Pulled the Plug – Left Virgin Media

There was a recent thread on broadband where I mentioned leaving Virgin. Been with them for donkeys years but the cost kept creeping up. Current bill was £72 a month for broadband, anytime phone calls and the XL TV package. This included a supposed discount ending on 29th January.

So checked broadband on the Martin Lewis site. Vodaphone are doing a 65Mb fibre deal at £23 a month with a £100 Amazon gift card as a sign on bribe. Adding anytime phone calls is £5 per month.

So with those figures I phone Virgin Media to see if they could drop their price. First guy in the Indian call centre said he couldn’t discuss dicounts until my current one ended 29th January. So I told him I was thinking of leaving. He passed me to retentions. I told them I was only interested in broadband and phone as I have Netflix and Prime Video so no longer want anything past BBC, ITV and freeview. Best offer he could come up with was £70 per month. So no contest. I can even buy a NOW TV sub if I want any more TV and still be well ahead. So, so long Virgin Media.

That Vodaphone deal looks quite good. Allowing for the £100 gift card it is £17.45 a month if you don’t need and included calls. Ends 17th Jan.

OTOH, I just signed up for Virgin Broadband 200 and telephone for £30 a month.

It really shouldn’t be legal should it?

we were up to £48 i think it was for just 100mb broadband (and unwanted phone line of course), so rang to cancel (not bluffing, i would have cancelled). they put me down to £32 just like that so i stayed.

I left Virgin about 18 months ago when they cut off my broadband in the middle of the day (I was doing a training course) without notification. It took about half hour to get through to someone to find out why I’d been cut off. They weren’t open to price negotiation, so I cancelled. Customer service was terrible.
Now, after 18 months in Sky wilderness (Sooo sloooW!!) I’ve gone with Zen who seem to be one of the few who don’t put the price up after a year. i’m betting that Vodafone deal goes from £23 to £40 after a year/18months?

My virgin has been creeping up – gone form like 35 to 48 over 3.5 years (internet only no phone, no tv)

Every time I look to switch, all the other 100mbps alternatives aren’t in my area so I am stuck with virgin 🙁

I’ve been with BT for yonks. Every time my contract is up they offer to renew for the same price and as it just works I can’t be arsed to swap every couple of years just to get a giftcard.

Virgin have just laid the fibre in our road and the higher bandwidth is tempting, especially as it will be FTTH rather than the FTTC we currently have and we game and stream a lot, but I’m not sure if the extra speed will be worth the grief of switching.

i’m betting that Vodafone deal goes from £23 to £40 after a year/18months?

Possibly, though they saY It’s another £3 possibly plus RPI after 18 months. But anyway I’d be happy to go back to Virgin at new subscriber rates then. I’m just tired of getting ripped off when the new customer deals are far better.

Perhaps because I’ve been with them so long (from when it was NTL) they figured they didn’t need to offer much to keep me. But enough was enough. I’d mentally decided I’d probably have gone as high as £50 per month for phone/broadband/freeview TV to avoid changing hassle (need new phone line installed) but £70? Nope. Had enough.

I pay £27 for 100Mb and phone, though will be leaving them for FTTC in june after being with them for 18 years (in various forms)

I left them and switched to TalkTalk recently. They didn’t play hardball with prices until after I had cancelled, go ahead and cancel and then they will come back with a better price.

They didn’t play hardball with prices until after I had cancelled, go ahead and cancel and then they will come back with a better price.

This was suggested on Martin Lewis but I’ve ordered the Vodaphone package so I’ll stick with it and review in 18 months. If broadband speeds and reliability are acceptable I’ll probably stick with Vodaphone for a few years. I’m not going to switch back to save £5 or £10 a month.

Current online new user offer for Virgin Media broadband phone is £4 a month more for 12 months before jumping £22 a month. Not going to be tempted back there unless Vodaphone is seriously bad. Toughest test will be streaming Netflix to TV while PC gaming in another room.

Of course I had to input false address on the Virgin Media before they would let me see new user prices. Another niggle that puts me off going back. But as I said I’ll review in 18 months but suspect their refusal to bargain has lost a long term customer for good.

People who have gone down from 200mb to 60ish, do you find it’s adequate for family life with four to six devices on the go at any time?

I only have the lower 34mb and have no problem streaming Netflix and YouTube on 3 devices. Not sure about more but we are all heavy users. Gaming may not be so good

My first year just coming to an end with Virgin, 200Mbps nad the basic TV package for 35 a month, they’ve put me on the Maxit package, BT sports, sky one etc and same BB for 37.50.

Quite happy with that.

I can’t be arsed to swap every couple of years just to get a giftcard

I went with Vodafone for a year, got a 200 quid sonos speaker out of it, for the sake of 2 mins online to change, well worth it.

