Parents Getting £120 A Moneth Bill From Virgin

Joey122

Ok visited parents over xmas and they were saying the cost of the phone had gone through the roof with Virgin -

They are old (65) and have television (which they dont use) from Virgin, broadband and the phone

Apparently Virgin are charging 10p connection charge and even money to do 1471!!!

Does anyone know of a service which offers

Broadband
Unlimited UK calls
Unlimited international calls to US

I ve seen TalkTalk and AOL offer these packages at £35 or so - But I ve heard bad things about them

Any ideas on what to take

Browntoa

post office incudes free weekend calls to the USA

http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po/content1?mediaId=95800868&catId=19300217#call_rates

and also unlimited UK and mobiles at the weekend

Inclusive calls last for 60 minutes. Customers should hang up before 60 minutes and redial to avoid incurring charge

for £20.95 a month for broadband and phone incl line rental

http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po/content2?catId=68600711&mediaId=58000695

user Heinz is the expert on this sort of stuff

Joey122

Browntoa wrote: »

post office incudes free weekend calls to the USA

http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po/content1?mediaId=95800868&catId=19300217#call_rates

and also unlimited UK and mobiles at the weekend

Inclusive calls last for 60 minutes. Customers should hang up before 60 minutes and redial to avoid incurring charge

for £20.95 a month for broadband and phone incl line rental

http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po/content2?catId=68600711&mediaId=58000695

user Heinz is the expert on this sort of stuff

Weekend / night time only stuff wont work - They are in the house all day and need the phone

They make calls to 0844 at the moment which is costing a fortune.

Heinz : Can you help here?

Calls to US / France/ Belgium / UK landlines would be ideal - Broadband can be slow speeds

They live in London

Heinz

Sounds like this mature couple have Virgin Media cable - which others on here have pointed out is the country's most expensive voice telephony provider.

If they don't watch the TV, I'd suggest they dump Virgin completely and have a BT landline installed. Installation could be free until at least the end of the month with an 18 month contract and if they make at least 10 chargeable or inclusive calls via BT each month.

A BT line would give them the option to choose any ADSL broadband provider (even BT's can work out quite cost-effective for low users) and, if they went for BT's top calls package, the Unlimited Anytime Plan, that'd give them inclusive calls of up to 60 minutes each to UK 01, 02, 03, 0845 and 0870 numbers at all times for £4.95/month.

They could also sign up for a www.18185.co.uk account for their calls to the USA (4p connection and ½p/minute at any time). Calls to France would be 1p/minute and to Belgium, 1½p/minute.

BT is also cheapest to 0844 numbers (it'll come as no surprise to learn that Virgin are the most expensive - charging, for example, 6 times more per minute [3p] to call 0844 numbers which BT charges ½p/minute to call) but the best way to keep such call costs down is to either avoid calling 0844 numbers or find alternatives on www.saynoto0870.com

Happy New Year.

jb66

Plus o2 broadband is mega cheap if you know someone on o2 mobile and go through quidco

lhwjud

Broadband - O2 and do it via Quidco. If quidco pays it will be less than 2quids per months.

Landline - switch back to BT if you don't need the VM package - take the Unlimited Anytime Plan (11.54 + 4.99). For this you will get unlimited UK landline (see below)

International landline - Once you have unlimited BT landline, sign up to Voipdiscount. The subscription will let you to call landline in many countries for free (all of those you have asked for) from computer, or dialing into a UK landline (so use your free BT landline here!). The subscription fee is 10 Euro per quarter, and this will give you 300mins landline call per week. The free call expires after 120days, after which the call will count towards the 10 Euro credit.

So in all, you are looking at £16.53 (BT) + £2.00 (O2 if quidco pays) + £3.50 (voipdiscount fee per month) = £22 per month.

macman

OP, you don't say if your parents have a BT line as well? If they don't, then they won't be going anywhere from VM until they do get one.
If they don't use the TV package, then why on earth don't they just cancel that in the short term (take the calls and broadband only) to reduce the overall monthly bill?

Joey122

lhwjud wrote: »

Broadband - O2 and do it via Quidco. If quidco pays it will be less than 2quids per months.

Landline - switch back to BT if you don't need the VM package - take the Unlimited Anytime Plan (11.54 + 4.99). For this you will get unlimited UK landline (see below)

International landline - Once you have unlimited BT landline, sign up to Voipdiscount. The subscription will let you to call landline in many countries for free (all of those you have asked for) from computer, or dialing into a UK landline (so use your free BT landline here!). The subscription fee is 10 Euro per quarter, and this will give you 300mins landline call per week. The free call expires after 120days, after which the call will count towards the 10 Euro credit.

So in all, you are looking at £16.53 (BT) + £2.00 (O2 if quidco pays) + £3.50 (voipdiscount fee per month) = £22 per month.

How do you call from the landline using Voipdiscount??

They dont know how to use VOIP and would not trust it

Joey122

jb66 wrote: »

Plus o2 broadband is mega cheap if you know someone on o2 mobile and go through quidco

Yes I have an o2 contract will keep this in mind...

Joey122

macman wrote: »

OP, you don't say if your parents have a BT line as well? If they don't, then they won't be going anywhere from VM until they do get one.
If they don't use the TV package, then why on earth don't they just cancel that in the short term (take the calls and broadband only) to reduce the overall monthly bill?

No BT line - But we can set this up...

They use TV as it was thrown in - Put differently without TV would be the same price - I tried to get this removed before

Joey122

I should also add that the saddest thing about this is that they have been ripping him off for years

I tried to cancel this a while ago but the salesman would not accept my cancellation and went on and no and reduced the package short term - I could nt be bothered so accepted and then we went on and on.

Now @120 pounds a month its riddiculous - How do you cancel Virgin??