virgin media bill seems very high - advise please

gele

My hubby has always dealt with tv, phone broadband stuff as to be honest it all confuses me and seems so complicated. Sadly he's not as money conscious and doesn't shop around so just pays up. However since transferring the direct debit to my 123 account I don't want to be overpaying and am sure we are. As per our bill this is what we have and what were paying
Talk unlimited, 1 additional V box, Tivo monthly fee, TV size XL,
V HD monthly fee, Broadband L [up to 20mb]
bundle - £67.15:eek:
phone line rental 15.99
phone calls 41.95

The phone call bit I am to blame for as I use landline not mobile when I'm at home [old habits] I need to address this.

However Im sure we needn't be paying all this but just don't know where/how to start costing similar if we switch. Can anyone advise what they would do in this situation without it becoming really complicated. Thanks in advance.

suse*

I don't know anything about vigin but the first thing you need to find is your contract. It might be you are in a year or 18 month contract and if that is the case until that runs out you are probably stuck. Well apart from the phone calls which you already realise.

Moneymaker

Simple. Get a Freeview aerial and PVR. After the initial setup cost, TV watching is free, apart from the annual licence fee.

Cancel the entire package and get the cheapest "unlimited" broadband available (subject to reliability, value for money, etc.) Use the broadband for phone calls and additional TV channels, "catchup" etc.

gele

thanks suse. Ive no idea re contract and I guarantee hubby wont know! We'll have paperwork somewhere I expect although they should tell us if we ring shouldn't they. Im not even much of a TV watcher at all so its all a mystery to me!

gele

moneymaker Thanks for your advise. Its a bit of a foreign language to me but hubby will probably understand. Will we have far fewer channels to watch though? Not that that's a worry to me but hubby and daughter watch more. Daughter likes nick toons etc.

custardy

gele wrote: »

My hubby has always dealt with tv, phone broadband stuff as to be honest it all confuses me and seems so complicated. Sadly he's not as money conscious and doesn't shop around so just pays up. However since transferring the direct debit to my 123 account I don't want to be overpaying and am sure we are. As per our bill this is what we have and what were paying
Talk unlimited, 1 additional V box, Tivo monthly fee, TV size XL,
V HD monthly fee, Broadband L [up to 20mb]
bundle - £67.15:eek:
phone line rental 15.99
phone calls 41.95

The phone call bit I am to blame for as I use landline not mobile when I'm at home [old habits] I need to address this.

However Im sure we needn't be paying all this but just don't know where/how to start costing similar if we switch. Can anyone advise what they would do in this situation without it becoming really complicated. Thanks in advance.

I pay £65 a month for

Talk Weekends
T V Size: X L
1 Additional V Box
V HD Monthly Fee TiVo Monthly
Fee Broadband XXL (Up To 120mb)

suse*

With sky you can login to see your bills so I don't know if you can do that with virgin. That might tell you if you have been with them a year or not yet. If not just phone them and say can you tell me how long is left on the contract.

Once you know that then you can decide if you move to a different company or just try and haggle with them for a better deal. It might be the tv part is a seperate contract to the phone / broadband so you might be able to just haggle parts of it as well.

custardy

suse* wrote: »

With sky you can login to see your bills so I don't know if you can do that with virgin. .

yes you can

gele

custardy, Apart from talk weekend [we have talk unlimited] you seem to have more than us and are paying much less. Can I ring them and just say 'Im paying over the odds, what can you do about it?' Should I expect them to just drop the price as easily as that?

custardy

gele wrote: »

custardy, Apart from talk weekend [we have talk unlimited] you seem to have more than us and are paying much less. Can I ring them and just say 'Im paying over the odds, what can you do about it?' Should I expect them to just drop the price as easily as that?

If you are out of contract then yes you can.
Thats what I did and will be doing again soon.
My last deal includes a 2nd box and phone I wasn't fussed about. However it worked out only a little more for adding them on.
THough I had issues with them shifting me to the carp new BBs with poor uploads. Soon sorted and back on to full fat BB.

gele

Thanks everyone. Hubby having his dinner now but as soon as hes finished Im going to show him this thread and ask him to ring. We've been with virgin years so I don't think we'll be locked into anything but we'll ask that first. I'll update with the results. Wish us luck.