MSE News: Virgin Media customers to be hit with 5.9% price rise from February

BobnMag · 4 February 2015 at 9:44PM

I have a fairly simple package of XL phone and M broadband (recently upgraded for 'free' to 50mb) along with a couple of phone options (call barring and talk international). My bill including line rental was £35.68 per month and has now gone up to £40.52.
I reckon that's an increase of 13.5%. Called retentions but apart from removing phone options and a meagre discount of £5 a month for six months, couldn't do anything else.
Decided to go with TalkTalk plus TV for an average cost of £30 per month so have cancelled Virgin. Regret having had to do this as I have been with them for very nearly 20 years.

austin · 9 February 2015 at 4:54AM

Well, I used the price hike loophole to cancel my TV Phone & BB, and as expected they called me back a couple of weeks before it was due to cut off, persuading me to re-consider.

Admittedly, I was happy with their BB (sky's offering in my area is a measly 17mbps), so, my ideal outcome was Virgin for BB/Phone & Sky for the TV - Here's how it went for me:

Ditched the pathetic Virgin TV
Now have:
Phone: evenings/weekends
BB: 50 meg
Line Rental
Caller Display... £20 per month all in, 12 month contract

My Niece is a Sky employee, so I got the TV Family bundle back in for £16 per month

So in the end I got what I wanted, for £36 per month all in. Very happy.

If anyone is after half price for a year deals, I know people in both Sky & Virgin, and would gladly help you out.

joanne73 · 9 February 2015 at 4:48PM

Hi Austin, I am with virgin for phone Bb and TV. I've been out of contract for a while and either considering going elsewhere or if I can get a better deal I would stay. Do the half price offers you mentioned pertain to new customers only?
Thanks for sharing.
Joanne

austin · 11 February 2015 at 1:40AM

Yes Joanne. If theres another adult in your household, they could be classed as a new customer. Theres 2 in our house, and we just take turns every year and get new half price deals.

gmgohara · 11 February 2015 at 12:48PM

Gave Virgin cancellation notice for my total package (currently circa £100 per month) on 30th Jan.

They made some token discount offers at the time but I declined them all and put the cancellation in

Any idea how long it usually is before retentions will call me etc

J-L-G · 24 February 2015 at 9:08AM

Hi, I'm new here but wondering if some kind people can offer me the benefit of their experience with Virgin. I've been a customer since September 2012 and haven't tried negotiating with them on terms before, but very keen to give it a go.

I pay c. £52 per month for:
M+ TV with the Tivo box
L phone
up to 50 Mb broadband

Does this look reasonable or am I being fleeced here? I'd be reluctant to leave VM as I have preferential terms on a mobile phone contract that's mot up until next January - but I don't intend to mention this when I call up!

Thoughts welcome!

J-L-G

easy · 26 February 2015 at 7:18PM

Hi guys

I rang VM back on 9th Feb to cancel our TV service. Our bill had just gone up to £70 per month, for 60mb broadband, phone with inclusive anytime calls, and L TV with a Tivo, and an older V+ box.
We don't really watch all that much TV these days, and the Tivo had started to be a pain, losing chunks of recordings, and rebooting spontaneously, regardless of what it was supposed to be showing or recording.

DH and I decided this was silly money, so I rang and said to them "take away the TV services" We had decided to go freeview, and either learn to live without recording programmes (which we often didn't get around to watching anyway), or invest in a freeview PVR in a few weeks time.

The man from VM tried half heartedly to talk me out of the change, but I stood my ground. He quoted me £47 per month for L phone, & L broadband - which would be improved to 100mb (allegedly). TV services would be cancelled on 9th March.

Last night Dominic from VM rang me.
After discussing with me why we are cancelling, he offered me the following:
L Phone (anytime calls)
L Broadband 100mb
M TV (basically the same channels as freeview) AND they'll send us a new Tivo (save the bother of reporting the problems & faffing about waiting for an engineer)

Price - £43 per month.
So, it costs less to have tv services than not to.

It suits me, I was thinking we might need to put in a freeview aerial, so that's money saved.

lauraloo10 · 28 February 2015 at 5:28PM

I signed up in October was told to ignore any contract that came through because the price wouldn't include my discount, now I find out about a price hike they apparently sent letters about, I didn't receive any letter and now I cant cancel does anyone know what I can do?

norfolkdream · 17 March 2015 at 8:38PM

If I just pay for the line rental and broadband can I cancel the phone bundle as I dont use my home phone at all but need it in case people need to get hold of me and cant on the mobile.
Mine has gone up from £20 to £23.50 and I only have broadband and phone, i pay line rental upfront.
How can I check when my contract runs out?

NCannon_2 · 29 March 2015 at 2:40PM

i recently saw my first bill since the Virgin price rise and this was the first i knew about it, i did not receive any letter. I have wanted out of the contract anyway as i've moved somewhere that they can't supply a service. So i wrote a letter to cancel, referring them to their terms which state you have 30 days from the date you were notified or if not notified then from the date of the first bill. They responded that the 30 days had passed and i would need to pay a cancellation fee. It had only been a couple of weeks since the bill. If i didn't receive a letter and they have no proof of me receiving one then is it safe to just cancel my direct debit, surely they are in the wrong?

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MSE News: Virgin Media customers to be hit with 5.9% price rise from February

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