Haggle with Virgin - our new guide

FreeBear

HampshireH said: I've accepted this for now after 3 hours across 3 phone calls after they confirmed £98 then sent a contract for £108 plus it's going up in April.

They did something similar when I last went through the circus act. Offered £24/mo for the first six months, rising to £28/mo for the remaining 12 months. Contract comes through, and it is £38 for all 18 months. Filed a complaint, and the resolutions team couldn't find any record of the £24/mo offer (how convenient). As a result, I keep all communications in writing, no phone calls. As I don't do Wotsapp, it is email only, and as I only have a working email address for the resolution team, they get to deal with everything.

HampshireH

FreeBear said:

HampshireH said: I've accepted this for now after 3 hours across 3 phone calls after they confirmed £98 then sent a contract for £108 plus it's going up in April.

They did something similar when I last went through the circus act. Offered £24/mo for the first six months, rising to £28/mo for the remaining 12 months. Contract comes through, and it is £38 for all 18 months. Filed a complaint, and the resolutions team couldn't find any record of the £24/mo offer (how convenient). As a result, I keep all communications in writing, no phone calls. As I don't do Wotsapp, it is email only, and as I only have a working email address for the resolution team, they get to deal with everything.

They did it to me last time as well. I think they hope you don't notice. So same as last time they cannot reduce my package price but they will credit my account back £10 each month to bring it back to £98. If I could leave I would but we watch all the football and I cannot seem to get that cheaper 

drbob

I recently had a relatively smooth, hassle free, renewal negotiation with Virgin. Rather than call them, about 6 weeks before the end of my contract I sent Virgin a signed for letter giving 30 days notice, which asked for my service to be disconnected on the last day of my existing contract. A week after they received the letter, the Virgin retentions department phoned me (With caller ID 020 39804396). 

The chap at Virgin Retentions asked me why I was leaving and I stated that the price after the end of my contract, which was going from £24 to £64 a month, was far too high. I mentioned that I am able to get service from other providers for less than £20 a month, and I could even get it for as little as £16 a month if I switched to 5G via a mobile hotspot, which I have done before.

My original contract had been for 18 months of 250 Mbps service with a landline and free weekend calls (£18.40/month after bill credit) as featured in a November 2022 MSE newsletter.

Retentions then offered me Volt 250 for £19/month on an 18 month contract. Beware - the agent I spoke to was very careful not to mention that this deal has no landline phone service included. I suspect it's a tactic to give them leverage to up the price when people who want a landline realise later and have to call back to ask to keep it. They also wanted to set the new contract to start from the day of the call, I had to insist that I wanted it to start at the end of my existing contract, I asked them email me a contract information sheet before the end of the call, which they did.

I was happy with the minimal increase in price and don't actually need the landline, so I accepted the deal. It might have been possible to get an even better deal if I'd haggled more. 

Starrygem

I've been with virgin media for 40yrs, since they were telewest and then blueyonder.
My last 18mth 'deal' £45 basic TV, phone and 100mb broadband ended 6 sept. I ignored the increase letter and resigned myself to the increase. 

Someone phoned to try to talk me into a new contract. I said I didn't want one cos they had nothing I was interested in and as long as I was out of contract I could look around at other providers and leave in 30 days.

A week later they rang me again, said they'd give me max tv, phone and 250mb BB for £55. Its not much but its cheaper than it was going up to so i agreed. 

So I found that they panic a bit at the thought of you being outside of a contract and keep phoning.

PZ19

Starrygem said:

I've been with virgin media for 40yrs, since they were telewest and then blueyonder.
My last 18mth 'deal' £45 basic TV, phone and 100mb broadband ended 6 sept. I ignored the increase letter and resigned myself to the increase. 

Someone phoned to try to talk me into a new contract. I said I didn't want one cos they had nothing I was interested in and as long as I was out of contract I could look around at other providers and leave in 30 days.

A week later they rang me again, said they'd give me max tv, phone and 250mb BB for £55. Its not much but its cheaper than it was going up to so i agreed. 

So I found that they panic a bit at the thought of you being outside of a contract and keep phoning.

Put your cancellation in..I get sports, movies, tnt, Netflix for price they offered you.  Only way to get a good price is to cancel and hopefully get them to call you with decent offer.  You can always cancel your cancellation within the 30 days.

philgeorge1

I've just had a similar experience, called up and spoke to the customer retentions team. Told that because I have Sky Sports and HD that they couldn't get it much lower, so my old price of £78 a month, which had gone to £104 at the end of the contract, could only get to £83 (despite new customers getting everything for £69). Got put through to the cancellations team, who could only offer me £93, so worse than the retentions team! Have said I'll cancel and will start looking at options, see if I get a call. 

toneyh

Nightmare, 18 month term came to an end last week, I called them, the I'm leaving option, was quoted £120 for the package I have now, which was the ultimate volt bundle. I was paying £72 per month. 
Got through to a guy in the UK and he quoted £97 but told me to check my offers online, which I did and noticed an option to renew with everything I currently have, including TNT sports and an additional box, for £83. Through gritted teeth I was going to accept this but noticed on my pre contract document the additional box was not included. I could  not change this online and in the end raised a complaint to try and get it done, I did think about accepting and seeing what happened but pre-empted an issue later on when I would be told I had accepted the contract etc.
Called again last week to the retentions team, calling in the morning seems to get straight through to a UK based agent, result, she offered me £77 for everything, I accepted but when looking at the contract, there were price increases this month to £116. 
Called again and they said this agent made a mistake and the price I would pay is £116, last year I switched from o2 due to the really bad signal. I was told that as part of the Ultimate Volt, Virgin Media were applying the discount of £25 and they knew this was being done, even though I was not paying £25 for the o2 SIM, I was paying around £11. 
Thought about it as I am within the 14 day cooling off period, ready to cancel. 
Called again today, very helpful lady again said she could not get the cost down unless I agreed to the o2 £25 per month SIM, this would make the VM bill around £80 + the £25 to o2. Or if I did not want the SIM the VM bill would increase by £25!
In the end she has gone back to an internal department, I forgot the name but they will listen back to the call last week where I was offered the £77 deal and hopefully, this will mean the current contract will be discounted down to £77 from £115. 

arrgee

Virgin Media are an absolute nightmare to deal with.  I have been with them for 20 years somehow, yet EVERY time I get a new contract or add/remove channels they get it wrong.  The latest is 2 months ago after carefully taking screen shots of offers and raising a complaint, I finally got the deal I agreed except for the hub upgrade.  Two months later, I want to remove Sky Sports for the summer and suddenly Sky Sports is NOT an add-on even though it is on my contract as an add-on.  If I remove Sky Sports, my bill only goes down £12 rather than the £38 it should go down because it was added as an ADD-ON.
Another complaint raised and will be involving ombudsmen.