Super tempted by this. Currently paying £41pm for 200mb broadband. But there’s only 2 of us in the house.

i’m paying too £39 for what i think is 80mb (i signed up at 50mb 5 years ago)
which is too expensive. thing is while there is now openreach FTTC there is an old telephone socket in my hallway but i have just refurbished with new flooring/skirting etc and there is no power socket or space for a router so i’m a bit stuffed.
i’m not having wires all over the floor.

i’m tempted to rip the guts out of the socket (yes i know this is illegal) and fit a blanking plate and deny all knowledge of any phone line in the hope of getting them to fit a new line through the windowsill where the virgin cable comes in.
bit of a risk though if they refuse and insist on the existing wiring.

actually i’m paying more than all of you intros thread! I’m going to ring them and quote all the prices and tell them i’m not happy!

Similar situation – the phone cable comes in the back and there is a socket in a back bedroom, from which a router cannot reach the whole flat (mystery why not). The Virgin cable comes in the front and the router is in the lounge.

Latest Virgin bill was £86 for BB, TC, phone (international anytime). BB is supposedly 200Mbs but we never get anything like that.

so they offered me 70mb (my current speed) for £25 if i sign up for 12 months.
i said i wanted 100mb for that price as they dont even offer that lower speed and i had read somewhere they were bumping everyone up to 100mb anyway. they said that would be £35.

told them that was too much and i now had FTTC and would check prices and get back to them.

found the thing about 100mb

https://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2020/01/virgin-free-broadband-upgrade/

next call it will be the leave/ultimatum 100mb £25 (or at least below£30) and i’ll take a chance on a FTTC install.

similar to @kittr’s post above you need to have BT superfast Broadand service in your area to be able to swap to any of the non Virgin high speed alternatives. Like everyone else, I had high VM bill so looked to swap to a great Vodafone deal in October but couldn’t as no superfast service in my area. Seems we are a low priority as we already have fibre, and Virgin is available if we need superfast. Spoke to VM retentions and they reduced price by £15pm for 100MB (up from 50). I was happy with that until I see some of the prices quoted above!

I am looking to change from BT paying £35.99 per month and Daughter hates it so going to try something else – Does anyone have a review of vodafone?

Glad you started this thread. It just reminded me to check our current broadband and the 12 month deal has just run out.
Was £25 /month with Now TV 36mbps + anytime calls + line rental.
Going up to £36 now though so time to shop around. Pain in the arse if I have to change though and re-connecting every device to the new network. Lets hope they can drop the price again.

I’m getting rid of the TV with Virgin and see what price they will do.

Currently on 200 service, best I can get with BT is 60ish @ £35 ish a month -so would prefer to stay with VM, but not at £52!

I would be interested in knowing if they do actually get back to you after you have cancelled with a better offer.

I’ve recently played the cancellation game with them. Tell them you want to leave, they will give you a date and then they call you back a few days after. Tell them what you’re willing to pay and keep playing hardball with them.

I’m paying £34 for 350mb broadband (broadband only deal).

I’ve just ditched PlusNet for Vodafone, hope they’re decent.  PN have crept up to £45 a month for fibre broadband and a limited call package, Voda £31 for fast fibre and unlimited calls (+ Apple TV thing that I may or may not use!) – wonder if I can flog the Apple box or if it’s “on loan”?

I would be interested in knowing if they do actually get back to you after you have cancelled with a better offer.

To me cancelling broadband is different to cancelling TV services (Sky Sports etc).

You have to make a choice and commit to switch to another supplier – you can’t be sat weeks with no internet waiting for your old supplier to call you back with a cheaper offer.

I’m paying £34 for 350mb broadband (broadband only deal).

and they wanted £35 from me for 100!

im just going to sit this out for a month and see if i get bumped up to 100 for nothing then call and ask to pay £25.
would happily pay £35 for 200. will try the ”i want the same deal as everyone else!”

Changing to Sky now. Didn’t even bother ringing NowTV.
Sky is £29 /month for guaranteed 54mbps minimum speed, anytime calls, better quality router that should reach every room in the house (so no need to look at mesh solutions with the existing NowTV one) and £90 back via topcashback.

Don’t think NowTV would be able to match the price and I’d be stuck with a rubbish router unless I spend a bit of cash on top.

Just spoke with Virgin – reduced from 86 to 72. Better but not great. The expensive bit is the International Anytime that MrsJ uses to phone her pals 🙁

For reference, this is what we have and pay £65pcm for the privelage. That includes £23 of ‘discounts’ which makes it £2 cheaper than the new customer price for the same package. I think we only get this as I kicked up a huge stink when they changed our TV package and we lost the kids channels.

