Virgin send letter for £3 raise 2 weeks after contract start, can I cancel?

Glen_Saver

I just got myself a good deal using the uswitch link on this website for Virgin broadband, and within 2 weeks of contract start they send a letter saying bill will go up by £3!!!

Is this grounds for cancel? We entered a year contract at a set price, I found a broadband deal I would prefer in an MSE email right after I entered contract too, I would love to cancel

kwikbreaks

Yes you can leave penalty free but have to do so within (iirc) 30 days of notice. That info should be in the letter. If you call in to do so the odds are you'll end up with a price reduction instead.

teezie

What about 2 months in? Like Glen_saver I also entered into a 1 year fixed price deal with Virgin Media (directly, not through U-switch), and have also been informed that on the first Feb it will go up £3. Can they legally do this?

Buzby

Yes - because it wasn't a fixed price deal. VM will allow you to cease without penalty within 30 days of receiving notice of the increase. However their BB increases match all the other carriers so it remsins springs and roundabouts. Cable BB invariably is superior to xDSL services.

teddysmum

Contracts contain the right to increase prices, but you are then free to leave penalty free, though this must be done within a limited timespan.

Fixed price contracts are rare, though you may have a fixed percentage reduction.eg If you have 50% off, then you continue with this but at 50% off the new price.

kwikbreaks

Buzby wrote: »

Cable BB invariably is superior to xDSL services.

Not invariably - not in all areas, not in all aspects, and not for all customers.

Some areas suffer high congestion - mine did which was part of the reason I gave up on VM cable and went with FTTC instead. Such congestion can take a very long time to be fixed.

Even if the congestion is low upstream jitter is inevitably high because of the technology used. That may or may not matter to most people but it remains an area where cable is pretty much always inferior to any halfway decent xDSL.

Similarly upstream bandwidth on cable is very much inferior to FTTC.

VM themselves as a company are infuriating to deal with. They will announce upgrades but only new customers get them immediately - most customers can be waiting anything up to 18 months or more and still paying the same price as those new customers.

I had an increase notification and on complaining actually got a reduction only to later find I was still paying more than many other customers for the same product. They really put the tin hat on it by sending yet another increase notification within a couple of months of my previous negotiating session. I called in to make certain I could leave penalty free. Yes they said. I booked FTTC and when the Openreach bods did actually turn up - unlike a year before when they didn't so I stuck on cable - I called in to cancel. I was told there was a substantial termination fee. I explained about the increase allowing me to leave penalty free. After eventually talking to a supervisor I was told that the increase notification was an error so I couldn't leave penalty free!!! I eventually got this sorted out by emailing the CEO office.

I would never have cable again evenif they paid me to take it purely because they are such a lousy company.