Virgin Media pushing prices up on the sly...

alduncan

Has anyone else noticed how Virgin Media keep putting their prices up in ways that try to make the customer not notice?!

This time last year I was paying £20 a month for the basic broadband, TV, phone package (I only need the minimum). Today I'm somehow paying £25.

Firstly they got rid of their £1 'online bill discount', then the Medium broadband went up by £2 and then again when I moved then they said they don't do 'Medium' broadband anymore, I was forced to move to Large Broadband and the package went up yet again to £25 a month.

(I might also mention their Medium TV package has got worse as last year originally came with TV Choice (one reason why I chose it) which earlier this year they claimed was just a big mistake and should only have been free for XL TV customers! They did give me XL free for 3 months trial, but now that's over!)

It's not so much the price changes, but the underhand way in which they seem to go about making them, never making it clear to us customers what changes are being made and how much more it will cost so we can make fair comparisons.

Virgin did give me a 12 month free Talk Unlimited, which is why I've agreed to stay with them. Still, they'll need to come up with something impressive to keep my custom at the end of the 12 months!

What do other people think? What experiences have you had with Virgin price rises?

JoE

We were having similar problems so are in the process of leaving - but they don't make it easy!

First they lied to us and said we couldn't cancel until we'd got our number transfered as it couldn't be moved during the 1 month notice period. We got that sorted, but they are now making it very difficult to transfer the number at all (not replying to new providers requests - apparently they're well known for it). Also, they phoned us up twice a day for nearly a fortnight to try to persuade us not to leave.

Annoyingly, the new providers aren't doing too well either. We got the BT line set up again cheap using the Post Office PAYG deal, then went with Simplify Digital for the Orange Max deal (as per MSE, to get the cashback) but they've messed up the order that many times so we cancelled, then today we get the confirmation from Orange of the wrong tariff. I could scream!

JoE

oh, and Virgin told us they and BT are the only companies capable of transferring landline numbers, but isn't it a requirement of OfCom?

donnac2558

I still have my online billing discount.

thor

They are all at it. Banks, telecomms, supermarkets etc, they all must have a room somewhere full of managers trying to come up with techniques to give customers less for more. A classic case is cadburys creme egg, I swear they are smaller now than they were when I was a kid!

brewerdave

JoE - Moving from Virgin to HOrange ??? Out of the frying pan.................

JoE

Hmm... Could be!