Is Virgin Media attempting to cut down on customers?

Sapphire

I have a fixed-rate contract in writing with these people, which runs for 18 months from July 2020. However, yesterday I received a letter stating that prices were going up by £2.50 per month from March. I tried to contact them and spent hours on the phone yesterday and today, attempting to get through to someone who could help. Tried to lodge a written complaint yesterday, but the box you supposedly type in the wording was disabled. Managed to get through to two operatives today, neither of whom could help, though they agreed with me that the price rise should not happen. However, they just kept repeating that there would be a price hike – in fact, the latter one said I could have a new contract with an even larger price rise, or I could be disconnected. He then tried to lodge my complaint online but was also unable to do so. Said he would ring me back in five minutes but did not ring back at all. The letter from VirginMedia contained no snail-mail address that customers could write to, especially in the absence of any online help.

As a customer with this company for circa 20 years, I expected better service from them than this. I am a light user of the Internet – really only for email (work) purposes and for the odd visit to a site. I don't do things like Zoom at all. This experience did make me wonder whether VirginMedia is trying to rid itself of 'surplus' customers. 

Unhappy customer.

Neil_Jones

Sapphire said:

I have a fixed-rate contract in writing with these people, which runs for 18 months from July 2020. However, yesterday I received a letter stating that prices were going up by £2.50 per month from March. I tried to contact them and spent hours on the phone yesterday and today, attempting to get through to someone who could help. Tried to lodge a written complaint yesterday, but the box you supposedly type in the wording was disabled. Managed to get through to two operatives today, neither of whom could help, though they agreed with me that the price rise should not happen. However, they just kept repeating that there would be a price hike – in fact, the latter one said I could have a new contract with an even larger price rise, or I could be disconnected. He then tried to lodge my complaint online but was also unable to do so. Said he would ring me back in five minutes but did not ring back at all. The letter from VirginMedia contained no snail-mail address that customers could write to, especially in the absence of any online help.

As a customer with this company for circa 20 years, I expected better service from them than this. I am a light user of the Internet – really only for email (work) purposes and for the odd visit to a site. I don't do things like Zoom at all. This experience did make me wonder whether VirginMedia is trying to rid itself of 'surplus' customers. 

Unhappy customer.

Read your T&Cs, you may find that they are entitled to increase prices because that's what you have agreed to.  May be some ambiguity in this area since a lot of providers have started baking these in so it depends on when they started doing this and when you agreed to those terms with the new contract.  20 years service doesn't mean anything, loyalty doesn't mean anything, all it proves to them is that you are happy to keep shelling out so we'll keep escalating prices accordingly.

Sapphire

Neil_Jones said:

Sapphire said:

I have a fixed-rate contract in writing with these people, which runs for 18 months from July 2020. However, yesterday I received a letter stating that prices were going up by £2.50 per month from March. I tried to contact them and spent hours on the phone yesterday and today, attempting to get through to someone who could help. Tried to lodge a written complaint yesterday, but the box you supposedly type in the wording was disabled. Managed to get through to two operatives today, neither of whom could help, though they agreed with me that the price rise should not happen. However, they just kept repeating that there would be a price hike – in fact, the latter one said I could have a new contract with an even larger price rise, or I could be disconnected. He then tried to lodge my complaint online but was also unable to do so. Said he would ring me back in five minutes but did not ring back at all. The letter from VirginMedia contained no snail-mail address that customers could write to, especially in the absence of any online help.

As a customer with this company for circa 20 years, I expected better service from them than this. I am a light user of the Internet – really only for email (work) purposes and for the odd visit to a site. I don't do things like Zoom at all. This experience did make me wonder whether VirginMedia is trying to rid itself of 'surplus' customers. 

Unhappy customer.

Read your T&Cs, you may find that they are entitled to increase prices because that's what you have agreed to.  May be some ambiguity in this area since a lot of providers have started baking these in so it depends on when they started doing this and when you agreed to those terms with the new contract.  20 years service doesn't mean anything, loyalty doesn't mean anything, all it proves to them is that you are happy to keep shelling out so we'll keep escalating prices accordingly.

No, I did not agree to it, and they told me the price would be fixed for 18 months. If 'loyalty' indeed 'doesn't mean anything', then I will have to think about changing providers, since I am fed up with them constantly raising prices – especially when I am a relatively light user of their services (phone at weekends and basic Internet only, used primarily for work emails). You also do not expect to be faced with a vacuum when trying to communicate with them and sort out issues like this.

JJ_Egan

Judged by the amount spent on current adverts the answer to the question is no .

Built in price rises let us know if you find one .

Many are now agreed to on the initial contract ie BT 3.9% plus cpi March 2021 . Or in price contracts allowing you 30 days to leave penalty free .

