Re: TV price rises
 

A detailed breakdown of the price rises is below

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2012/11/26.png

If a customer is on a promotional offer, for example as six months half price, VM will honour it price changes would apply at the end of the promo period

Re: TV price rises
 

I have a non standard bundle. How do I know which components have been increased and by how much? If I had a standard collection, then fair enough; I could just go to the website and see what the current price is. But, as Collections were introduced not that long ago, I would have thought there were more people on non standard bundles than Colletions.

Re: TV price rises
 

Yet some of the price increases don't match those listed, so there must be a method VM are working out peoples increases who aren't on their standard bundles. They need to make it clear and concise or I can see them getting a roasting for this one.

Re: TV price rises
 

That's wrong for the VIP Collection change. The old one is going up to £96.75 + line rental

The current VIP Collection includes Talk Unlimited Extra and is the £99 + line rental price. For the current VIP Collection only the line rental is changing

Re: TV price rises
 

So how do we, not on Collections find out a reference price point, to know what components have made up the increase?

Re: TV price rises
 

Yes, but what I'm trying to explain is that the breakdown was published and you said 'oh I don't like the increase to TV XL, I'll reduce it' the only way you will know what the new price will be is talking to VM - because the pricing struture is different.

So the breakdown for the increase won't give you any information that is useful.

Re: TV price rises
 

Are we able to phone and ask what our increase will be? Will CS be able to tell, or do we need to wait on the letter/email?

Or can you work it out from this ;)

Billing period:
02 Nov - 01 Dec

Owed from last bill £0.00

Your package £70.90

Other fees, charges & credits CR £3.00

Usage charges Total £3.14

Amount due £71.04

These charges are for the period: 2 November - 1 December

Bundle Charges
Talk Weekends Free Voicemail TV Size: X L 2 ADD Set Top Box(es) TiVo Monthly Fee TiVo Monthly Fee Extra Set Top Box Discount Broadband XL (Up To 60mb) Loyalty Customer
Bundle Charges total £59.00

Promotional offer(s)
You'Re Receiving A £2 Loyalty Discount If You Change Your Package You May Lose This Discount Which Will End 19-FEB-14
Promotional offer(s)CR £2.00

Phone line rental
Line Rental
Phone line rental total £13.90

Your package total £70.90

Other fees, charges & credits

One-off charges & credits Date Amount
Goodwill Gesture 2 October CR £3.00
One-off charges & credits total CR £3.00
Other fees, charges & credits total CR £3.00

Re: TV price rises
 

Ok, say you get a breakdown from Customer Services, what would you do with the information?

Re: TV price rises
 

That is why VM need to publish individual prices for services and the discount that can be gained when bundling various services (and levels of) together.

They've had to work it out themselves to come up with our individual prices, so they should make that breakdown and calculation available to the customer.

Re: TV price rises
 

Use it to see how much they are fleecing me for every month compared to their rivals who may offer better prices.

I like to see where my money goes ;)

Re: TV price rises
 

We've gone over this as well, it's not simple job to change the system so that's possible

Re: TV price rises
 

Spot on, not entirely sure of the legality of increasing prices which vary so much but don't give you a breakdown.

What if a breakdown was needed for tax/vat purposes?

Re: TV price rises
 

However the price increases wouldn't do that - because the services are bundled together, then there aren't individual prices, for instance, a Collection.

Knowing that TV XL went up by 'x' is irrelevent as the price of the Collection is only for those Collected services

Re: TV price rises
 

So is it a system that is calculating all these varying price increases then? Or is it being done manually for people not on a static bundle/collection?

Re: TV price rises
 

You can get a breakdown as VAT receipt, but that shows the system prices as shown on the old style bills - which are not what people actually get charged for each service.

Re: TV price rises
 

Hmm well as far as I know I'm not on any bundle or loyalty discount or anything. I have been a BB user and land line user for some time. Recently (year or so) I took up a TV package, then I added a TiVo and a third box - all outside of a 'package'. I've recently (last couple months) upgraded my phone package to XL - it was L before.

