Virgin broadband and TV only - no Virgin landline - need to disconnect if the bill will not reduce

BillBrumNew

Hi all.  I have been with Virgin since early 2000, a couple of years after Birmingham Cable had become Telewest.  My package is currently called Mix TV and M250 broadband.  I do not have, and do not want, a Virgin landline as I will keep the BT line for whenever I need it for another internet provider.  

My bill has now gone up to £80.75, which is very nearly £1,000 per year.  I am on pension income only, and so cannot afford this - especially considering that I use maybe ten or twelve of the TV channels.  Some of those channels I would not get on the Player package, and some are also available on Freeview.  I do use the TV box to record and remind, and on most evenings the You Tube option is watched rather than broadcast channels.

My first question is, can any people on this forum that have a similar package let me know how much they may have been able to get the bill down to?

My second question is about using the Online Chat rather than the very difficult matter of trying/waiting to get through by 'phone.  If I use Online Chat and explain why I need to disconnect will I get offers from the Retentions Unit, or would that only happen if I were 'phoning them?

Thanks for any help and advice you can offer.

Neil_Jones

If you get Pension Credit,and want to stay with Virgin, this is the obvious choice:

https://www.virginmedia.com/broadband/low-income-families

The other option is to drop your internet speed and your package to a lower level.  You don't need 250Mb broadband to watch YouTube - it works fine on 10% of that speed.

BillBrumNew

Thank you, Neil.  I don't qualify for pension credit, but nonetheless I can't spend £969 PA on TV and internet.  I'd be happy enough if they would drop the internet down - maybe 100Mb is the least they do?  I wish that we could still choose our own channels, like with Birmingham Cable, as I'd be able to pay for what I want.

Back to my two questions, though - I'd like to know if anyone with the two services I have has been able to get their bill down to a reasonable figure - also, whether Online Chat is okay to try to get me a Retentions offer.  Can anyone help?  Thanks.

Neil_Jones

Are you in contract?  At nearly £81 a month probably not..

Phone up and get a new deal.  That'll drop your price probably subject to automatic rises next year going forward.  What are these channels you'd miss on Virgin that aren't on Freeview?

But the other question has to be asked, if you can't afford it, why are you keeping it?  If the bulk of your TV viewing is Freeview then its probably pointless paying for something like Virgin.  You can get recorders that function very similar to Virgin's TIVO offering - not 100% the same, but they let you record and probably have built-in iPlayer, Netflix, Prime, etc - that's a one off cost but you'd own the device.

BillBrumNew

Hi again Neil.

The channels that I'd not get on the lower package and might miss would be Sci-fi and National Geographic.  Not so much, I know, but I am happy with the TV system and all of that.  I would need to upgrade my TV, as mine from 2007 is not at all 'smart.  

I suppose that the biggest issue is what is called 'traction'.  I have had my Blueyonder email address for 23 years, and have many internet identities with that as part of my log in, as well as it being the email address for me that many people will know - people that I might not realise to contact with new contact details.  When I worked at Telewest in 2000 the concept of traction was well understood, as it also was when I worked in banking.  It just gets difficult to move your 'life' from one service to another.  It is a bullet that I will have to bite, I suppose, but I'd still like to know how well the Online Chat might work out for me (or if I am best to spend time waiting for a 'phone call to be answered), and as I do not have or want a VM landline if there is any chance that I will get a deal offered (so, have any other people with only these two services had a deal).

Thanks

Neil_Jones

You're not entitled to retention deals so if they are offered it'll be at their discretion.  You can try Online Chat or phone call, but no guarantee of a retention deal.  They are usually waved around as a sweetener to try and get you to stay.

Sky Sci-Fi and National Geographic are on Now (TV).  Which you can add by purchasing a Fire Stick or a Roku for about £40 one-off, it plugs into a HDMI port on the telly (these have been standard since about 2005) and the Now pass in question is £10 a month.  The Firestick/Roku makes your TV smart, so you don't need to replace it (unless its so old it doesn't have HDMI) but there is no recording on these devices.

Re: email, set up a Yahoo/Outlook.com/Gmail account and set them to pull in your Blueyonder email.  You can then send emails from the Gmail/Yahoo/Outlook account instead of the Blueyonder one.  Sooner you start doing this the easier the migration will be.

This is for Gmail, similar principles will apply for Yahoo and Outlook.com:

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/21289?sjid=16913372143279711998-EU

Alpha_5

OP, it could be beneficial to have a landline as part of your Virgin package. You wouldn't need to use it or even have a phone plugged into it, but simply having it on your account would likely mean you could get bigger discounts. You would keep your existing BT service live and unchanged.

But I also don't understand what you mean by "I will keep the BT line for whenever I need it for another internet provider". If you did end your BT service, the physical wire into your property would remain and it would be easy for BT, or any other internet provider, to reconnect you and provide a service to you.

It looks to me like you are paying over the odds to two separate service providers when bundling them together could reduce your costs quite a bit.

brewerdave

Alpha_5 said:

OP, it could be beneficial to have a landline as part of your Virgin package. You wouldn't need to use it or even have a phone plugged into it, but simply having it on your account would likely mean you could get bigger discounts. You would keep your existing BT service live and unchanged.

But I also don't understand what you mean by "I will keep the BT line for whenever I need it for another internet provider". If you did end your BT service, the physical wire into your property would remain and it would be easy for BT, or any other internet provider, to reconnect you and provide a service to you.

Just to modify this slightly - If your local telephone exchange has moved to a status of "fibre priority" then it will not be possible to place an order for the "old" copper line for either ADSL or FTTC once cancelled with the existing ISP.
Openreach will only accept new orders for FTTP .

Alpha_5

brewerdave said:

Alpha_5 said:

OP, it could be beneficial to have a landline as part of your Virgin package. You wouldn't need to use it or even have a phone plugged into it, but simply having it on your account would likely mean you could get bigger discounts. You would keep your existing BT service live and unchanged.

But I also don't understand what you mean by "I will keep the BT line for whenever I need it for another internet provider". If you did end your BT service, the physical wire into your property would remain and it would be easy for BT, or any other internet provider, to reconnect you and provide a service to you.

Just to modify this slightly - If your local telephone exchange has moved to a status of "fibre priority" then it will not be possible to place an order for the "old" copper line for either ADSL or FTTC once cancelled with the existing ISP.
Openreach will only accept new orders for FTTP .

Thanks Dave. Is it a line-pull in such circumstances?

brewerdave

Alpha_5 said:

brewerdave said:

Alpha_5 said:

OP, it could be beneficial to have a landline as part of your Virgin package. You wouldn't need to use it or even have a phone plugged into it, but simply having it on your account would likely mean you could get bigger discounts. You would keep your existing BT service live and unchanged.

But I also don't understand what you mean by "I will keep the BT line for whenever I need it for another internet provider". If you did end your BT service, the physical wire into your property would remain and it would be easy for BT, or any other internet provider, to reconnect you and provide a service to you.

Just to modify this slightly - If your local telephone exchange has moved to a status of "fibre priority" then it will not be possible to place an order for the "old" copper line for either ADSL or FTTC once cancelled with the existing ISP.
Openreach will only accept new orders for FTTP .

Thanks Dave. Is it a line-pull in such circumstances?

Yup - well new fibre "pull" either via underground duct ,or aerial connection via telegraph pole.  I believe that (in some cases anyway) the old copper has been removed as the fibre is pulled thru the existing ducts