MSE News: Virgin Media broadband customers face price rise from October

Former_MSE_Paloma · 13 August 2014 at 5:57PM

Broadband only Virgin Media customers will see their bills rise by £1.50/month from October – you can leave penalty free...

Read the full story:

Virgin Media broadband customers face price rise from October

Click reply below to discuss. If you haven’t already, join the forum to reply. If you aren’t sure how it all works, read our New to Forum? Intro Guide.

kwikbreaks · 13 August 2014 at 6:09PM

Unless they call in and say they are cancelling of course. In which case it will probably be a price reduction.

VM run their business like a car boot stall so haggle.

4$£&*(£$&*(! · 13 August 2014 at 6:19PM

Yes and I have been conned. I was on 30mb and was offered 50mb for 'free'. Their website said nothing about new contracts when I pressed the button. I even emailed them to ask if there was any change other than me getting a free upgrade but they didn't reply.

Today I see why, I take it this lets them enable that £1.50 more per month. I don't care about all this extra speed as if you use it you'll soon reach their caps anyway. All I do is some normal browsing, a bit of streaming telly and the occasional (couple of times a month) film download, I wasn't even using 30mb let alone the 50mb free upgrade I got.

Anyhoo, my area has fibre optic installed (aka Infinity) and TalkTalk can offer me a fibre install for £22.50 per month including a phone line for 38mb with no similar caps that VM have. I've never considered ADSL before as it's been way slower than VM (4-7mb) but now I have direct neighbours who have shown me they get over 30mb with TalkTalk I am seriously considering leaving for the first time ever.

Have threatened it before but these inflation busting tedious price hikes seem to happen more and more, and extra speed just doesn't cut it with me.

kwikbreaks · 13 August 2014 at 7:16PM

Recent OFCOM rules say you can cancel penalty free with any price rise. Your notification should say that you have 30 days from notification to cancel. Call again and you'll probably get a reduction instead. I did the last time they played this game but eventually got fed up with the constant hassle and move to Plusnet (at higher cost).

Pincher · 13 August 2014 at 8:11PM

This is just getting silly. That's what people pay for their electricity. It was £23 a month for Broadband only when I left Virgin.

When you charge too much, people get creative.
At this kind of price, I might even be tempted to talk to my neighbour, and share a 152Mbps between two semis.

Amazingly, 100Mbps Ethernet is now inadequate for such a router. 1Gbps extender with CAT6 cable for the second house.

It's an interesting situation. If the neighbour doesn't pay up, you unplug him, but then you still have to pay the full price. Hmm.....

Elisecas · 13 August 2014 at 8:49PM

I sent them an email straight back asking them if the email was sent by mistake, since my contract with them doesn't run out until early next year and, as I was required to stick to the deal, I expect them too as well.

We shall see if/how they respond.

teddysmum · 13 August 2014 at 10:55PM

Ts & Cs state that they can increase the price by up to a certain %. With rises above this rate you are free to leave without penalty.

visidigi · 14 August 2014 at 8:04AM

They're all doing it one way or another. So now it comes down to the quality of the product you get for your money. Quite frankly the internet service via cable is the best out there imo.

Its money worth spending when our lives are based so much around the service now. Internet used t be a luxury, it is now pretty much a utility.

jonmc1980 · 14 August 2014 at 9:15AM

Can I cancel now then even if my contract isn't up until November?

cordwangle · 14 August 2014 at 3:29PM

I have the full 120 service and tv etc but it sadly is the same with Virgin when renewal comes around I am offered a poor deal or a price rise for same package until I ring and say I am leaving then magically the impossible becomes possible but they regrettably are the only really fast b/b in the uk but sooner or later others will catch up and then I suspect Virgin will loose ground. It is not just Virgin though that rely on creeping rises and customer inertia car insurance companies and brokers power utilities the list goes on and on.

4$£&*(£$&*(! · 14 August 2014 at 9:01PM

I emailed Executiveteam@virginmedia.co.uk and said I'm unhappy as the solus broadband customers always get hit with the increase.

Then I took to Twitter and had a couple of rants about it. Their exec office phoned me. I advised them I was on a discount to get £22.50 instead of the £24.50 for the 50mb service I get (which was 30 until they sent me an email saying I could get 50 for no extra fee).

If they applied the £1.50 increase this would have taken my bill to £26. But - bizarrely - they reduced my bill to £19.50 as 'you've been with us almost a year'.

It was quite an unusual statement - I moved house last year, so I reminded them I've been with them for a year at this address but also over 10 years at my last address.

So oddly the £22.50 my price was reduced to has now gone DOWN to £19.50 as a result of my complaining about the extra £1.50.

This has got to be one of the most odd ways of doing business. Why can't everyone pay say £22 all the time instead of some (like me) getting a discount when they moan and others paying full whack and accepting it? It's like I'm doing business at some shady foreign market haggling for a flying carpet or some magic beans.

MSE News: Virgin Media broadband customers face price rise from October

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free