At the moment I have:

Broadband - XXL
TV - XL
Phone - XL
TiVo x 2
VM HD x 1

All my services are listed under my account as separate entities and I can upgrade/downgrade them separately as I choose. That to me is not a bundle/package.

What I'm keen to work out is what each of my individual components are getting what increase. So maybe if I drop the third box (hardly ever used) or drop my phone down to a lower tariff or reduce my BB. Maybe I wont do anything but I'd like to know if maybe BB is going up more than TV or is the Phone what is costing me the most now? All these are exclusive from each other and changing one to save an increase doesn't affect others.

If your on a VIP package or a Premium bundle then fine but as far as I can tell I'm ad-hoc and would like to know.

What I can deceiver from what I was told on the phone and what you mentioned about line rental:

£2 increase to my TV XL
£2 increase to my BB XXL
£1 increase for my Tivo (although I have 2 so maybe 50p each?)
£1.09 increase for my line rental

That leaves me 50p to try and cover somewhere.

I'm paying this money out and I'd like to know what I am paying it to. If I drop TV and move elsewhere it allows me to compare. If I decide actually I don't need 100Mb BB and 50Mb (or a lower tariff) is fine then I'd like to know that as well.

Surely that information is available to me?

Re: TV price rises
 

Each service has a set value on the system so all accounts will have that change, but then there are different discounts and bundle codes, some of which will also be changed to change the total increase to an account.

So you can't predict your total increase from the individual changes, because for some the bundle may not increase at all, or by a lower amount that the individual totals

Re: TV price rises
 

I'm sorry it's not simple, but it needs to be done. Why did they ever allow a system to be put in place that is so bad and lacking in any detail for the customer? Clunky as it was, the previous system to the current one was far better than the one we have now IMHO.

Re: TV price rises
 

But then making changes would potentially put you on a Collection or other bundle, so it's not that simple

---------- Post added at 16:12 ---------- Previous post was at 16:10 ----------

So you'd want to go back to when this forum was filled with 'Why am I being charged £37 for XL Broadband when I got told it would £18'?

Re: TV price rises
 

Yes l agree totally PB as the system as it stands is like going through 50 mazes in the hope that you are suddenly going to find the one which lets you out.

Re: TV price rises
 

So basically people could be loosing some of their discounts so they can bring in line a better pricing model?

Clear as mud, for a communications company they sure make things difficult for themselves.

Sky must be laughing all the way to the new customer department.

Re: TV price rises
 

What most people want at the end of the day Ben is a clear precise transparent pricing system breakdown so we all know exactly what we are paying and what we don't want is a pricing system thats harder to work out then the Enigma code.

Re: TV price rises
 

:tu:

Re: TV price rises
 

You are paying for the bundle price that is shown on your bill.

Re: TV price rises
 

I said the old system was 'clunky', so it did need to change, but in all it's clunkiness, it was still better than the current system because we got more details of individual service pricing and bundle and other discounts.

Re: TV price rises
 

Except you didn't - you could not compare most of the prices on the old style bills to rivals because they weren't what you were actually being charged

However people tried so again, would compare a price of £25 pre adjustment, to a advertised price of £9.99 and then complaint they were getting 'overcharged'

Times that by all VM's customers and a lot of calls were to deal with the fact that breakdowns made on sense.

---------- Post added at 16:20 ---------- Previous post was at 16:18 ----------

We went over this ground when they changed the bills

---------- Post added at 16:21 ---------- Previous post was at 16:20 ----------

Also now that the details of bills aren't shown, the way the Collections and other deals are put together are on the basis that it's the total price that the important thing - and for some deals only work on the system because the breakdown can no longer be seen

Re: TV price rises
 

So VIP is going up over £6.50 after already going up £10 this year? Wow, that used to be a whole service a few years back. It also says "100Mb" which I don't get till next summer, and 50Mb is flaky anyway. Still I can admire things that people with IPads can do, and look at a long list of programs that I can't watch using multi room streaming. Sigh.

Re: TV price rises
 

So what about the early TiVo adopters, will they see bigger increases to bring into line the £3 per account, £3 per box, £5 per box all being charged at the latter?