Television:
Maxit TV + Kids Pick

Broadband:
M100 Fibre Broadband

Telephone:
Talk More Evenings and Weekends
Line Rental

I came down to bog standard freeview TV a few years back, started off at £42pm and is now at £53.
TV: Player
Broadband: M100 (never got more than 51 but its enough)
Phone: Talk Weekends (only used to occasionally answer PPI calls, not sure which is the bigger scam?)

I’ve not got much interest in TV, we have Netflix but thats mostly for Jnr who lives away and weekends at the camper when I download stuff to my ipad.

We were with Plusnet for 18 months contract that ended last week, £25pcm for landline phone and fibre BB (~18Mb). They offered £23pcm renewal, but another 18 month contract and no cashback for staying with them.

Thought about ditching landline phone and BB altogether for Three mobile SIM and a mobile router, but speeds were erratic, although on good days they were ~50% better than landline (our rented flat internal wiring is archaic).

Thought about trying Virgin for the first time ever, but more agro to swap from Openreach network to Virgin’s network, plus we might be moving and there’s no guarantee Virgin would be at new place (and they would still want their minimum contract payments). Over the ~14 years we’ve been here, the Virgin box outside the mini block has often lacked a cover, so who knows what water ingress etc. has lowered potential speeds.

Went with Post Office landline phone and fibre BB, £21pcm; no activation fee; 12 month min contract; ~£51 Topcashback. Router arrived today, activates next week.

Just to update my own thread- Virgin Media never got back to me with any better offer. So went ahead with Vodaphone. THe guy was out today and imstalled a new master BT socket in the correct place in the house. BT line last used 20+ years ago.

Plugged the phone in, works fine, kept old phone number. Broadband working fine without having to do anything other than log in. At evening peak 7:30pm getting 40-50Mb download and 8 upload. Streaming Netflix is fine. Downloading hour episodes from Netflix to the laptop is noticably slower but I can live with that for the reduction from £72 per month to £23 per month (£28 with inclusive calls) and the £100 Amazon gift card.

AS I said I’ll see how it goes and review in 18 months. Switching was painless.

My life without Virgin Media is nicer than with it. Bunch of incompetent muppets. To this day I still don’t understand how they conmed the bearded guy into damaging his brand so much.

Our virgin service is about £50 having crept up over the years. I’ve thought about changing but we’ve never had a normal phone line while we’ve lived here. Also as we weren’t using the aerial, when it broke we simply took it down.

Have people had aerials and phone lines installed. I’m guessing a few hundred which doesn’t really make it worth while for the hassle. Happy with Virgin other than the cost. Speed is good, tivo box nice and it works reliably here.

@jonba our TV comes through the broadband since we left Virgin. I use an Apple TV to run it all with a TV Player sub for the BBC/ITV/C4 & Eurosport channels

@jonva

Line installation is covered by the new company as far as I know. In our case there was an old BT box from 25 yes ago. He ran a line from there to where we wanted the new box for phone and broadband.

We got a new aerial installed. At apex of gable end of 3 bed semi.
Cabled around the house right up to TV. Cost £100. We’ll save that in just over 2 months of the new contract. TV picture is better than it was with Virgin which had occasional interference and breakup. No big noticeable difference in usability of laptops or netflix. If I download an hour of tv from Netflixcto watch later it takes 20 or 30 seconds rather 10 or 15 seconds. I can live with that.

Virgin £82 a month. Best offer in negotiation £72. Vodaphone £23 a month (taking Amazon voucher into account).

We can’t record or pause live tv now. Not missing it so far but a freeview box to enable this if required would be only £100 or so. Still well ahead of Virgin over the contract.

But as much as saving £50 a month or so is welcome just as important is the fact that I felt Virgin were taking advantage of loyalty and ripping me off.

Our Virgin bill had crept up and up year on year for broadband, basic TV (freeview), and weekend calls. It ended up being about £39 a month. I got a random text off EE as I have mobile with them, usually I just hit delete straightaway but it was for broadband at £20 a month.

I booked the install and then rang Virgin. First guy said I was on a great deal, second guy also said I was on a great deal. Final person in retention’s miraculously managed to drop the bill down to match EE. Too little too late.

EE broadband is okay. It’s a little bit slower but still fine for streaming Netflix/Prime/Youtube. May eventually go back to Virgin when they inevitably offer the world for signing up.

I am currently coming to the end of a Virgin contract and we have fibre right up the the house. If I swap to PlusNet or Sky will I be able to use the same fibre or will it have to go via the old phone line (I assume this must be the case as I get 100Mbps with Virgin but the other providers only offer up to 59Mbps).

It’ll be the old phone line.

Virgin are digging up all the local pavements including right past my house; taken them long enough, I was interested when they started up, twenty-odd years ago, but they got as far as Bath then stopped.
I’m quite happy with BT, been with them since around 2003 or thereabouts, can’t see any reason to want to change.