring and no stress.
I used 150 as I'm on Vrgin mobile, but I tried the 0345 number and it does seem to be broken/disconnected. Cheeky feckers.
They are cheeky feckers to raise prices mid contract. The whole point of a contract is that it remains in force for the time period agreed.
They mostly rely on inertia of their customers, because it is only a few quid.
Well if is only a few quid that Virgin will breach a contract for, I am not going to let them have it.
I couldn't agree more. They always use the RPI excuse but I can't recall any other contract I've had that rises every year, mid-contract.
That's the number that I used. Be sure to visit the loo first and settle in for the long haul though
I spent over an hour in the phone queue today, only to be cut off seconds after someone finally answered.
I had to get up and go for a walk up the road as I feared in need a plasterer to repair all the lunch holes in my walls otherwise.
One thing that really boils my piss is awful customer service. Yes, there’s a pandemic going on, but I can’t see why that should make things so much worse.
I used to be with Zen internet, and you could ping them a message in their website, like setting up a chat, but just asking them to call you when they’re free. Usually within 1-10 mins, they’d called you back. Admittedly they won’t have the same number of customers as VM, but VM should scale up their support team as their customer level increases.
I’ll have to try again tomorrow.
All I want to do is order 2 of the new mesh pods. Can’t get it to work online.
I have always used Webchat for upgrades/general queries never had a problem
Type in a couple of hows the weather , thanks for all your help ...
Seems to get the job done
Cheers
£3.50 increase for me also mid contract.
It's so tiresome having to phone them up and play the "let me just check some offers that have just come in / speak to my manager' game every year.
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I cancelled after a derisory offer again this year and just took out a new deal in my wife’s name. £21 a month less for a similar package and a free 43” tv. Crazy really.
Did the same in reverse 18 months ago. Bit of a pain with the switchover, returning the equipment and the final bill rebate but the saving is worth it. It would be nice if they just gave existing customers the best deal though!
Virgins CS has always been poor with long waits even pre-Covid but they are currently using it as an excuse for even poorer CS.
As above, same thing happened to me, waited 45mins, got through and then got cut off. Now the person at the other end know who you are as you have to verify but you’ll be damned if they attempt to call you back. Rather than a day I waited almost a week before calling them back.
We had FTTP installed by Zen. It's not cheap but I can get 350mbps on my phone and 450 wirelessly in the back room on my laptop. Insane speeds, great reliability. So far.
We use Sky for sports and other channels. Combined, everything is about £100 per month. Reliable though.
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