Light user mobile network dongle may be the way to go .

leew

Same experience as the Op really, been with them for donkeys years and always in the past managed to do a 'deal' but they haven't bothered to try and keep me this time.

Looking elsewhere as I speak as due to be disconnected on the 23rd.

prowla

I've just given Virgin my cancellation notice; I've been on the phone to them for hours over the past month to try and get a decent service and the last person I spoke with apologised that I had been lied to (yes, he used the word "lied").

They seem to be falling apart; every person I've spoken to has said something different:

1. I've called about a service performance issue and had an engineer visit, I've still had the issue and been told there is no fault, I've called again and they've sent a 2nd engineer out who said the 1st one's fix wasn't right and replaced my wires and my connection at their roadside box.
   
2. I've been told I would get a partial rebate by one person and when I called back because it hadn't been credited to my bill was told they had no record and I wasn't eligible for any.
3. I've called about WiFi and they've said not their problem. I've then found out about their WiFi Pods and arranged to get two sent; I called on the day to confirm they were due, because I didn't see an order on my account info, and the person assured me they would be delivered that day. They didn't arrive so I called back and the first person said they didn't know and put me through to someone else who said I can order them for £5/month + £5 delivery charge, so I've escalated and the 3rd person said he could see that the order stalled due a stock issue so they'd send another two which would be FOC for 18 months and I'd get a notification from Yodel when they'd got the item for delivery. I've called back when there was no delivery and been told by the retentions team there's no record of that order, nor the 18 months FOC agreement; when I asked to escalate, they said that their managers weren't responding and apologised to me that I had been lied to (yes, they used the word "lied").

Based on that, I can't really trust the company; I think they are in a total state of disarray: the call-centre & faults people will say anything they feel like to fob you off and the retentions people will make arrangements with you which do not exist and/or miraculously "disappear".

In all honesty, I simply cannot recommend them at this point in time.

Amoux

I just need to vent, as VM have just stolen my entire day....

Virgin Media wrote to us to say our broadband price has risen by £3.50 per month mid-contract and that we were entitled to leave our contract if we give 30 days notice. The price rise wasn't the issue, although I think it's really bad practice to rise prices (beyond inflation) mid contract. We've been looking for any reason to leave this crooked company so spotted this as our best exit strategy. Our service has been unreliable but more importantly they have a very aggressive retention, sales and marketing team that makes it almost impossible to leave unless you are sturbbornly persistant. From my experience with dealing with them, they will try every trick in the book to make you stay, even if that means lying, prolonging waiting queues or hanging up on the phone. They will do it. 

First call I had with them there was a 1 hour wait, but when I did finally get through to them they said that the letter was sent to us in error and then hung up on me. I tried to contact them on their web chat, I was sent over to retention, but after 4 hours waiting for the retention team to reply I gave up. I called them up a second time which was another 2 hour wait. During the wait an automated message would be there trying to get me to accept a discount on the price rise which we were not wanting to do. Finally after much waiting the representative agreed to disconnect us with no penalty, but frankly it's taken a whole day just to leave this f**ked up evil company. 

Mark my words if we were not successful today, I would have gone through every single legal complaint proceedure possible. I would even take them to the smalls claim court if it came to it. 

I don't care how cheap Virgin Media are to their competitors. They could offer their service for free, and I would refuse. I am never returning.

[Deleted User]

Been with them for 20+ plus years and happy with the service. Maybe once every 3-4 months I might have a hiccup with broadband for like a hour or so and then all is fine. Yes I’m paying £5 per month extra than let’s say sky or BT but like the peace of mind and consistency of their service. 

smithy_123

We are trying to cancel our contract which is now rolling 30 day contract. The price keeps going up and up and our router is 10 years old. Last week I spend 2.5 hours on live chat, I was then transferred to the cancelation team that wasn't open , I spend 1.5 hours on the phone, after I refused their offers of a reduction (cheaper elsewhere) and said I will cancel, they hung up.
I thought I would try again yesterday, took 2 hours for them to put me onto the cancelation team, knowone answered (7 hour total). E-mailed their exec team both times and no response. 
I will have to serve them 30 days notice by letter and then ask the bank to reclaim the direct debits if they continue to take them, otherwise they will screw up the credit score.
Virgin Media are an absolute disgrace!

JJ_Egan

You are moving so what speed can you get if you move ?? It wont be VM speed and in most cases it will be dependant upon distance from local cabinet and line quality .

illiad

The problem is, there are only 2 or 3 ways to get BB... YES, lots of different names, BUT they either use BT (Openreach or whatever other names, it's still managed by BT..)  or Virgin!!  Of course, there are the 'internet by mobile phone SIM' services, slow and  unreliable..