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Feb 13 increase of £3.15 from Virgin Media

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Hi Guys

RE: TV Size: L
V HD Monthly Fee
Broadband M (Up To 20mb)

Would love to chip a few quid off my increased Virgin bill but am confused about how to approach it. Any suggestions or thoughts welcome.:)

I few years ago I signed up to the TV Size: L and Broadband M bundle without any phoneline. There was a discount on this bundle at the time.

This morning I received a letter notifying me of a Feb 13 increase of £3.15, which will raise the monthly cost to £34.65. The original bundle discount doesn't appear to be applied to the bundle anymore.

Any ideas how I can reduce this cost? For example, is there a TV Size: S (small) I could perhaps request?

Could I request them to ditch the V HD Monthly Fee too? (don't mind not watching programmes in HD)

Would like to retain the 20MB Broadband.

Again, any thoughts whatsoever would be really appreciated.
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Comments

  • barnabee
    barnabee Posts: 1,210 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    edited 8 December 2012 at 12:22PM
    Why not take out the phoneline? I have phoneline, size M phone, size M (the smallest) TV but with TIVO box and up to 30MB broadband for £31.90 a month. I have reduced this further by paying my phone line rental upfront for the year with the Line Rental Saver offer (£120 ) and my monthly bill before telephone charges is now £18.

    There is no monthly rental charge for the TIVO box and I pay by Direct Debit with paperless billing.

    £18 a month for all three details here

    The £49.99 connection charge will get waived if you haggle. My installation took about 10 days from phoning.
  • £4.74 for me! No idea how to approach this, but that rise is crazy! (Approx 10%!)

    Not sure exactly what my package charge is, because we've added, changed and tweaked over the years, but it works out about £46 I think. I've negotiated free additional boxes and things over time, but as prices have risen and I've haggled them down, it's got to the point where I'm not really clear on whether what I've got now is good value any more...

    Tivo box with TV - XL
    Extra box in bedroom (they let us keep existing V box when upgrading to Tivo in the first rollout)
    BB - M (20Mb though, not 30Mb - I think new M packages are 30...?)
    Phone - simply line rental i think. Weekend calls package may be included as standard, but I have never asked for that - we rarely use the phone - Call charges of £2-£3 a month only!
  • overcharged
    overcharged Posts: 191 Forumite
    edited 9 December 2012 at 5:22PM
    barnabee wrote: »
    Why not take out the phoneline?

    Thanks for your post barnabee -- I already don't use any Virgin phoneline, I just use my personal O2 mobile phone for calls.

    So, I'm now thinking I could request to only pay for the monthly Broadband (20MB) and reduce the Virgin television service to 'M' or 'M+', if they'll agree to that.
  • You'll get medium+ but they won't reduce it by much. The most beneficial saving you'll make is through the landline. I'm thinking about ditching mine as well. My Virgin bill is high enough as it is and the only thing I get on landlines these days are silly auto-mated answering machine messages and wrong numbers. The landline is dying a very fast death.

    However if you feel you want rid of the entire service, then you can. If you don't agree to the price increases then you can cancel the contract within a specified amount of time. (Probably within 30-90 days I would imagine) but don't expect Virgin Media to be 100% truthful in their answers should you phone them up to query this. This increase has worked out nicely for many, because people will be able to get out of contract
  • I renegotiatited our contract at the beginning of November, with the promise that prices would be fixed for 12 months.
    However 2 weeks later, I received a letter for a £5.65 increase.
    Today I called to cancel within 30 days of receiving the letter, no problems.
  • Kirri
    Kirri Posts: 6,184 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    I had a letter with a £2.84 increase - what annoys me is that they don't state what has increased exactly ie the phone or the broadband or both. Another here who is tempted to ditch the phone to save money.
  • Service charges applied to the full amount I'd guess based on number of services used. One had £5.65, you had £2.84, the op. had £3.15.

    Either way, they have to "make you aware". Sending out some junk mail letter isn't a good enough method. It should be done over the phone, or in writing sent via recorded delivery. You can pretty much cancel at anytime given this loophole
  • Buzby
    Buzby Posts: 8,275 Forumite
    edited 10 December 2012 at 6:34PM
    Interesting - my increase is £5.34! With no further details as to how the increase is broken down.

    My Virgin junk mail is unaddressed - so the letter is adequate. Recorded Delivery for many would be unacceptable for a variety of reasons - especially a valid complaint, in that if uncollected, no notice as been provided.
  • won1888
    won1888 Posts: 76 Forumite
    You'll get medium+ but they won't reduce it by much. The most beneficial saving you'll make is through the landline. I'm thinking about ditching mine as well. My Virgin bill is high enough as it is and the only thing I get on landlines these days are silly auto-mated answering machine messages and wrong numbers. The landline is dying a very fast death.

    However if you feel you want rid of the entire service, then you can. If you don't agree to the price increases then you can cancel the contract within a specified amount of time. (Probably within 30-90 days I would imagine) but don't expect Virgin Media to be 100% truthful in their answers should you phone them up to query this. This increase has worked out nicely for many, because people will be able to get out of contract

    It's 30 days from when you receive confirmation of price increases.
  • thor
    thor Posts: 5,505 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts
    My letter stated the increase would be £4.74.
    When I called them, I was initially told that everyone got the same letter(despite it addressing me by name) with the same increase and in actual fact it would be different for each customer depending on their package. I can't believe this as it doesn't take an Einstein to marry up a customer to the correct increase when informing them by letter. I was then told that my rise would actually be £4.49. When I got put through to retentions they said the increase will really be £4.09!
    So never mind the increases varying from customer to customer; I have got a possibility of 3 different increases coming.
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