[davidthornton]

Originally Posted by Joedm45

Putting it on the bill should be the only option as Cozzy says. Who in their right mind would give CC details to someone who phoned them

Me? At worst, if I am defrauded the credit card company refunds me and cancels the card. No loss to me.

---------- Post added at 01:15 ---------- Previous post was at 01:09 ----------

Originally Posted by Cozzy

having been a victim of identity theif there is no way i will ever give card details to some stranger over the phone .. just never gonna happen so VM get your act together and let us pay via our monthly bill.

When Virgin Media phone you they already have all of your details. They know what package you are on and are happy to go into the specific details. When you pay the upfront charge on your CC they don't ask for your address again (why would they, as they already have it). If, at worst, that somehow got into the wrong hands then your CC company refunds you and you get a new card. I've had one of my cards cloned loads of times and that is exactly what happens.

---------- Post added at 01:40 ---------- Previous post was at 01:15 ----------

Originally Posted by Horizon

Disagree.

But you own that box.

So? Why would you want to own any Sky box without an active Sky subscription? What use is it really, these days, when basic Freesat boxes are next to nothing or built into the TV.

The monthly fee we pay VM is made up of three parts:

a. Subscription fees for tv, broadband and/or telephone services.
b. Rental fees for equipment.
c. A fee to connect to VM's network - VM call it telephone line rental.

Because we pay rental fees for equipment, we can get the equipment fixed/replaced if it breaks. It's not free to fix/replace equipment as many people believe, we pay for it every month.

So with Virgin Media, given the equipment repairs are included in what you pay per month you are actually better off with them than with Sky (where equipment repairs are not included in the monthly subscription)

I won't go into V+ as that's old news, but with Tivo, VM propose and I repeat propose, as we don't know all the charges yet, to charge us the following:

1. Our usual monthly fees as outlined above.
2. An additionally monthly charge of £3 to use the service.
3. An upfront charge of one kind or another.

It costs your monthly subscription (minimum XL TV), £149 upwards one off charge per box, depending on your past relationship with Virgin Media and/or TiVo, and £3p/m per TiVo box.

VM propose to charge an upfront fee (item 3) for a box that VM still owns. I'm already paying monthly rental equipment fees (item 1) as outlined above, so what is the upfront fee for?

The one off charge per piece of equipment goes someway to offset the cost of the production of that equipment. Sky also charged these kind of prices at launch, and new Sky HD+ boxes cost £180 or more. The fact that you own the Sky box at the start, and you never own the Virgin Media box, is irrelevant. However if my original Thomson Sky+ HD box finally goes bang (and I think it might soon), Sky won't give me a replacement Sky+ HD box for free (despite the fact that I paid £299 for it when it came out). Virgin Media will always replace any box I have purchased, like for like.

Then to add insult to injury, VM propose to charge an additional £3 per month (item 2) to use the service even though I am already paying them to use their cable tv service (item 1). I'm already paying monthly service charges (item 1), so what the hell is the £3 for. What do VM do to earn that £3? Absolutely nothing, of course!!

Service charge for using the extra services that are available via TiVo boxes.

But hey I'm sure many will say that's fair, ok. But what if you leave VM? You've paid them a non-refundable upfront fee to purchase a box which you do not own on top of normal monthly rental charges and an additional £3 per month surcharge.

Well you'd factor the one off cost of the equipment against how many months you think you'll likely stick with Virgin Media. So if you depreciate it over 18 months (which is the length of the contract Virgin Media told me that you automatically renew for if you take out TiVo), it's less than £10 per month (as a TiVo S1 owner) or about £10 a month otherwise. The same applies to those, myself included, who took out a Sky HD+ box when that was launched. That box was £299upfront, but depreciate it over 12 months which is the minimum term of a Sky contract.

[snip]

I have waited for something like tivo on cable for 10 years. V+ was poor and I never bothered with it. If it had been 10 years ago, perhaps I might have been more relaxed about the charges. But I watch my pennies now and they are pennies and I am not putting up with this nonsense. VM are saying bend over and take it, no I won't!

They're saying nothing of the sort. They are only offering TiVo to XL TV customers and are pitching it as a high end product which isn't for everyone. You don't have to partake as it's optional, but if you want to then it costs as above. If you cannot afford it, I'm sorry but wait until you can. I had a S1 TiVo back in 2001 and have waited for the day when TiVo finally came back to the UK. Therefore I've put down for three TiVo boxes to replace my three V+ boxes but I'd budgeted to do this ever since I heard about TiVo coming to Virgin Media early in 2010, so had already put money aside for this, and I think the costs seem fair in comparison to those of Sky+ HD. As a TiVo S1 owner I have also saved three lots of install fees by doing this in one go, which is £120.

---------- Post added at 01:51 ---------- Previous post was at 01:40 ----------

Originally Posted by Joedm45

I'm sure I once saw something on the VM website that if you pay a lump sum, £200 rings a bell, then they will remove the monthly V+ charge of £10. However this may have been before it was free on TV XL. I've had a quick look but there's a high chance that web page no longer exists.

From memory, the V+ box was originally £10 a month unless you paid a lump sum of something between £150 and £200 for that fee to be removed. I cannot remember if there was a purchase price for the box as well.

In late 2007, I think, V+ boxes became half price, at £75 one off charge which was supposed to be for first time V+ customers only. Existing V+ customers, who wanted additional boxes, were supposed to pay £150 per additional box and then £5 per month per box for the V+ service. However many existing customers managed to get additional boxes for £75 per box (myself included). At the time, the V+ box was the only Virgin Media box which supported HD, so if you wanted HD output you had to have it. The new V HD box came later.