Re: TV price rises
 

Nobody knows as it doesn't break it down individually :D

Re: TV price rises
 

For someone with £3 per account and two TiVo boxes it would increase their bill by £7 before any other changes

As that isn't happening, the answer is no.

Re: TV price rises
 

Cool, just the rest of the formula to figure out to work out a Virgin Media bill then

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2012/11/8.gif

Re: TV price rises
 

Actually it's as simple as looking at this bit of the bill:

Re: TV price rises
 

Had my letter this morning and mine states £5.49 increase.
I`m on the Vip 100 with 1 tivo box and 1 V+ box. I`m one of the early adopters of the Tivo if that helps anyone work out these increases.

Re: TV price rises
 

So basically, Virginmedia's pricing is a complete and utter mess and what they should do is force everyone onto one of their collection bundles if the the customer doesn't like their price increase?

Re: TV price rises
 

Not what I'm saying at all.

Virgin Media haven't sold services at the most of the prices shown on the breakdown on the bill for years - way before the bill format changed, so I don't understand why there is a rose tinted view that those bills were better. They weren't, all that happened was that people complained about different things on it than is being complained about now. For example http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...16&postcount=5

and

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...75&postcount=7
All Virgin's current pricing is structured to fit into the way the bills now look, which was simplified after customers complained as above.

Re: TV price rises
 

Just called them, apparently am on the Premier Collection but never knew to be honest as no one said and doesn't say on bill.
That said, as got extra boxes as you see I posted earlier, I asked the guy who was really helpful and as far as he could make out my increase would be £4.09.

Went on to talk about the increases etc, contract length as only 5 months left.
He offered to try get more discount, and our base price has went from £67.90 to £62.40 from immediate effect so saving £5.50 a month from now till Feb and then when the price goes up, will still be saving £1.41 per month.

Had to renew for 12 months, but at that am happy to do so... still baffling how they manage to wangle more discounts, same happened in April to me when the last time they went up.

So cheers to Scott who works in Teeside I think he said, good lad!

Re: TV price rises
 

My bill this month is £114 ( £112.21 plus £1.79 phone call charge ).

I'm on VIP 50 with caller ID as an extra.

But... the VIP collections says you get up to 100 broadband, a TIVO box plus an extra HD box for £99 + £13.90 phone rental.

I don't have a TIVO box, my 2nd box is old and can't get HD and I'm on 50 MB broadband.

And I have to pay £4.59 per month extra from Febuary ?

Re: TV price rises
 

I'd be on the blower getting it sorted if I were you!

Re: TV price rises
 

Indeed, should be able to move across to the current VIP Collection and get more for less

Re: TV price rises
 

All very good getting more for less Ben but then 10 months down the road you have then got hit by a dual price rises thus the value in the top VIP bundle diminishes quite considerably as it would not be so bad if extra channels and other things were added to soften the impact of the price rises.

Re: TV price rises
 

I have caller ID as well, and can never understand why that isn't included free with the line rental. If you have a mobile it's automatic, but on a VM Landline you have to pay £2 per month? Don't get that!

Re: TV price rises
 

Already did for during the April (?) price rises for me. They tell me it's a cock up but the system will not let them reverse it :rolleyes: Managed to get some credit out of them after about 3 hours on the phone

Re: TV price rises
 

So as this is undoubtedly a thoroughly well planned price increase strategy, where on VM's site can I find all the information about the specific price rises so I can do some comparisons between services? I see you can also get out of contracts as well if you're not happy.

Re: TV price rises
 

Again, VM do bundle prices, so the price you have to compare against other bundles or other providers is the total price.

Re: TV price rises
 

Are people happy with the information being provided in regards to their price increase - Yes or No?

Would people have preferred clear and concise information as per the below link?

http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/d...5-january-2013

Re: TV price rises
 

Except the way BT price their services isn't the same way Virgin Media do

Virgin Media offer bundles, which means that some bundles won't be incresing by the full amount of the consituent parts - therefore it would be misleading to put the per service increase on a website as it wouldn't apply to everyone

Re: TV price rises
 

True. VM just seem to throw discounts and additions to your account until it works then hang up on you. My current 'bundle' is this:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/27165751/vmcrazybill.jpg
It's an old picture, but it's not changed.

