Virgin Media add 0845 and 0870 no's to some of their packages

Zebbylu

I rang and had a long chat with customer services today a propos of another complaint. At the end of the first one I asked when they were going to include 0845 and 0870 numbers in their inclusive calls and the guy said they had started doing this for £1.50 a month extra about 4 days ago, but it only applies to certain packages. Anyway he has added it to mine, so as I spend around £10 a month on the ones I can't avoid calling, or find none 0870 numbers for, hopefully that will bring my bill down a bit more. It has a 1000 minutes a month limit on the amount of calls he said.
It's about time they matched the other phone providers on this :T

Unity

Zebbylu wrote: »

I rang and had a long chat with customer services today a propos of another complaint. At the end of the first one I asked when they were going to include 0845 and 0870 numbers in their inclusive calls and the guy said they had started doing this for £1.50 a month extra about 4 days ago, but it only applies to certain packages. Anyway he has added it to mine, so as I spend around £10 a month on the ones I can't avoid calling, or find none 0870 numbers for, hopefully that will bring my bill down a bit more. It has a 1000 minutes a month limit on the amount of calls he said.
It's about time they matched the other phone providers on this :T

Many thanks for this Zebbylu, this is good news for me too. I recently filled in a survey on Virgin and this was one of the main points I included as to why I may not continue with them once my first year contract is up. To be honest the only reason I stay with them is that their broadband is cable and when I was with BT my landline would not support more than 2mg :eek: so it didn't matter who my ISP was, it was still incredibly slow.

I do find the ability to record two programmes on Virgin+ an advantage, but I also said the system was faulted as you can't do this if you want to record a programme in the following time slot. For example if you want to record two hour long programmes at 8pm and one programme starting straight after at 9pm - you get a message up saying you are already recording two programmes - when in effect they should have ceased recording. Anyway this is going off topic so once again thanks for this useful information. :T:T:T

Zebbylu

Unity, You're welcome! I hope it applies to you too. I haven't looked on their website to see what the deal is properly, I just let the csa put it on my account. I am a victim of the too much hassle to change syndrome. So I just ring up every so often and tell them how awful they are and then they try and tweak my account so I feel better... not a very good money saving acolyte really. I haven't got a V+ box but I do have an engineer coming tomorrow to see if my box which dates back to telewest days is playing up. That is another weird VM thing. If you ring and say can I have a new box, this one is old and decrepit, they say 'no'. Apparently you have to have an engineer visit and then it can be changed. Live and learn. Just don't ever ever call that Bombay call centre, they are kept in the dark out there by Virgin central, they never know what is going on re faults and engineering problems and waste your time totally.

Unity

Zebbylu wrote: »

Unity, You're welcome! I hope it applies to you too. I haven't looked on their website to see what the deal is properly, I just let the csa put it on my account. I am a victim of the too much hassle to change syndrome. So I just ring up every so often and tell them how awful they are and then they try and tweak my account so I feel better... not a very good money saving acolyte really. I haven't got a V+ box but I do have an engineer coming tomorrow to see if my box which dates back to telewest days is playing up. That is another weird VM thing. If you ring and say can I have a new box, this one is old and decrepit, they say 'no'. Apparently you have to have an engineer visit and then it can be changed. Live and learn. Just don't ever ever call that Bombay call centre, they are kept in the dark out there by Virgin central, they never know what is going on re faults and engineering problems and waste your time totally.

How do you avoid the Bombay call centre? I thought I had got rid of Phonejacker's "Internet Providings" when I left BT - but alas here we are again with a seemingly insurmountable language barrier, whilst young people in Britian do call centre courses and then are not able to get jobs! :lipsrseal I hate to think how they cope with people with strong regional accents, I mean I need the sub-titles on when I watch Rab C. Nesbitt and I'm only over the border :shocked:. Is it a case of always choosing the option to 'Change Package' or 'Tell us you're thinking of leaving us'?

Thanks again for the info - it will help me a lot as my local hospital has farmed out 'Choose and Book' appointments to NHS Direct which allows them to use an 0845 number. One phone call alone cost me almost £3 after being stuck in a queue and then their computer system wasn't working properly. They should be able to make great hole in waiting lists with what they rake in off this and parking charges :mad: - but don't get me started .

reduceditem

This is worth bumping.

