Virgin worse deals for existing customers - renewal dance time

soolin

I'm currently doing the renewing contract dance and had a polite but incredibly unhelpful CS rep on the phone. I'm currently on M250 Fibre Broadband only (no phone no TV) and due to poor speeds and drop outs and doing some work from home was interested in upgrading to a better deal My Current package is £30.46 a month which will increase to £50+ in 33 days. I wanted a new hub and faster speeds. 

I saw the Gig 1 Fibre broadband deal online for new customers at £36.99 which would give me a new hub (I believe i only have a hub 3) and faster speeds. Unfortunately I was told on the phone that as an existing customer I could not get anywhere near that price, instead it would be approx £46 . The best they could do was to go to M350 at £32 a month. or if I renewed online I would be offered:
Hub 5 with M250 for £38.08 PM or M350 with my existing hub for £40 pm.

I also asked would I be able to give up the contract in my name and then get my OH to take out a new contract, and was told no, they have closed this loophole.

I've given notice but realistically I can't afford to lose my Virgin net mail email account due to issues with work.  

I've looked through recent threads and there is a mix of different experiences, some people after cancelling are being offered deals, but some are not and I don't know how long to risk it before I get too far down the cancellation route. Has anyone had very recent experience of being able to negotiate a better deal within the cancellation period?

In this day and age it seems incredible that an extremely long term customer like myself (I have had Virgin since they took over my old ISP) cannot match the deals for new customers. 

subjecttocontract

If you need your connection because of 'issues' with your work then shouldn't your employer be helping you with the fibre broadband connection that you need ?

soolin

subjecttocontract said:

If you need your connection because of 'issues' with your work then shouldn't your employer be helping you with the fibre broadband connection that you need ?

I’m self employed and the issues arise around security and access, not just email  and whilst I prefer not to go into very much detail, It took me long enough to get this one approved for work and it is likely to cause me issues to get another one agreed. 

Olinda99

Are you sure you are unable to get rid of the Virgin email account and go to for example Gmail or Outlook which would free you from the constraints of Virgin?

soolin

Olinda99 said:

Are you sure you are unable to get rid of the Virgin email account and go to for example Gmail or Outlook which would free you from the constraints of Virgin?

I do have a gmail account, but cannot get access to the internal sites with it - that was my back up plan 18 months ago when I last did the renewal dance. 

soolin

Just an update. Having done some research through both Virgin and other broadband forums I decided to phone back this morning to ask for advice about whether a new hub or faster speeds would be more suitable for my issues around dropping out. This time I got a foreign call centre and within minutes was offered the exact package I wanted - a hub 5 with 1GB for £42 a month, which is only £5 PM more than for new customers. I have to pay a one off fee for the new hub, but I can live with that.

I know it's expensive but it will suit my work much better, and having gone through a comparison site I was quite amazed at how many devices I had connected without realising it. 

FreeBear

soolin said:

Olinda99 said:

Are you sure you are unable to get rid of the Virgin email account and go to for example Gmail or Outlook which would free you from the constraints of Virgin?

I do have a gmail account, but cannot get access to the internal sites with it - that was my back up plan 18 months ago when I last did the renewal dance.

I have a domain name along with a privately run email server via Mythic Beasts. Yes, it costs me £30 a year, but I have full control over the domain. No limit on the number of email addresses, so I can have one for banking, another for online shopping, and a third for forums (plus any number of throwaway addresses). Keeps everything separated to a certain extent, so if one email address gets hacked, the others are still (relatively) secure.

Also means I can jump from one broadband provider to another without worrying about the loss of emails. Also sticks a finger up at Google and their increasingly intrusive data harvesting.

PZ19

Have a look on your account, is there not an offer on there? If you’re not happy with the renewal price put in a cancellation, you still have 31 days to change your mind.  Usually they will call you back with an offer, so long as your account preferences are set so that they can contact you

jbrassy

soolin said:

I also asked would I be able to give up the contract in my name and then get my OH to take out a new contract, and was told no, they have closed this loophole.

This is just scare tactics. It's always been the case that you're not supposed to cancel the contract then get your partner to sign up. However, I've done it several times and Virgin have never said anything. If it was me, I wouldn't have mentioned this on the phone to them. I would have just cancelled over the phone, then got your partner to sign up to a new contract online.