Should I leave Virgin Media? CONFUSED!!!

viv0147

Hi as someone who has retired, I had to look at any savings I could make. So one obvious choice was to get rid of Virgin! After doing a great deal of research, no other provider can get close to the speeds of Virgin broadband. So I paid for 1 year for the telephone which I as you hardly use, which has brought my monthly payments down to £17 a month.

LilyLarkin

Viv that's low - what broadband package do you receive? Even if I opted for the line rental payment in advance, it would still just knock off £5 a month therefore leave me paying £30...

LilyLarkin

Buzby wrote: »

You will be going backwards if you switch - FTTC is already used by Virgin, but has the benefit of using co-ax copper, lower contention rates and generally superior service (providing you don't call VM's overseas centre!).

If you can dump TV, then you can lose your phone line and use VOIP instead of a landline. All your comms will still be using cable, but also for phone and streamed TV.

This will certainly be cheaper than any ADSL offering.

Hmm - I just called and they said if I stop just my phone rental service, they would charge the full broadband (rather than the bundle cost) so it would be £24 a month (not a straightforward -£14.99). Vonage would cost £5.98 after the 3-month deal, so then I'm paying £31 a month which isn't much less.

Oh dear.

macman

The bundle prices are always rigged so that there's little or no incentive not to take the phone as well.
Then they can sting you with their very expensive telephony charges.

LilyLarkin

Well, here's what happened. I went through all the process of switching to BT - the Infinity 1 deal with unlimited broadband which, with the £100 Sainsbury's voucher and £100 (or so) cashback through Top Cashback, plus advance line rental, worked out marginally cheaper over the 18 months.

Then I phoned Virgin to disconnect. Of course, now I get the customer relations person phoning me back. With some whizzy deal where they will now put me on the 60mb broadband, but give me a new customer deal and reduce the cost to £25.49 a month (same phone package). But if I pay the advance line rental, it effectively becomes £20.50 a month.

And they said I will just be in a 12 month contract for this, but they will still apply the discount for 2 years. I did say to them why didn't the first guy I spoke to go through all this with me, and also how I felt they did not value their long term customers with decent deals.

Anyhow - so as it happens, the Virgin one still works out around £20 more expensive over the 18 months, but then the BT one will revert to the full cost and they already told me there is no option to be without the phone on that, so I am more tied.

So - I'm thinking stick with Virgin now, at the £20.50 (with advance line rental)? And a big difference from the £35.39 I am paying now!

Nicky_Noo_Na

Sounds like you have got it sorted but I was about to suggest to do what you have just done. We were unhappy with the constant price rises with Virgin so I found a sky package that was a bit cheaper and asked Virgin if there was anything they could do to make us stay, hey presto £11 a month knocked off the bill for 2 years. Don't ask you don't get! I think the £20.50 you are paying now is a very good deal and virgin are in my opinion a better internet connection than going back to BT etc. We have been with virgin for broadband for over 7 years in two different houses and have never had a connection or speed problem.

LilyLarkin

The thing is, I was on the phone to them twice before I ended up going through the rigmarole of switching to BT - I think a spent the whole of yesterday researching and looking into this, so much time wasted! Why they can't just give you a decent deal when you first phone is annoying - they are really not very good at all with long-term customers and this totally annoys me about Virgin. They always seem pretty unwilling to help initially.

But yeah, they definitely lead the way with speed/connection etc so better to stick with them than revert to BT.

kwikbreaks

If calling VM for a deal always use the "thinking of leaving" option - that gives you the UK based retentions group. Standard customer support can't give you the best deals only retentions can do that.

I agree that the way VM run their business like a car boot stall is annoying. It is even more annoying if you realise a phone call a year back would have saved you money throughout that year.

kwikbreaks

macman wrote: »

The bundle prices are always rigged so that there's little or no incentive not to take the phone as well.

The incentive is simple - most BB prices without the phone are ~ £2-3 less. Any VM calls package is quite expensive. I consider caller-id to be pretty much essential as it means I needn't bother answering telemarketing or scammers but with VM that's ~ £2 extra (propbably more now as I binned my VM phone well over a year back).

So those two savings amount to maybe £5 and a Vonage UK package costs £5.99 and includes anytime UK geographic calls. You'd still pay 0870 and 0845 if saynoto0870 doesn't come up trumps but the charges are reasonable and I think the VM call package only covers 0870 anyway.

Many don't use a landline at all - so dropping it from VM is a straight £2-3 saving.

It may pay to take the phone up front as you may have to pay an install charge without it - the only reason I took it was because of an excellent cashback deal at the time with relied on it. You can cancel the phone once the minimum term is up and keep the BB. Always go through "thinking of leaving" though or you'll be offered a poor deal.

LilyLarkin

kwikbreaks wrote: »

It may pay to take the phone up front as you may have to pay an install charge without it - the only reason I took it was because of an excellent cashback deal at the time with relied on it. You can cancel the phone once the minimum term is up and keep the BB. Always go through "thinking of leaving" though or you'll be offered a poor deal.

Kwikbreaks do you recommend I keep the phone deal that VM have given me right now? While they still don't know that I have cancelled BT, and have some negotiation power, I am wondering whether to drop it altogether.

The guy said BB alone would cost me £18.65 a month. But I am thinking if I keep the landline (paying in advance) for the 12 months, so the effective cost is £20.50, this is still cheaper than using Vonage. Which would be £18.65 (BB with VM) plus the £5.99 monthly for Vonage, so £24.64.

Or I wonder what the price would be if they knock the landline down to just weekend and evening calls, and I opt for Skype credits (for 0870 numbers) or my mobile for other geographical daytime calls I make? Hmmm...