MSE News: Virgin Media to hit customers with price rise of up to £48/year

A_Flock_Of_Sheep

Virgin speak of "must see TV" in their defence.

More like over priced time wasting twaddle. Turn off your telly and get out and about!

I never understand why people haemorrhage money to watch satellite TV.

Anon

They now have form for increasing prices a couple of times a year - the benefit is you can renegotiate your contract each time or give notice.

What is a problem for many customers, which MSE should look into, is the advance line rental deals with Virgin and others. Although these save money at the time, with the constant price rises which give you a chance to cancel, you effectively have to forego the line rental that you have paid for in advance if you walk away, which effectively locks you in. Arguably this element isn't rising (until the end of the 12 month period), as it has already been paid for in advance, but it does make it more difficult to renegotiate the other aspects of your deal when you take phone, broadband and tv from the same provider.

ldj32

I've just renegotiated ours. Got box upgrade to V6, more broadband speed and new hub and a £10 per month reduction!! Not huge amounts but still a better deal than I was offered with Sky or TalkTalk for the same package. Been with Virgin for years and had to tie into a 12 month contract, which we've been out of for a long time. Also advised to call back in October as I could get either a current (new) price freeze or a further reduction. I'll let you know what happens.

deaglecat

Can cancel if not happy with the in-contract price rise. Seems like we are going to be slowly forced into higher prices as the owners seek to recoup their investment...

boatman

Anyone know they are releasing the letters?

sbrom1ss

I have just contacted Virgin to ask how much my bill would drop if I cancelled my basic TV package and just kept broadband and phone. What a surprise - my cost would actually INCREASE by £1 a month as I would only get the double bundle price, instead of the triple bundle.:mad:

Pikeyp

In my experience, you get the best deals when you say you are ditching the phone line .. try that and see what happens!

AndyPK

so what price could you get it down to, for just BB ?

robin58

craigr98 wrote: »

Out of interest who did you switch to for your mobile and on what kind of deal?

It was an offer on here for Plusnet.

What I had with Virgin was 2gb data , 1000 minutes, free texts. Free calls to Virgin lines, which even though I live in an heavily cabled area, never used. All for £8.

Went via MSE promotion on here to Plusnet and got 4gb data, AYE minutes and free texts for £10 instead. Thier usual price for this dea is £15. Plus if I join up for broadband, the data doubles to 8gb.

Added bonus they use the EE network infrastructure which means I can get a good signal anywhere.

anotheruser

EE signal isn't good everywhere though...

At least you can cancel and walk away. I notice many mobile operators say prices will rise, and you agree to this within your contract period. In fact, Tesco Mobile are some of the only ones that don't do this.

Virgin's systems must be a mess.
Instead of people being on certain packages, people are paying all sorts of prices for the same things. I pay something like £25 a month for their 50-80Mb cable, whatever the speed is these days (it's not the 100Mb+ one).

But I can't find a deal that will cost less for the speed I get, so I stick with them.
I guess I could go for slower speed but then it's the hassle. Plus, the likes of BT will charge large sums to set it all up.