Virgin Media: Haggle down your costs.

blueflyingtonight

Having read this forum I think I need to get on to Virgin asap. I have Broadband L and am paying 23.99 a month. Looking on their website their standard tarrif now appears to be 20.00. I had been looking at getting TV L - what should I expect to pay for a Broadband/TV budle both L?

Thanks

Steve

dave_dph

heebs wrote: »

BTW...i gave my 30 day notice last night..and today they have already cut off my landline...that cant be right??!!£$$..never has landline problems in all the 5 years i have been with them...previously telewest

do any of you know if customers can cancel notice at any time
thaanks

Yes you can cancel your notice at any time.

They should not have disconnected the phone until the end of the 30 days notice period. Give them a call and complain that they have disconnected you early; you will be charged for the 30 day notice period!

If you don't want to call them you can use the virginmedia newsgroup access and log your complaint in virginmedia.support.telephony.

In order to access your account they will just need your username, this is the part before the @ symbol in your ntl or blueyonder email address.

Do not post any other personal information in the newsgroup.

Sponge

heebs wrote: »

Hi ellives...i tried to get my bill reduced fro £45 with no luck..gave notice yesterday but when contacted sky was told similar would be over £50!!

Please can you let me know how you did it and how much you are paying now...are you getting the same level of channels as vms xl package..

any advice / info greatly welcome as i will be without any serivices by the end of 29 days...:eek:
1

If you've just cancelled then give it a few days. Maybe a week or so. They may well call you back to re-open negotiations. They did with me. I cancelled last week and they called me back a couple of days later. They tried for over an hour to keep my custom, but nothing they offered was remotely competitive. So I'm still leaving.

heebs

Sponge wrote: »

If you've just cancelled then give it a few days. Maybe a week or so. They may well call you back to re-open negotiations. They did with me. I cancelled last week and they called me back a couple of days later. They tried for over an hour to keep my custom, but nothing they offered was remotely competitive. So I'm still leaving.

Hi Sponge...when you say they couldnt offer you anything competitive..please can you give some figures..as i have been made to believe..by sky themselves..that they cannot match
tel (fee w/end calls),
2mb unltd bb and
xl v+ tv for £45...

but i think £45 is too much especially since i was paying £29 until now...would love to switch but dont know anything that is cheaper...please can you let me know what you are comparing it to as your virgin package was £10 CHEAPER THAN MINE and better to boot.

Dave,=thanks for the info..it was very useful :beer:

bambinaUK

Having read through quite a few pages on this thread, I have no thoroughly confused myself! Im struggling to pay our VM bill and need to look at where to cut back or what to ask for when I ring VM.

Current Package
Telephone Line Rental £11.00
Talk Unlimited £7.95
Phone,TV & B B Bundle Saving -£9.50
TV Size XL £22.00
1 Additional V Box £15.00
Add Set Box Discount -£5.50
Broadband Size XL £37.00

TOTAL = £77.95

RJG007

DemiDee wrote: »

Can anyone beat this?

Line rental £11.00
Talk International £1.50
Talk Mobile £1.50
Talk Unlimited £7.95
Loyalty pack BB/Phone -£19.46
Fully itemised billing £1.00
TV size M £0.00
Broadband size M £18.00

TOTAL = £21.49

Hi DemiDee,

I have a similar package but cancelled my Talk International:

Line rental £11.00
Talk Mobile £1.50
Talk Unlimited £7.95
Loyalty pack BB/Phone -£19.46
TV size M £0.00
Broadband size M £18.00
E bill discount -£1.00

So in total it costs me £17.99 a month. I'd like to have faster broadband but Virgin say that to do that I'd lose my loyalty discount and my price would rocket, so I'm prepared to stick with that for now until they hopefully upgrade the speed for me sometime!

paulwellerfan

i cant believe some people are paying these figures
i have the
XL vm package of
2 set top boxes and can use the phone any time night or day
as well as 2 MB of broad band
plus caller display and caller id for about 44 quid

ellives

heebs wrote: »

Hi ellives...i tried to get my bill reduced fro £45 with no luck..gave notice yesterday but when contacted sky was told similar would be over £50!!

