Virgin Media keeping you tied in

Donethat_2

I'm getting a little tired of playing the Virgin Media game and am looking to get off their treadmill.

When you first sign up you get a package, TV, Broad etc and the obligatory phone line of course. Within that package there is nearly always a special offer, probably something like free movies or sports. So now you've signed up for an 18 month contract.

When that contract finishes you will most likely find the monthly cost goes up, quite a lot. This is apparently because you are no longer benefitting from the special offer. So you get on the phone to change the package. But you will quickly discover you can't do that without renewing the 18 month contract.

As a side note; A Virgin engineer informed me that if I went with an alternate broadband provider then my Virgin TV box would no longer function.

Neil_Jones

Yeah that's sort of how the system works for most providers - if you want a discount you agree to stay with them for 12/18/24 months in exchange for that discount.  Not unique to Virgin.

Bigphil1474

As above, pretty much how they all work although VM have the benefit of you having their dedicated line into your house. To be fair, I've been with VM for 7 or 8 years now, and we get more of what we want for less outlay then when we first started with them e.g. I used to have Netflix separately but it is now in my package, saves me a few quid a month, and I used to use NOW TV for Sky Sports, but have that in the VM bundle, so overall paying less than having them all separately. Same with O2 sim. My renewal has never been more than what I was paying for previously, it just has gradually moved to all coming from VM rather than having a few different contracts here and there. If they ever get a tie in with Amazon, I'll be pretty much all in with VM.  

Donethat_2

If I wanted the discount then I might expect to sign up for another contract. But one can't make any changes to the account with a new contract.

I'm looking to get a new broadband connection that is soon to be available in our area that will be way better, and cheaper, than Virgin. That and getting everything else we want via a Firestick works out to around a third of our current outlay.

I will be dumping Virgin at the earliest opportunity.

Donethat_2

That should have said 'without a new contract'

summer_daze009

Donethat_2 said:

When you first sign up you get a package, TV, Broad etc and the obligatory phone line of course. 

You don’t have to pay to have a home phone as part of your virgin media package if you don’t want one.