Just been on the phone with Virgin. They told me existing customers (not new) can have this service added for £1.50 a month if they have the L or XL phone package. It's not currently available to M package customers but they told me it might be in the future. It's not advertised anywhere, you have to ask. They started it on the 10th of May.

Saeed

Unity wrote: »

Thanks again for the info - it will help me a lot as my local hospital has farmed out 'Choose and Book' appointments to NHS Direct which allows them to use an 0845 number. One phone call alone cost me almost £3 after being stuck in a queue and then their computer system wasn't working properly. They should be able to make great hole in waiting lists with what they rake in off this and parking charges :mad: - but don't get me started .

Yeah complete rip off. My hospital is on an 0844 number and is heavily in debt. Maybe that's why they have switched to 0844 and usually takes 2-3 minutes to get through to the operator. I now dial one of the wards/deptartment like finance on the direct dial 01XXX number and ask to be transferred. Now way am I paying 5p/min to add to the hospitals coffers.

Unity

Saeed wrote: »

Yeah complete rip off. My hospital is on an 0844 number and is heavily in debt. Maybe that's why they have switched to 0844 and usually takes 2-3 minutes to get through to the operator. I now dial one of the wards/deptartment like finance on the direct dial 01XXX number and ask to be transferred. Now way am I paying 5p/min to add to the hospitals coffers.

I have just been through one heck of a complaint with my local hospital over this, to the extent that I involved my local MP and wrote directly to the then Health Minister (just prior to the election). Last September it was ruled that no call to any hospital, surgery etc. in the NHS should cost more than a local call, but they can get around this by involving 'NHS Direct' as it is exempt from this rule. However this situation should be phased out by December - but of course this depends on whether the current coalition keeps to these rules. I argued that to farm out appointments to NHS Direct was inappropriate since a hospital would be unable to function without an appointment system and therefore calls concerning appointments should come under the NHS number rules.

I tried like you to get through by dialling the 01XXX number and asking to be transferred - only to be told that they couldn't access this particular computer system and I would have to dial the 0845 number, so I flatly refused. I was quite happy to change the appointment via the on-line facility, however since they had changed my original 'Choose & Book' appointment to a different and inappropriate consultant, I could not longer use the UBRN and pass word I'd been sent :mad:. They said they couldn't do anything, so I replied that I couldn't either and the appointment would have to go down as an FTA (Failed to attend). Surprisingly they managed to sort it out after that. It was evidently okay for it to cost me money (and with Virgin that would have been 9.79p connection, plus 9.79p per minute) but not them. I knew from previous experience that I would be in an interminable queue and that once I got to speak to someone they would tell me that they couldn't change the appointment as my UBRN and pass word would not work for them either! :rolleyes:

I have added the Virgin offer to my account, although it goes against my principles - but I can't risk a huge bill caused by the increasing use of these numbers. I'll see how it goes and will still remain faithful to the https://www.saynoto0870.com website because it is so useful. :T:T:T

Be_Happy

This would have been a good idea if free, but not with the £1.50 monthly charge.

Depends on how many calls you make, but I'm still cheaper using 18185 for 0845 calls at 5p connection and 3p minute, or 0870 at 3p minute on weekdays, but only 1p per minute at weekends.

Unity

Be_Happy wrote: »

This would have been a good idea if free, but not with the £1.50 monthly charge.

Depends on how many calls you make, but I'm still cheaper using 18185 for 0845 calls at 5p connection and 3p minute, or 0870 at 3p minute on weekdays, but only 1p per minute at weekends.

It's probably a six and two threes , depending additionally on comparing the cost of line rental between the various providers. It is also not always possible to use another provider like 18185 for these calls - certainly Sky doesn't allow this, worse luck .

Be_Happy

Unity wrote: »

It's probably a six and two threes , depending additionally on comparing the cost of line rental between the various providers. It is also not always possible to use another provider like 18185 for these calls - certainly Sky doesn't allow this, worse luck .

There's no additional line rental for 18185, you use the virgin cable phone line. We're lucky that, so far, Virgin allows access to 18185.

Fairwinds

Zebbylu wrote: »

Just don't ever ever call that Bombay call centre,

Unity wrote: »

How do you avoid the Bombay call centre?

What's the secret, I'd like to know that too