Haggle with Virgin - our new guide

mallard

PZ19 said:

mallard said:

Elderly parents (BB, TV and phone) contract ends in a couple of weeks and price jumping up to £46ish. They don't use much and TV is their main thing watching relatively few channels. So after couple of hours on the phone to VM spoke to CS and would/could not offer anything else. Passed on to redemptions who cut me off. Did the text conversation today with CS and then another dept and same thing wouldn't budge. Pain if they have to move as the TV is a bit of a lifeline.

Do you live with them?  If you put cancellation in they will hopefully call back, but will often use the home line.  However when you put the cancellation in give them your phone number so if or when retentions ring they will speak to you.   If they don’t watch many channels is it worth them just watching the normal freeview channels, or is there specific channels on virgin they watch but can’t get on freeview?

No don't live with them and VM have my details for contact. Have tried quite a few times with CS and retentions but they wouldn't offer anything different so cancelled (no calls following that either) and off to freeview and Plusnet for BB.  

DRPollock

I have a new contract with VM £89, but didn't turn out as I had agreed. Can't get anywhere with my complaint, they say they'll charge me if I cancel the contract. Zero customer loyalty. Where do I go from here?

Brewer20

DRPollock said:

I have a new contract with VM £89, but didn't turn out as I had agreed. Can't get anywhere with my complaint, they say they'll charge me if I cancel the contract. Zero customer loyalty. Where do I go from here?

I had an 18 month contract with VM and only 6 months into it. Had a letter saying if I'm not happy with the price rise of £4 I can leave without penalty. I did just that 10 days ago, gave them 30 days notice.
Did you get the letter stating a price rise or is this over something else?

JoeBee59

I'm currently paying nearly £55 a month for my TV, Broadband and Phone from Virgin Media. I want to reduce it and am quite prepared to lose both TV and phone because I only require broadband. I would leave if there was any alternative but in my location there are no valid ones. I have just trialled a 5G homebroadband which looked promising but alas the network signal kept dropping out. There is no fibre network in my locality and a copper based system isn't anywhere near fast enough. What's the best I can hope for from them?

PZ19

JoeBee59 said:

I'm currently paying nearly £55 a month for my TV, Broadband and Phone from Virgin Media. I want to reduce it and am quite prepared to lose both TV and phone because I only require broadband. I would leave if there was any alternative but in my location there are no valid ones. I have just trialled a 5G homebroadband which looked promising but alas the network signal kept dropping out. There is no fibre network in my locality and a copper based system isn't anywhere near fast enough. What's the best I can hope for from them?

You’re best bet is to ring them up and tell them it’s too much.  They will immediately offer you a better price for your package.  However you will need to put a cancellation in and wait for a different retentions team to call you back, with a far better offer.  If you just want broadband people getting offered anything from £18-30 per month on here for varying speeds.  Give them a call..you don’t get anything without asking..

xavixav

Hi, my renewal went from £34/month from my first 12 months ever in Virgin broadband for the m200 to £54/month.. I called and got the lady to go to £41/ month or £34/ month but with the M100. I said I couldn't accept that but she wouldn't budge after trying several minutes. So I said I had to consult with my wife.. Called 30min later different agent and directly was offered £34/month for M200 for 18 months.

RESULTS!

Anon

£34 is better than you were originally offered. However, you need to cancel to get the best deal. If you cancel you are likely to get it for around £20 from outbound retentions, based on comments on here and Hotukdeals.

HungryForMore

My package (100Mbit broadband, standard TV, standard phone) had gone up from £40.94 to £54.44 recently.

Rang just now (first thing Monday morning) and was prepared for a hard haggle to get close to the £40.94 as possible, however... the agent offered £35.44/month for 18 months.   [I was advised to ring in January as there will probably be a £3/month inflationary rise next April that I might be able to avoid].

Can't believe I've got my price down to what it was a few years ago! Don't know whether the agents have more offers available in their quota at the start of the week (if they do have quotas?) 

krish

Just renewed my M50/Talk Weekends at £17/m on an 18 month contract.

Was previously £26/m with £75 cashback on a 12 month contract (effective price £19.75/m)
 - tried to get M100, but the chap wouldn't go under £22, and M50 suits me just fine.

camsoft

Just phoned VirginMedia cancellations in order to get a new deal, was paying £74pm for our package, the best they could offer was £119pm for same package or fewer services. The CS assistant was argumentative, essentially called me stupid for changing to another network as no one can match VM speeds. They are playing hardball, first time I've experienced this with VM usually I get a similar deal, I've never paid more than £80 for our services and I'm not going to start now.

Also, my internet is down today for scheduled maintenance but I still have to pay for full and no discount for loss of service. I can't work from home with the Internet today.

Pretty annoyed, I've heard from others saying VM are not offering any decent deals at the moment. 

I've now formally given 30 days notice, so I'm going to call the bluff and hope retentions call me back and offer me continuity on my price and package. If not then off to a Sky new-customer deal.