Virgin Rip-Off

Silversinker

I knew my Virgin bill was due to rise in April, so was steeling myself for a bit of a tousle to try to get it reduced.  However, Virgin beat me to it, imorally.

I got a letter advising that in addition to the planned increase an additional, inflation, increase of £15 was being added.  This would take my monthly bill to £100 for TV, broadband & phone.

Very kindly, they said I could cancel cancel my package, any time before 23rd March 2023, without paying any cancellation fees.

I tried several times to call but could not get through so resorted to those awful chatbots.  Having answered the same question several times the bot advised that I would be connected to a ‘live’ agent as soon as one was free.  After over an hour, I gave up and emailed the CEO.

The following day I get a call from the Executive Customer team.

Having explained my concerns I was advised that I could keep my existing package for £42 per month.  Whilst this is a far more reasonable price, I am appalled that they can offer a price £20 less than I had been paying for the last 18 months let alone less than half what they had been trying to charge me.

If the package is worth £42 then that is the price that should be charged across the board to all customers.

I will never use Virgin again.

IvanOpinion

It is what is known as getting a deal. They have done what you asked so why would you not use them again?

powerful_Rogue

Silversinker said:

I knew my Virgin bill was due to rise in April, so was steeling myself for a bit of a tousle to try to get it reduced.  However, Virgin beat me to it, imorally.

I got a letter advising that in addition to the planned increase an additional, inflation, increase of £15 was being added.  This would take my monthly bill to £100 for TV, broadband & phone.

Very kindly, they said I could cancel cancel my package, any time before 23rd March 2023, without paying any cancellation fees.

I tried several times to call but could not get through so resorted to those awful chatbots.  Having answered the same question several times the bot advised that I would be connected to a ‘live’ agent as soon as one was free.  After over an hour, I gave up and emailed the CEO.

The following day I get a call from the Executive Customer team.

Having explained my concerns I was advised that I could keep my existing package for £42 per month.  Whilst this is a far more reasonable price, I am appalled that they can offer a price £20 less than I had been paying for the last 18 months let alone less than half what they had been trying to charge me.

If the package is worth £42 then that is the price that should be charged across the board to all customers.

I will never use Virgin again.

Seems a bit like cutting your nose off to spite your face. It's there in your contract they can raise the price and by what amount. I had the same email last week. Took 2 minutes to get through to an agent and I explained I wanted to cancel penatly free because of the rise. Was then offered the same contract at the same price for another 18 months. I duly accepted, however am fully aware that next year there won't be an option to cancel when the price increases.

I don't agree with the process, but it's what I agreed to.

Debbie9009

I’m with you OP, I’m fed up of having to call places to get their best deals, I would much prefer that’s what they charge me in the first place.

I had an issue similar to yours with Sky, I had a TV and broadband package with them, at the end of the contract I found a cheaper deal elsewhere, when I rang them to cancel, they told me I could have free broadband which would make the cost the same as the new deal I had found, and also that I could have had free broadband for the previous 12 months and would I now like to renew, I explained that I didn’t want to renew as I was more than miffed at being overcharged for the last 12 months, the person I spoke to really didn’t seem to understand why that was a problem !!

Belenus

Virgin Rip-Off

That sounds painful.

Gavin83

It's such a weird way of looking at it. It would be no different than buying something in a shop, asking for a discount and then when they give it to you walking out because they didn't charge you that price originally.

The package isn't worth £42. The package is worth whatever the standard price is they advertise it at on their website. Anything less than that should be considered a deal and an advantage to you. Not everyone will be offered that though. If they sold it for £42 to everyone they wouldn't make enough money and they'd have to up the price for everyone. So actually if there was just a standard price you'd almost certainly be paying more.

I agree the process of having to ring up and do the whole 'pretend to leave' rigmarole to get a better price is painful but it's your choice at the end of the day. You could just leave it as is and pay the standard price you seem keen on.

Debbie9009 said:

I’m with you OP, I’m fed up of having to call places to get their best deals, I would much prefer that’s what they charge me in the first place.

