Loyal Virgin Broadband Customer Tied in at Higher Rates

BernardA1959

I currently have a Virgin broadband only M200 contract paying £54pm and have been a loyal customer for 8 years. My contract is up for renewal so I looked at what was on offer. Boy did I get a surprise. No better offer was available online, only after call them (hanging on for 45 minutes) I was told the best they would offer was £50pm for the same package, 18 month contract. Admittedly they pointed this out in the email they sent me. However when looking at the website as a new customer they were offering M200 plus a phone landline for £33.99, and surprisingly M350 (faster/ better) also at £33.99pm and on top of that M500 at £45.99pm all 18 month contracts, all then increased the monthly rate after 18 months at the end of the contract period. On asking the Virgin chap well I'll terminate my current contract and take out a new one at the better package and much lower rate. Yes you can do that but there is a 3 month 'cooling off' period where you can not take a new contract out with Virgin, I was informed this is the same with all the big providers!. In other words you are tied in at higher rates. This practice is being banned with insurance companies how do ISP providers get away with it? I would switch to another ISP but all are much slower than Virgin in my area. So much for being a loyal Virgin customer. I will switch as soon as I can get a comparable service and will encourage others to do the same. 

King_Henrik

Cancel the contract and ask your partner to sign up for the new contract?

AlfieWilko1950

I was paying £28/month and it was due to go up to £44/month.
Gave them a ring and asked what was the best they could do....they offered £28.80/month for 18 months without any hassle. Took the 'wind out of sails'   so I just accepted ....couldn't be bothered to argue for the sake of 0.80p.

littleboo

Don’t necessarily be put off by going for a lower speed alternative, do you know what speeds you can get from the Openreach based providers? Most people don’t need 200Mbps connections and are served by FTTC speeds perfectly well. What do you use the internet for?

mohammed1111

Not 100% guarantee but if you submit your notice they usually ring you from retentions and they usually offer good deals, just make a diary note to ring them back prior to 30 days and advise you want to stay if they haven't called you. 

chiny

I've been with Virgin Media (inc predecessors) for decades and every 15/18 months or so I ring them to cancel the service, saying I'm off to [cheapest at the moment].   I've always been offered a deal not to cancel, currently £35/month for M200.  

It's not just £££ though, as the switch over is bound to be aggro.   However, some nice features also available from non-VM, like IPv6, static IP and so on.