We only have 1 STB (a TiVo), but by looking at that you would be forgiven for thinking we have 3. The price is correct too, because some of those are actually deductions and not charges. So actually not showing prices for each item is detrimental in this case.

Re: TV price rises
 

No, it's not, because the detail wouldn't make sense - which is why the bill format was changed.

Re: TV price rises
 

This one's frustrating for me because I can see both sides of this one.

Re: TV price rises
 

Well if that is the case when putting prices up why can't Virgin breakdown what the increases are for in each individuals letter or e-mail? I think the feedback from Virgin customers in this thread makes it clear what people want and expect. If people ask for an accurate breakdown, surely they are entitled to it? Ultimately looking after the customer, especially when changing the monthly charges, must be paramount for Virgin?

Section H3 of Virgins terms and conditions state:

"We and/or Virgin Media Payments may change our charges at any time. Any changes to our monthly charges will be published by us and/or Virgin Media Payments on the Virgin Media website and if the changes are significant we, and/or Virgin Media Payments will do our best to give you notice of the change(s) at least one month before the changes take effect. Any changes to usage charges and tariffs will be published on the Virgin Media website and will be reflected on your next bill after the changes take effect."

Has this information been published yet? All I've found is the below:

http://my.virginmedia.com/customer-n...s-to-save.html

Re: TV price rises
 

The detail would make sense, unless you didn't have a basic understanding of maths. Charges - discounts = price. It's the current bill which doesn't make sense, as it should include the V+ HD fee in the final total but doesn't.

Showing vague items with no price breakdown, especially when those items are discounts, would lead to people contacting VM as they think they are being charged for a service they aren't receiving. To use a horrible consulting term that is failure demand.

Re: TV price rises
 

Ok, this is what your bill would look like under the old format (assuming you are on the £5 fee for TiVo)

Talk Weekends £0
TV XL £28
XXL 50Mb Broadband £47.25
V+HD Monthly Fee £0
1 Additional V box £15
Extra Set Top Box Discount -£8.50
TiVo Monthly Fee £5
Bundle Discount -£34.25

Line Rental £13.90

Much better eh?

Re: TV price rises
 

Yup. I agree that at first glance it's still confusing, but at least anyone can whip out a calculator/pen + paper and figure out what the heck is going on. You dont have that option with the current bills unless you want to monkey around with the collections on the VM page (which will tell you to get lost if you enter you existing address).

What VM ideally should do is show the named collections and their price, then show the additions that a customer has chosen. i.e:

Premier Collection £45.00

Line Rental £13.90

+ 100 meg £7.25
+ Sky Sports 1 £15.50

= £81.65

So sorta have anything that isn't in the normal bundles shown as bolt ons, similarly to how an additional data package is shown on mobile phone bills. Its in addition to the tariff, it doesn't replace the existing data bundle.

Re: TV price rises
 

Don't disagree in part, however currently its either a choice between the old style and the new style - and as I do have to keep saying, the old style got more complaints than the new one does

I'd also question whether it could be compacted that much - I'm sure there is probably a rule somewhere where you have to show the actual service names

Re: TV price rises
 

I'm sure I've heard the same reason given for the superhub :angel:

Slap it on the back of the bill. Heck, it could even act as an advert for the other collections if they were all listed.

Even if I dont always agree, I do appreciate learning more about VM and the issues you guys face, so thanks Ben. :)

Re: TV price rises
 

Actually, yes. I preferred it that way:D

Re: TV price rises
 

Me too, if the only choice available is between that and the new one.

Re: TV price rises
 

I preferred it like that too. If people complained about the old way Virgin should have spent more time explaining it to them, rather than just making it less transparent so they wouldn't realise. They've basically decided to give less information to stop people thinking they might have a reason to phone in. It's bordering on a deceit.

Also, I'm sure those complaining was still just a small percentage of the customer base, but as per usual it appears the easy way out of greasing the squeakiest wheel was the route taken.

