Virgin monopoly

thegentleway

Virgin has just installed fibre where I live and rep has come round to offer £45pm 1Gb for 18 months. Is this a good deal? Can't use MSE comparison as my postcode says I can't have fibre.

Billxx

At face value that is a good deal.  However, customer services at VM are rated 5 out of 10 and in my opinion that is flattering.  Have a look at the VM forums, that might give you an impression.

Rob5342

Toob offer that speed for £25 a month. Virgin might be your only option but it's quite a poor deal.

prowla

Billxx said:

At face value that is a good deal.  However, customer services at VM are rated 5 out of 10 and in my opinion that is flattering.  Have a look at the VM forums, that might give you an impression.

My experience is that the Virgin BB service is pretty good so long as it's working (cue an outage tomorrow!).

However, their CS will say anything to you just to try and close the call; it generally takes 3-4 calls (each including an hour of piped music) to get through to someone who might have a clue; I've even had someone say that the person I spoke to before and promised me that a part was in the post lied to me because there was no stock of said part in the country.

daveyjp

A good price for Virgin, but once the 18 months is up expect to be gouged if there are no other fibre services available.

The worst CS I had after being a customer for over 25 years (only needing 2-3 call outs and those were in the early days when the tech was still new) was when I wanted to cancel.  Took hours of being messed about.

GrumpyDil

Do you even need that speed? We had 300mb which I downgraded to 200 on renewal and even my online game mad son hasn't noticed and speed reduction. 

thegentleway

Thanks for the heads up about Virgin's customer service; unfortunately I'm aware of this as have the misfortune of using them in the past. But I don't have a choice as we would like fibre.

GrumpyDil said:

Do you even need that speed? We had 300mb which I downgraded to 200 on renewal and even my online game mad son hasn't noticed and speed reduction. 

No, I can't imagine I would ever need that speed. That's a good point.

thegentleway

thegentleway said:

Thanks for the heads up about Virgin's customer service; unfortunately I'm aware of this as have the misfortune of using them in the past. But I don't have a choice as we would like fibre.

GrumpyDil said:

Do you even need that speed? We had 300mb which I downgraded to 200 on renewal and even my online game mad son hasn't noticed and speed reduction. 

No, I can't imagine I would ever need that speed. That's a good point.

Rep said they can do 350mb for £29pm

jbrassy

1gbps is seriously fast broadband and probably more than what you need. They have a 125mbps option which suits most households which use the Internet to WFH, watch Netflix, etc. 

Virgin will typically give you an introductory offer for 12 or 18 months and then increase the price substantially if you don't do anything about it. The way I got around this was to take out the contract in my name, cancel it once the 12 or 18 months are over, then take out a new contract under my partner's name. If you repeat this exercise and keep switching the name on the account you will always get the cheaper deals reserved for new customers.

thegentleway

jbrassy said:

1gbps is seriously fast broadband and probably more than what you need. They have a 125mbps option which suits most households which use the Internet to WFH, watch Netflix, etc. 

Virgin will typically give you an introductory offer for 12 or 18 months and then increase the price substantially if you don't do anything about it. The way I got around this was to take out the contract in my name, cancel it once the 12 or 18 months are over, then take out a new contract under my partner's name. If you repeat this exercise and keep switching the name on the account you will always get the cheaper deals reserved for new customers.

Yeah I’ve got access to online deals now (seems there was a delay because of shared driveway) and can see the 125, it’s only a quid more for 350 though.

That’s genius about switching names! I must admit I’ve done that with virgin vines but wouldn’t have thought that with broadband. Thanks for the tip!

steven141

To me that seems expensive when I have:

Mega TV Virgin TV 360 box
Sky Sports and Sky Cinema HD
2 x extra TV boxes
Phone Unlimited calls to mobiles and landlines
1Gbps broadband
For £76 a month

I personally would only pay a maximum of £30 a month for broadband on its own and that is at a push.