I had an issue similar to yours with Sky, I had a TV and broadband package with them, at the end of the contract I found a cheaper deal elsewhere, when I rang them to cancel, they told me I could have free broadband which would make the cost the same as the new deal I had found, and also that I could have had free broadband for the previous 12 months and would I now like to renew, I explained that I didn’t want to renew as I was more than miffed at being overcharged for the last 12 months, the person I spoke to really didn’t seem to understand why that was a problem !!

Same with this. You weren't overcharged for 12 months, you paid the price you agreed to. It was pretty idiotic of the call handler to tell you that you could have had it cheaper for the previous 12 months though.

StevenB12

We are currently paying £105 with Sky and that's with being with them for 15 years and getting a reduction off them! 

Spoke to them a while ago being told that regularly the package we have would be costing over £150 when the prices go up! But I've got a friend on a similar package to us who is paying more than I am currently, and one who pays a bit less as he cancelled and moved homes and signed back up as a new customer. 

Swings and round abouts with all of them I suppose. We have very little services from Virgin in our area, tried to get broadband off them a couple of years back and they didn't even have any Internet in our area at that time.

35har1old

powerful_Rogue said:

Silversinker said:

I knew my Virgin bill was due to rise in April, so was steeling myself for a bit of a tousle to try to get it reduced.  However, Virgin beat me to it, imorally.

I got a letter advising that in addition to the planned increase an additional, inflation, increase of £15 was being added.  This would take my monthly bill to £100 for TV, broadband & phone.

Very kindly, they said I could cancel cancel my package, any time before 23rd March 2023, without paying any cancellation fees.

I tried several times to call but could not get through so resorted to those awful chatbots.  Having answered the same question several times the bot advised that I would be connected to a ‘live’ agent as soon as one was free.  After over an hour, I gave up and emailed the CEO.

The following day I get a call from the Executive Customer team.

Having explained my concerns I was advised that I could keep my existing package for £42 per month.  Whilst this is a far more reasonable price, I am appalled that they can offer a price £20 less than I had been paying for the last 18 months let alone less than half what they had been trying to charge me.

If the package is worth £42 then that is the price that should be charged across the board to all customers.

I will never use Virgin again.

Seems a bit like cutting your nose off to spite your face. It's there in your contract they can raise the price and by what amount. I had the same email last week. Took 2 minutes to get through to an agent and I explained I wanted to cancel penatly free because of the rise. Was then offered the same contract at the same price for another 18 months. I duly accepted, however am fully aware that next year there won't be an option to cancel when the price increases.

I don't agree with the process, but it's what I agreed to.

Where you not offered a fix price contract for18 months

TripleH

I hate these companies are a pain when you have a genuine reason to cancel a deal.

"I'm moving home into a short term rent" becomes a long winded argument that you don't want a revised package or extra channels on your existing one...

Last 2 occasions we went with Virgin :

1. They finally gave us a date for installation 5 months after we moved in and 2 weeks after BT had connected our new flat up for broadband.

2. We signed up to a deal in store and ended up hassling the poor guys as virgin kept messing up our bill every month trying to charge us for things we didn't have.

Murphybear

StevenB12 said:

We are currently paying £105 with Sky and that's with being with them for 15 years and getting a reduction off them! 

Spoke to them a while ago being told that regularly the package we have would be costing over £150 when the prices go up! But I've got a friend on a similar package to us who is paying more than I am currently, and one who pays a bit less as he cancelled and moved homes and signed back up as a new customer. 

Swings and round abouts with all of them I suppose. We have very little services from Virgin in our area, tried to get broadband off them a couple of years back and they didn't even have any Internet in our area at that time.

Is that common?  I’ve lived in semi rural Devon for 14 years,  very rural Devon for 6 months and semi rural Dorset for 5 years and couldn’t  get Virgin at any of them.  The very rural was on the edge of Dartmoor and there were 2 choices, either use BT or don’t have any services.  

I have been with John Lewis for 3 years and they were brilliant.  Sadly they are now closing their broadband services so it’s a feeling of “here we go again”.