Re: TV price rises
 

Yes. Let's make it even more complicated :D

---------- Post added at 09:09 ---------- Previous post was at 09:07 ----------

You mean just like they're having to now explain the new one. Hardly much different, is it? Six of one... etc. :)

So just like Reminders then ;)

Re: TV price rises
 

That's exactly my point, Carl. They've changed the bill because they were fed up explaining it, and find themselves in a position where they're still having to explain it. Should have just explained it properly in the first place and left the silent majority (ie. all those who weren't complaining) with the more transparent breakdown of pricing that their inaction suggested they were happy with.

I agree with you about reminders so I'm not sure why you've brought that up, but yes, that is a perfect example of Virgin trying to accommodate a loud minority. The difference in that example is that if you don't want to use them you don't have to. I'm stuck with the bill regardless, however.

Re: TV price rises
 

l think you will find in the last poll dear Carl that the customers wanting reminders were in the majority.:erm:

Re: TV price rises
 

So they can't win whatever they do; which was actually my point ;)

Hmm. Maybe.

Merely as another example of VM listening to it's customers; something a lot of people say they never do :)

---------- Post added at 09:44 ---------- Previous post was at 09:43 ----------

Which national poll of all VM users was that then? Because I certainly don't remember being asked. Could you perhaps provide a link to the final results posted somewhere? Thanks.

Re: TV price rises
 

Ah, so you are suggesting Virgin Media ignore the vocal minority when it comes to their products?

Re: TV price rises
 

No, I'm suggesting they take into account their entire customer base when making decisions, not just those who make the most noise. That might already be happening, doubtless you'll tell me it is. But I never once complained about the old bill, I have spent 40 minutes on the phone having somebody go through the new bill. The cs rep was excellent, so I fail to see why this excellence wasn't brought to bear on those who originally had the problem. Perception is everything, and it seems to me that I never had a problem with the old bill but because of a vocal minority Virgin changed things around meaning they've been quietened, which is fine except now I'm the one with the problem, which doesn't seem right or fair. Had they just spent the time and patience with the original complainants that they eventually had to spend with me they'd have two happy customers rather than two who have now both had cause for complaint. Really poor knee jerk way to deal with things.

Re: TV price rises
 

And lots of customers did the exact same thing with the old bills.

Which I'm sorry to say seems like that's an 'I'm alright Jack' type attitude.

No company can survey their entire customer base, however VM do survey as many of those customers that contact VM as is possible to understand why they've contacted VM and if there is anything they could do to improve services so that contact may not be needed again.

They then have teams that use the feedback to to extrapolate it to the whole customer base, to get the business to make the changes that will improve things.

VM did spend time and patience with the original complainants - I should know, I used to work on the phone, and dealt with lots of call per day of 'I don't understand my bill, it's says I'm being charged 'X' but your website it's 'Y''

I can assure you the bill format change was not a knee jerk reaction, but was based off many years of complaints about the bill format. However there were limited options to change how the bills are put together due to the way the system works.

---------- Post added at 11:54 ---------- Previous post was at 11:36 ----------

Oh forgot to add, the new bill format was piloted in some areas of the country before launch too, and was closely monitored to see if caused an increase in calls with people saying they didn't understand it. As far as I know calls in to get the bill explained went down

Re: TV price rises
 

Well put Andy.

Then maybe the whole system should have been changed? The fact is, detailed transparency is missing from the new system. That lack of detailed information has been highlighted by people wanting a breakdown of the forthcoming price rises. The old system, clunky as it was, could have provided that breakdown; the new system can't. It looks like the people responsible for the new system didn't think it through properly.

Re: TV price rises
 

We've been over this. The underlying system is still the same and one which Telewest introduced, because it not only controls the bills, but also the TV, Broadband and Phone provisioning and quite a lot of other things too. http://telecoms.cbronline.com/news/v...ffering-011111

The only change that has been made is to the physical bill format - because that is what customers were saying they didn't like.

To change the whole system would probably cost millions of pounds and be a multi-year project.

Re: TV price rises
 

Maybe I'm wrong, but my interpretation of that is that the information is still there?

If so, why can't it be made available to customers upon request?

