Hi,
About six years ago we finally got fibre from Virgin in our street and I signed up for a package with 1Gbps broadband, two TV boxes, phone and Sky Sports and BT Sport (now TNT). They offered a "Volt" deal which added an O2 SIM with unlimited data and it came to a reasonable price especially as my wife's mobile contract had just ended.
I renewed a couple of times and the price crept up but now it has reached a crazy level with the O2 SIM alone costing nearly £50 a month.
Our kids have moved out (one to uni and the other to a house with mates) so I wanted to downgrade the package before renewing. I asked for a basic package with 500Mbps and one TV box with the most basic channel package and no O2 sim but they have just been quoting packages with services I do not want all of which have been over £100/month and I would have to keep paying for the O2 SIM too.
I was expecting to get the basic service for about £40/month but was told only new customers can get those offers. This was all done via the text chat service on their web site. I asked to be connected to their complaints team after repeated refusals to quote me on the service that I wanted and have been told that someone will call me with 48 hours.
This seems to stink and I am wondering if anyone has advice on how to get what I have asked for at a sensible price. I would rather not cancel as the broadband service has been reliable. I am not sure whether other fibre services are available at my property - I will research that but any advice would be welcome.
Virgin can be a bit of a pain. In previous years whenever my 18 month contract expires and the price doubles, I've always phoned them up and uttered the magic words "I will go elsewhere unless you can make this price sensible" and after a bit of faffing it always works. Definitely helps to know how much alternatives would cost. Virgin is the only full fibre service available in my street, but we genuinely don't need superfast so I am able to honestly say "I don't care about crazy fast connections, PlusNet or EE or whoever would be fine". They normally offer all sorts of great value packages before offering what I want, which is simple, doesn't need to be superfast, but does need to be cheap.
This time around I tried doing it via chat. I'm still not convinced that it wasn't AI. I did ask, but they claimed they were using scripts, not AI, but regardless it was useless. They kept ignoring my requirements and saying "OK I've found a good option for you..." and then offering something that's actually worse than I could get just by clicking through on their own website. So I gave up on that and phoned them instead. Still went round the houses but eventually got to a solution - instead of going from something like £35 per month to £75 per month, it went to £36 per month (from memory). This is for just broadband and landline (no mobile, no TV). Broadband is over 100 mbps but I can't remember how.kuch over, might even be 250. We don't use the landline but removing it would have increased the price...
Upshot is: phoning them still seems to be the best option. Know what you want and what are your alternatives, and be very clear with them. I said things "that service is worth zero to me - feel free to add it if it makes it cheaper, but otherwise no, I simply don't want it so there's no point in telling me what good value it is."
I am not sure whether other fibre services are available at my property - I will research that but any advice would be welcome.
My advice would be to do that before you go any further.
Even if you're not jumping ship, the only way of getting a deal from the likes of VM is to threaten to leave. And by threatening to leave I mean being prepared to demonstrate better deals you've found rather than making unsubstantiated threats.
Volt is nice to have but almost certainly not cost-effective. I only got it because I was already a long term O2 customer when they merged; telling O2 to shove it saved me a fortune just doing that alone, if you're paying more than £10/month for a phone contract then you're almost certainly overpaying.
My advice would be to do that before you go any further.
This is the way (if you can). I’ve also saved a bunch by moving off Virgin for fibre and off O2 for mobile. Assuming you can get someone else, there is absolutely no reason to sit there and take their annual price increases and generally rubbish customer service.
My Virgin contract was coming to an end and the renewal was a reasonable deal but I spoke to Sky who then offered better. Signed up with them and then before the switch Virgin rang back 'to sort out the switch over' and casually asked what deal Sky had suggested. I told them and they immediately blew the Sky offer out of the water so I stuck with Virgin.
For reference the offer was the full TV package including Netflix, full Sky Sports and 500Mbps fibre broadband for £40pm.
From our experiences they can do more things (you don't want or need) for effectively the same price but what they seem utterly incapable of doing is giving you a reasonable price for a basic package if you've been with them for more than the cooling off period.
Once fibre to property came to our road we dropped them like a lava coated potato.
SIM only mobile plans with more data than you can eat cost about £10.
I had this with my last mobile provider too. The best they could do to try and keep me was £25/month for unlimited data, £2.50 a day for EU roaming on top. They didn't seem to grasp that I didn't need unlimited data and therefore there was no value in that but I did want roaming (that was only included for £35/month!).
Current SIM only plan is £9 for 80GB including EU roaming up to 15GB a month. More than I will ever want or need.
When we were with Virgin I found them the most hideous, unhelpful, difficult company to deal with.
Couldn't get away from them fast enough.
Many happy years with Zen now. Not the cheapest but proper UK based customer support and fair enough pricing.
When I changed my Virgin package recently they sent me an O2 SIM although I specifically told them not to. They started billing me but I decided to sort it out at the O2 shop (less to get lost in translation amongst other reasons) and I got the cancellation immediately. I went in midweek so they weren't busy and they could speak to someone at HQ to get it all sorted.
We were Virgin customers for many years since before it was Virgin. They refused to go under £70 a month for phone, broadband and basic TV. Even after we cancelled there was no phone call with a deal. At the time new customers could get our deal for around £35.
We left for Vodaphone non fibre and freeview with an aerial. £20 a month - now up to £29. I think there algo thinmyjig must have thought we had been with them so long we wouldn't leave.
The Vodaphone broadband while slower has actually been more reliable. Perfectly fine for Netflix youtube etc.
also left virgin for vodafone which has been fine at around £25 pm for just broadband. we'd played the VM cancellation game each year to keep it reasonable but it came to a head when their 'we'll see what we can do' offer was actually higher than the obscene price theyd quoted originally. was a relief to actually tell them to stick it and mean it.
the voda b/b is over 100mbps i think which is more than we need for simple streaming, and we have cheap lebara sims (£10 pm inc roaming).
Moneysaving expert has deals for just fibre for £20 month. I've just switched to You Fibre for £20 and no tie in. Family phones are all on Lebara. Binned the land line a few years ago as it was never used.
