Virgin problems

claire07

Due to Virgin now charging £70 for broadband and landline I eventually managed to cancel with them but had to give 30 days notice.  Two days later the landline died and they sent an engineer.  He said the problem could not be dealt with without us cancelling the notice, so we did and the only workround was for him to plug in the adapter to the back of the router so we could use the landline for the remaining weeks.  This worked for a few days so I phoned to reinstate the new 30 days notice and two days later landline died again.  Engineer is coming tomorrow so it will be interesting to see what he says this time

I was delaying ordering with a new provider (NOW or Vodafone) as we wanted to transfer our landline number but now I am thinking I could just go ahead and order with a new provider (get a new landline number) and run both side by side as they will be on different systems till the end of the Virgin notice period.  Is this possible or am I missing something relevant?

We need a landline as husband has many health issues and finds using mobiles difficult

QrizB

claire07 said:

I was delaying ordering with a new provider (NOW or Vodafone) as we wanted to transfer our landline number but now I am thinking I could just go ahead and order with a new provider (get a new landline number) and run both side by side as they will be on different systems till the end of the Virgin notice period.  Is this possible or am I missing something relevant?

Virgin run on their own infrastructure network so yes, you can definitely run them side-by-side with one of the other providers. Some people do this from choice; I used to have BT and cable (NTL at the time, not Virgin) at my previous house (my new one isn't on Virgin's network).

There's a thread here from someone who's found themselves in a similar situation by accident.

claire07

Many thanks for that link.  I thought I had searched for anything similar but must have missed it.  Virgin came today and changed the router that was recently changed and the landline still didn't work.  It sounds as though someone pulled the plug on the landline as we had given notice but I can't prove it!

Anyway as whoever we go to (probably NOW) will be a third of Virgin's monthly cost I will probably just go ahead with the order and run it side by side with Virgin till the notice period ends.

HaroldWren5

claire07 said:

Due to Virgin now charging £70 for broadband and landline I eventually managed to cancel with them but had to give 30 days notice.  Two days later the landline died and they sent an engineer.  He said the problem could not be dealt with without us cancelling the notice, so we did and the only workround was for him to plug in the adapter to the back of the router so we could use the landline for the remaining weeks.  This worked for a few days so I phoned to reinstate the new 30 days notice and two days later landline died again.  Engineer is coming tomorrow so it will be interesting to see what he says this time

I was delaying ordering with a new provider (NOW or Vodafone) as we wanted to transfer our landline number but now I am thinking I could just go ahead and order with a new provider (get a new landline number) and run both side by side as they will be on different systems till the end of the Virgin notice period.  Is this possible or am I missing something relevant?

We need a landline as husband has many health issues and finds using mobiles difficult

Are you in an area that can get FTTP broadband from Openreach?

claire07

I've checked on the Openreach postcode checker and it says they currently have no plans to provide FTTP Broadband so it would be FTTC to our local cabinet.  I am inclined to go with NOW Broadband as it is a 12 month contract and they would provide a landline.

PZ19

Haven’t virgin outbound retentions called you back with a far better offer? Check in your virgin account that your preferences allow them to contact you.  Broadband and landline only should be in the £20-30 mark with them.

if you do go with now, do it through Quidco and you will get £90 cash back (that’s over 4 months free!)

claire07

No unfortunately they didn't despite my saying how long we had been with them but the cost compared with what they were offering new customers was too much.  Thanks for the suggestion of going with Quidco as I've never done that before.

victor2

I went through the process of giving notice some months back and the same thing happened - the landline went dead. Phoned customer services from my mobile and they "checked" the line but couldn't see a problem, so booked an engineer for the following week. In the interim, retentions called me (on my mobile) with an offer I accepted. Even joked with the retentions guy that my phone line might start working again. The next day the landline rang and it was an engineer saying he was just checking that the line still had a problem, which it clearly didn't.
He couldn't explain what had happened - we just put it down to coincidence!!

claire07

I suspect they shot themselves in the foot by stopping the landline each time I gave 30 days notice as I tend to ignore any unknown calls on my mobile but would have probably answered on the landline.  They would have been better removing the broadband if they wanted to make an offer!