Re: TV price rises
 

The detail bears no relation to the prices VM actually charge, and haven't done so for YEARS. I think the last time VM actually charged the system prices for broadband was in 2007

If you want the detail, it's on the printed VAT bills

Re: TV price rises
 

I'm not sure I'm getting the fact that the older bill style was more transparent. Yes, you're seeing how much each component costs but then you have this bundle discount lumped in there. How much of this discount goes towards each part of the package? Does this change depending on costs? Do we really need this info at all?

I'm with Ben on this one - you have a package price from VM. VM obviously want people on packages for financial forecasting reasons. How VM portion out the income from your bill to various parts of the company isn't really relevant as long as you get the services you need

Re: TV price rises
 

So - WHAT EXACTLY will happen to those with 2 Tivo's, who currently pay £3 per account? A decision must have already been made by VM about this? I'm very interested in this specific scenario as it applies to me!

Re: TV price rises
 

There is a price increase that's included in the total price change you will be notified about - however the struture of the TiVo charges hasn't changed.

So if you pay per account, you continue to pay per account.

Re: TV price rises
 

So I'd have to change back to printed bill and lose my e-billing discount?

Why can't these be made available via e-billing?

Re: TV price rises
 

The ebilling system is tied into the normal billing run, so shows what the normal printed bills show.

The VAT bills are a special run for the small set of customers that require them and are received after the normal bills/ebills are

Re: TV price rises
 

Well a bill that has the individual prices for each service and then a bundle discount should allow a customer to mentally remove the discount and then know what it would cost them if they wanted to drop a service. That's transparency. It doesn't, I accept that it probably can't, but I don't need to be accused of having an "I'm alright, Jack " attitude for expressing my disappointment that Virgin are incapable of providing the sort of information that everyone of their competitors manages.

Re: TV price rises
 

No, it wouldn't, because there is no indication of what part of the discount applies to which service. You would have to speak to Virgin Media to find out.

Also with the current Collections and deals offered by Customer Relations there is no discount split between services - the adjustments are there to take the whole set of services to a set price.

That wasn't what I was saying. You complained that VM changed the bills to something others may like and you don't, rather than keeping it as something you like but others don't.

Re: TV price rises
 

l have just had a email explaining the forthcoming price rises and how much it will go up by and it is going up by £4.59 on the 1st of February so in the 10 months going backwards from next february my bill will have gone up by a massive £11.00.:(

Re: TV price rises
 

had no word here yet but looks like be leaving and just having vm bb here

Re: TV price rises
 

Im away to sky taking all my services there after 11 years of Virgin (so they told me) not sure if that included Telewest or not!,retentions tried to keep me as they "value your custom"but after 30 mins said no im away to sky ("and all it's faults") VM then told me I would be charged £11.00 for terminating my contract early (on a 30 day rolling contract)
oh um

Re: TV price rises
 

That would only happen if you wanted to disconnect earlier than the 30 days notice that's required even if you are cancelling under the price change clause.

Re: TV price rises
 

thanks Ben and that was after she spent about 40 mins trying to persuade me to stay,

Re: TV price rises
 

I didn't say it would, I said it should. I don't know why you're defending this, Ben. The prices on the website bear no relation to what customers actually pay, people are having price increases but have no idea what services they relate to so have no idea what they're actually getting for their extra money or what they're paying it for (whilst both Sky and Bt are able to produce a breakdown), and the billing system only works in either "so vague nobody has a clue" or "so much detail it results in complaints" mode. You must surely be the only person here who thinks that sounds reasonable.

Re: TV price rises
 

I'm not going to go into this for the 5th or 20th or whatever the number of times we've gone over the same ground

You have one view, I have another - I think we should leave it at that

Re: TV price rises
 

A typical Virgin Media stance on what customers REALLY want.......I rest my case...

Re: TV price rises
 

Actually they are no different to ant other media company with the way they set out prices if you can show that to be wrong do provide proof as oddly it is typical of any similar company.

Re: TV price rises
 

Yes however we are Virgin customers, and this is a Virgin minded forum. I don't care about other providers, I care about the company I pay my money to. Just because others do it, doesn't mean Virgin should follow suit. Customers are giving Virgin valuable feedback here. It's up to Virgin whether they listen to their customers or not.

