Am I paying too much?
 

I'm confused! I'm led to believe i'm getting a good deal cos of an old rententions deal, but looking at the VM site i'm not so sure anymore :shrug:

This is what my bills say:

Line Rental - £11.00
Talk Evening & Weekend - £3.45
Loyalty Bb/Phone/TV Discount - -£22.70
Call bar, Calldispl - £3.50
TV Size XL - £23.00
Broadband Size: L - £25.00
Paper bill - £1.25 << oops need to sort this

Total - £44.50


Doesn't seem right to me, because before extras it's about £38 according to VM site, and yet i'm meant to be getting a £22.70 discount?

Am i paying too much? I don't want to ring up and look like a goon so thought i'd ask here before i do :dunce:


Not to mention i'm getting a grand total of 2meg download speed but i suppose that's another story altogether :td:

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

Simple answer - no you are not paying to much.

Those services should cost £52.95 (£54.20 with the paper bill fee)

Remember you have to add £11 line rental onto any price on the website that includes the phoneline (which it does say)

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

IMO the web site price should include that automatically.

But then I suppose if they did that they couldn't quote cheaper prices than sky.

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

Oh i thought it did include the line rental....

So when i go here: http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html...e-builder.html and tick all the XL options and it says £47 pm. after 6 months, they really mean £58? :shrug:

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

Yes because once again, you have to add £11 line rental - just as it says!

£40 a month*
for 6 months, £47 after that

*When you take a Virgin phone line for £11 a month

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

I see, thanks for the help!

p.s why am i paying £3.50 for the extras, i thought it was only that much when you had all of them in one bundle?

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

Features now cost £2 each, but the feature bundle is £3.50 so it will always charge you the lower price.

If you want to pay £4 for them I'm sure they can add 50p to the account each month ;)

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

This is one of the wholly disreputable things about the VM pricing display.

There is no TV option without the phone line. You can't remove the phone line from the basket.

Yet, the web site has a low TV price in bold bright colours and in poor contrast small print, the £11 for a phone line, which is compulsory. I find this shameful. (See the attached picture).

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

True but isn't £16.50 per month cheaper than 1 mix from Sky and you get your telephone line rental thrown in?

There are bundles without the phone line for TV alone or TV plus BB but not at such low prices.

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

What you say may be true. But that isn't the issue her.

Virgin do not display their prices in a straightforward manner. I can't say it's dishonest, but it is disreputable to my mind.

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

I agree that things are not put straightforwardly but Virgin Media are competing with others and try to market their products as comparably as possible. Unfortunately, the competition ALWAYS have the phone line charge in the small print so Virgin Media have done the same.

What additional charge for TV would BT, Sky, ..... levy on top of their landline charge?

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

I can't agree with you. Taking broadband as the case in point:

1/
BT: By definition, BT broadband prices must assume a phone line. No way round that and no deception.

2/
SKY: You can take move your telephone to SKY and then their 10 mbps service is £5; without their phone it's £10. Their web site panel is clear and unambiguous.

3/
Virgin: Unless I've missed something in their checkout basket, you are forced to take their telephone if you take either their cable broadband or TV. You are told there is no need to retain your BT line; but VM don't provide any services via the BT line like BT and SKY do.

So, unless there's some method I've not discovered for not taking a VM phone line with BB, there's no valid comparison with other broadband providers.

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

You do not have to have a Virgin Media phone line for any of their services!

I have their TV and BB but no phone.

They have plenty of options without phone line:

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/webs...ct.do?id=11025

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/webs...uct.do?id=3264

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

Well i'm confused, why is my supposed 'L' BB listed on my bill at being £25 when on the website it clearly says it's £14 pm?

My line rental is also listed so it's not that :shrug:

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/webs...uct.do?id=3264



And, TV 'XL' is on the site as £21.50 yet mine is £23

I feel like i'm being skanked lol.

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

Both prices on the website are after discounts. So you get a £1.50 discount for having a phoneline and TV

£23 - £1.50 = £21.50

and you get a £11 discount for having Broadband L and Phoneline

£25 - £11 = £14

So the total discount you should be getting is £12.50, however you are getting a £22.70 discount.

Hardly getting skanked!

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

Your not the only one who thinks VM's billing is confusing and convaluted Pia, why on earth they can't make the bills simplier and clearer is beyond me :shrug: because at present they about as clear as mud.
I'm aware that Ben finds them easy enough to understand;) maybe because he deals with them on a daily basis, but they are far from clear to the average customer.

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

Well Ben I think several of those who posted here clearly find VMs billing extremely confusing.Is there any indication that they will be making it clearer in future? It might save a lot of resentment and stop all these retention deals if they did.

Plus it would make it far easier to work out comparisons with other providers much,much less confusing.After all if VM are a better deal it should be as clear as crystal not as opaque as mud.;)

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

The £22.70 discount is completely irrelevant, it's a loyalty discount given by retentions to keep me there, it doesn't mean they can overcharge me on all services to make up their shortfall.
If that's what they're doing then i am being skanked of my loyalty discount.

Also, where on the site does it say that, it doesn't seem clear to me? I have all 3 services so i should have all the discounts aswell as my retentions offer, shouldn't i?

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

everyone in a bundle gets a loyalty discount now Pia lol unless of course you want to change your bundle. Hopefully one day VM will be forced to price things up transparently so customers will not need to query the bills cuz they make no sense

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

Well i was given the discount before i took the TV, and it was given to me as a 'rententions' deal ages ago.

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

I think its a deliberate ploy to confuse the customer myself

---------- Post added at 10:06 ---------- Previous post was at 10:05 ----------

you have lost that by changing your package.

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

They said i could keep the discount but they increased it a bit to make the TV cheaper cos i was umming and ahh-ing about taking the TV.

Pfft, it's just confusing. I do feel like i've been slightly mislead tbh.

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

You are not being overcharged. You are getting £10.20 more discount than you should for the services.

You either get a standard bundle discount OR a Loyalty discount. You never get both because that is not how it works and hasn't done for almost 3 years

Re: Am I paying too much?
 

The web site doesn't mention discounts - at least not on the referenced price page. This is what's so disreputable about VM's people who defend phantom discounts.

£14 + £11 = £25 MUST be the only valid way of interpreting the VM web site headline prices.