Please can you let me know how you did it and how much you are paying now...are you getting the same level of channels as vms xl package..

any advice / info greatly welcome as i will be without any serivices by the end of 29 days...:eek:
1

Hi

Sorry, been out of the country for a few days.

I've switched to Sky and after a few days, so far so good. Got the V+ box for free and fitted free also, a load of channels (but not films or sport) for £17.50 per month.

I got BT to fit a line for £30 (but Sky will do it for free) and the free national calls and cheap mobiles 24/7 costs £16 per month.

I've bought a second hand Sky box (£20) for freesat in my top room. (equiv. to multiroom).

As I have an o2 phone I organised o2 home broadband for free for 12 months (so far, it's 3 times quicker than the M b/b at V).

All in all, a bit cheaper than the great deal I was getting with V....but was going to get increased for sure.

They rang me after a week trying to keep me by the way. Plus,like you, my phone was disconnected the day after I cancelled my deal - very apologetic and switched back on till tomorrow).

Try this link http://packages.sky.com/buy/?QS=true&see_mix_selection=Variety&equipment=SkyPlus and enter this code to get the deal I got SALE140068031301

Sponge

heebs wrote: »

Hi Sponge...when you say they couldnt offer you anything competitive..please can you give some figures..as i have been made to believe..by sky themselves..that they cannot match
tel (fee w/end calls),
2mb unltd bb and
xl v+ tv for £45...

but i think £45 is too much especially since i was paying £29 until now...would love to switch but dont know anything that is cheaper...please can you let me know what you are comparing it to as your virgin package was £10 CHEAPER THAN MINE and better to boot.

Dave,=thanks for the info..it was very useful :beer:

Like ellives, I've also asked BT to install a line for me. It should be costing me £30* (reduced from £125*) as I've agreed to an 18 month contract. Anytime call plan is about £5.80* and line rental £10.50*. (With online billing.) I can't get the cheaper advertised price for anytime calls as, apparently, I'm only allowed one offer at a time. :rolleyes:

After my number is ported to BT and the line is up and running I intend to ask O2 to be my ISP. As an O2 mobile customer I can get their Premium (up to 20mb) plan at a reduced rate of £9.80*.

I won't know exactly what speeds I'll get until it's up and running, but I'm hopeful I'll get more than 10mb.

Total cost £26* per month.

As for TV, that's a bit more complicated. I don't have an aerial. So it's going to cost me £75* to have one installed. I then intend to use the Freeview built into my TV. We can manage with free to air channels and anything we miss can be obtained via other means. :cool:

For a while I did consider the alternatives, e.g. sky. Quidco have some reasonable cashback offers and HD for £49 was appealing. But the ongoing monthly costs were not. The whole point of the exercise was to reduce my monthly out-goings! I could use codes (like above) to get Sky+ supplied and fitted for free. Cheapest package £16.50 pm. However, using a promo code means you can't get Quidco cashback and that killed that idea.

VM offered me XL Phone and L (up to 10mb) broadband for £22.50*. No TV. This wasn't competitive enough for me. They did the whole, 'You'll only get 4mb in your area' routine, but I'm not convinced. I'm happy to gamble that O2 will be able to provide me > 10mb. I didn't regard the offer from VM as like-for-like. They wouldn't offer me XL bb and XL Ph for £25*. I'd have accepted something in that region.

When asked what it would cost to add TV to their offer the price jumped dramatically, to over £37*.

More to the point, I was just sick and tired of VM's attitude and inconsistent treatment of new and existing customers. I was ready to leave and they were going to have to offer me something special to stay. They didn't.

* All prices approximate. I'm going from memory here. They're all written down at home.

Sponge

My wife has just taken a call from VM. They have been contacted by BT about porting our current phone number. VM wanted to know if it was a genuine request.

They asked why we were leaving and made a half-hearted attempt to keep us.

L BB (10mb)
M TV inc V+
L Ph (eve & w/e)

34.50 - 1 for ebilling.

Rejected again.

Oh, yes! And we'll be getting a refund of 60 later in March. Totally unexpected and will go a long way towards paying for our new aerial. Which is being fitted tomorrow morning.