Re: TV price rises
 

Yes. A small minority of customers. Whereas they own general research, from sending out links to surveys (probably to a larger number of customers) and, I assume, comments received by their CS reps, have told them something different.

But you are right in that there is a precedent for them acting on the wishes of a small but vocal minority (Reminders).

I preferred the old layout, but if more people want the new one then so be it. It's not all about just what I want :)

You can see why I'm on the fence here, right? ;)

Re: TV price rises
 

You are also aware that this is not an official Virgin Media forum and therefore Virgin Media are not going to take any notice of what goes on here as the is no official representation of the company here in any capacity.

If you want to complain on a Virgin Media forum then do so HERE

Also remember not everyone who posts on this forum or even this thread is a Virgin Media customer so my comment above is right and points out the is little or no difference between similar media companies as all will and do follow suit.:rolleyes:

Re: TV price rises
 

On triple xl. Pay approx £56 per month. Just got letter for price increase of £5.34 per month. Might be time to reduce my services down.

Re: TV price rises
 

That is indeed a shocking increase of around 10% on your current bill and to many of us that is quite unacceptable.

Re: TV price rises
 

I’m fully aware this isn’t an official Virgin Media forum. I’m also fully aware there is no official representation of the company here. I however do not agree that Virgin Media are not going to take any notice of what goes on here. I’ve seen plenty of examples across this site of Virgin Media employees picking up complaints, feedback and queries from Cable Forum members and escalating them with their employer. This has resulted in changes being implemented. I’m sure some of our regular posters who are employed by Virgin can confirm this. If Virgin however ignore the views and feedback posted on Cable Forum then that, in my opinion, is to their determent. The threads here tend to get much more interaction than their own official site.

Also I’m fully aware that not everyone who posts here is a Virgin customer. The people who are complaining about their bills however clearly are. I’m not disagreeing that other media companies might set their prices out in a similar way. I don’t care what other companies do as I’m not a customer with them. You do raise an interesting point about all companies just following suit. Who is Virgin following? Are others just following Virgins’ lead? If you can provide proof of that, that would be a very interesting read.

Re: TV price rises
 

I have been looking at returning to VM in the next few months and am some what concerned by these rises, as Denphone says, 10% is quite a hike on a bill!

I remember not so long ago the price rise letters used to state, for example, £2 increase in TV, 50p increase in Tel and £1 in BB. If you were lucky they held the price on one of your services, but this was probably a psycological thing to make the customer feel they are not been completely hard done by.

I think most people accept prices go up and could stomach £1 or £2 but any more than that and people get angry. I think VM have got this one majorly wrong and it will interesting to see the next batch of customer figures

Re: TV price rises
 

No-one is ignoring anything that is posted here, and I certainly do feed things back

However, in this case, feedback from direct surveys of VM's customers by VM themselves was used to inform the bill redesign - within the available options.

Re: TV price rises
 

I did notice the multi room streaming screen shots on the VM site were quickly changed after I commented on the fact they had Sky Living as an example in the MRS thread. Your handy work I presume ;)

Re: TV price rises
 

Just got my letter. £2.59 increase. Not too bad, but still £30 a year. But this is all I spend my money on* (ie don't go out, no take-aways, etc.) so I'll stick with it for a while and see what happens.

(* Yes, after other living expenses, of course!)

Re: TV price rises
 

Virgin have kindly informed me of a £4.59 increase...

Re: TV price rises
 

So does this mean that for a customer who has the same package as Carl Waring ie. XL tv, XL phone, 1TB tivo and 30mb BB package it will also be £2.59 ?

Re: TV price rises
 

Exactly the same as mine but the combined price rises once this comes in will be a very naughty £11 plus for the last 10 months.:(

Re: TV price rises
 

Do you have the 'Praise Company to High Heaven' discount on your bill?

Re: TV price rises
 

:p:

I actually just called and paid the for the Line Rental Saver option, so that's another £50-odd saved :)

I used the "thinking of leaving us" option (5 then 3) because I know they can offer better (and new) deals/services for existing customers that the standard CS reps.

So I suggest you do the same. You might just find a nice new deal or money-saving new service. (Hint, hint.)