Virgin Media: Haggle down your costs.

playaz

custardy wrote: »

you are still under contract,so they dont have to offer you anything

Cheers - i'll wait a few months and let you know how I get on.

Thanks for the quick response - you guys are great! :j

snappyd

I received a letter from Virgin Media saying I can upgrade from 20-30 completely free of charge. When I rang to go through with it they quoted me £30 for installation and informed me that the letter wasnt stating that. The guy was quite rude, appeared to know nothing about the product, and repeatedly told me that they couldn't possibly supply that service without a charge...So it would probably now appear on my notes now saying I would have to pay even though the letter clearly states without charge..
I have been with Virginmedia/telewest/blueyonder with tv now for over 20 years...broadband I ordered and used while majority of people were merrily using dial-up...So no loyalty there...

liam8282

playaz wrote: »

Cheers - i'll wait a few months and let you know how I get on.

Thanks for the quick response - you guys are great! :j

They don't have to offer you anything, but they might do. IMO it would be worth a quick phone call, the worst they could say is ring back in a couple of months!

I rang up 10 months into my contract and was upgraded.

TPS01403

Hi,

New to MSE, and just saw this thread. I've been with Virgin over 5yrs now, and have the following:-

L Broadband
XL Phone
XL TV
2 Boxes - one standard HD and one V+
Sky Sport
Disney Channel
Plus being a saddo I regularly pay the £15 PPV for the boxing when its on.

I pay £79.39 for the above, and normally end up paying £110 to £125pm.

Sadly, entered a new contract until December this year and they said its £170 to cancel.

I got an invite to go into a 'draw' for 1 of a 1000 new Tivo boxes (though looking more closely it wasn't a random draw at all). I didn't get one and as my missus says threw a bit of a tantrum.

Now I want to leave out of principal. (Or perhaps stubborness). I was going to offer to pay them the £170 to cancel and see what happens.

I want a Tivo!!!

Scots

I'm starting to look into changing away from VM. I've been with them a very long time, 20 years probably, but that counts for nothing with these blood suckers.

About 6 months ago I contacted them and complained about the amounts I was paying. The upshot of that conversation is that I'm now on

tv freeview only (I don't watch much telly)
50mb broadband (which doesn't get 50mb)
phone, this is problem area, is line rental, plus £8 anytime calls, but just found out this does not cover mobiles or 08 numbers.

My bill this month well over £60 and thats one of the lower months.

I'm planning to drop broadband to minimum 10mb, that costs £21 a month and ditch the landline altogether, and just work with my existing T mobile for calls.

I would go with another company like 02 except I'm under the impression that VM's 10mb will be a lot faster than anything a BT line could give me. Any speed estimation I've done comes out about 7mb. Maybe somebody could confirm this for me.

Only snag is I'll have to get the wife a mobile plan for her mobile phone, which looking about I expect will cost £15 a month.

I can save a bit over the VM robbers but I will simply be happy as anything to break away from them. I hate them. Lying, coniving, !!!!!!!!ting, fraudsters.

fillyjonk

sorry if this is are daft questions but am a bit confused

first, if we switched, would we need to change numbers?
second, afaik we don't have a BT line installed. I think its pretty unlikely that we would have tbh. Does that mean we are stuck with virgin? I take it its not going to be worth getting a BT line installed?

We pay £20 pm for broadband, then something like £30 a month which includes line rental plus a mostly inclusive phone package (unlimited minutes plus money off mobiles). We are strict about using the free minutes we get with our mobile tariff/dp's work phone, so this works well

I think we might get freeview in there but we don't need it-we only watch iplayer (so don't need a tv license! excellent!)

hansi

erm, I think you will find you do need a tv licence! If you can receive Freeview, you can receive BBC programmes for which you need a licence.

fillyjonk

You only need a TV license if you watch TV as its being shown. If you watch stuff after its been recorded, you don't need a license. The same is true of iplayer-there's info at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/01/iplayer_does_not_require_a_tv_1.html.

We might have a freeview option as part of our package (free, obviously) but we don't have the box, we gave it back ages ago. So obviously we don't use it at all. Its just a part of Virgin's standard package.

We had a tv license for ages despite never watching tv as we were part of the BARB panel (we eventually got kicked off because they didn't believe that we were really watching only few hours of tv a month, they thought we just weren't recording it)

I'd say even our (non-live) iplayer watching is probably under an hour a week, maybe even less, and even that is probably the kids. A tv license really would not be an investment for us.

ETA: as I understand it there is no problem with owning or renting the means to watch live tv. Because I have a computer I have the means to watch live tv. The issue comes when you use it. Which we don't. I accept that this is going to be hard to prove, but a. the burden of proof is on them (its a criminal offence) and b. I'm not going to shell out £130 pa for a service i (legally) don't use.

If I were taken to court I am sure my embarassingly poor knowlege of anything in the tv world would stand me in excellent stead ;-)

PJB

Hi All

Currently have BT on 18 month contract that has just expired so looking to change.

Virgin have offered:
Talk Unlimited (calls to anyone 24/7) for 6 months
Large Broadband
Medium TV (No HD)

All for 12 months at £27.99, we are already paying £22 for the BB so seems a good deal. Would appreciate any thoughts, advice etc.

Don't mind switching BB or tel providers, need decent broadband not superfast but fast is preferable.

Any help gratefully received, thanks

rosemaire2

hi
i've been with virgin for over a year and am paying a total of £35.99 per month breaking down as follows:

Phone Line rental £12.99
Talk E&W £4.99
Phone Broadband & TV Saving £-7
Broadband size L £26
TV size M £0

Even though they have given me TV for free, still seems a bit much, esp the broadband cost - any ideas as to what i should ask for in terms of a better price?

thankyou
rosemaire2