MSE News: Virgin Media to hike prices by 13.8% – but you can leave penalty-free

MSE_Petar

Millions of Virgin Media broadband, TV and home phone customers will see their bills increase this spring by an average of 13.8%. The telecoms provider has also announced that its prices will rise above inflation in future. But affected users can cancel penalty-free as a result – here's how to beat the hikes.

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'Virgin Media to hike prices by 13.8% for millions of customers – but you can leave penalty-free'

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SaverRate

Mine is going up 34% from £44, ridiculous! Phoned yesterday and was told they would put me on a new contract come April 1st for the price I am paying now. Phoned this morning as I never had a confirmation email only to be told there is no record of this on my account and the best they can do was £55.00

A family member managed to get their package from £57 to £44 no problem and on a new 18 month contract that avoids the price increase.

Come 14th Feb when I can cancel I will be as I wont be paying a 34% increase! Jokers

ryan92

My bill is going up from £49 to £71.50. I was also sneakily told I had to wait until April to review my package. I'm off to another provider with increases like that!

Ding1954

The figure of 13.8% quoted in the article is incorrect.  VM will raise prices by RPI + 3.9% (13.4 +3.9) = 17.3% 
Whoever wrote the article, I think, has increased 13.4% by 3.9% rather than adding the 2 figures.  If you check the competitive figures for BT and EE (CPI + 3.9) it shows 14.4%.

Virgin Media have been using the incorrect figure of 13.8% to mislead customers that their price rises are less than other bb providers

MSE_Petar

Ding1954 said:

The figure of 13.8% quoted in the article is incorrect.  VM will raise prices by RPI + 3.9% (13.4 +3.9) = 17.3% 
Whoever wrote the article, I think, has increased 13.4% by 3.9% rather than adding the 2 figures.  If you check the competitive figures for BT and EE (CPI + 3.9) it shows 14.4%.

Virgin Media have been using the incorrect figure of 13.8% to mislead customers that their price rises are less than other bb providers

Hi Ding1954,

Just to clarify, as we state in the article, the 'RPI+' formula isn't coming into effect until April next year (2024).

This year's price hikes aren't based on any inflation figure. Virgin hasn't said how it arrived at the 13.8% figure but it says this is the average increase cable customers will see in 2023.

Thanks,
MSE Petar

RS789

We have been virgin customers for a few years now, and our last deal ended a few months ago and our price went up (80odd quid pm).  

Last week, after a couple of hours of speaking to various contact centre staff over a couple of days, we haggled a decent deal for us (£48 for 18 months) - we weren't entirely happy as the new customer deals were better, but we went for it to save the hassle of changing up etc.  

So receiving an email this morning telling us we were having a £15 per month increase - 31.5%, on the deal we agreed less than 14 days ago, was a bit of a surprise.

We rang Virgin, and the automated service has (instantly) offered £7.50 off per month (for 6 months only) - didn't accept.

Decided to speak to someone direct, and they've just told us that the increase doesn't actually apply to us (why the email then!!!!) - but they won't put it in writing to us.  The lady said she'd note it on our file we rang to enquire and she confirmed, so if we call again it's covered. 

Will wait and see what our bill looks like from April I guess, and call back if it does go up.  

I wonder, had we accepted the discount, we would have inadvertently agreed to the price hike (at a lower rate for 6 months)....?!

Georgieboy123

I have it in writing (bad gramma and in WhatsApp) that there will be no increases if packages were changed from last November up until now. They have confirmed that my price will not increase as I renewed my contract on the same day that they announced the price increases. I will hold them to that. 

Commenter456

"Until now, Virgin had been one of the only major broadband firms not to include annual inflation-linked price rises in its contracts. The change means that, in future, Virgin customers will likely lose the right to cancel penalty-free if their prices rise mid-contract."

You can change likely to will lose the right. My letter from Virgin has me going from £35 to £42 a month, and every April will go up by RPI plus 3.9%, and "As this annual price increase is provided for in your terms, there is no right to cancel given for this price increase from April 2024".

Fortunately, they have just installed Fibre on my road so I'm no longer "trapped" with Virgin, so I'll be switching.

danlightbulb

Had my notification this morning, a £9 increase on a bill of £33 which is 27%!

Nowhere near RPI+3.9%. Plus I disagree they should use RPI anyway, its a redundant national statistic now.

Am currently waiting for their whatsapp service to message me, its been several hours I would imagine they are swamped.

Plenty of options around so I'll leave this time if they don't reduce it. I will tell them Im willing to pay £3.30 extra which is 10%.

danlightbulb

Ok so my live chat exchange with VM resulted in the following message:

"What we can do is once the price rise applies on your account kindly reach out to us on the same chat and we will correct your bills to 33GBP per month. Is that okay?"

So yes, it is ok. But if I do wait until April, I will then have missed the cancelation window.

Do you consider this an acceptable offer?

SaverRate

danlightbulb said:

Ok so my live chat exchange with VM resulted in the following message:

"What we can do is once the price rise applies on your account kindly reach out to us on the same chat and we will correct your bills to 33GBP per month. Is that okay?"

So yes, it is ok. But if I do wait until April, I will then have missed the cancelation window.

Do you consider this an acceptable offer?

Nope! Be very careful agreeing to anything like that unless you have it in writing. See my post above