Virgin Media - Above Inflation Rises from 1st February

[ileikcaek]

We never received a letter telling us what our bill was going to be from this month, I just checked this months bill and had bill-shock, our 200Mb and basic Phone has gone from £45.99 to £49.48!! That's an increase of £3.49.

We have a £6 loyalty discount too, when that ends our bill will be £55.48.

This price increase is quite frankly disgusting.

I would like to not have to pay the payment handling fee of £5.00, that would save a little money but I live with my mother, it's her account and she refuses to pay that way.

[japitts]

A, ha. Glad to know I wasn't the only person to not get any notification then.

[nashville]

Not good news at all

[Kushan]

Call them up and talk to them about it.

[23prince]

I did call them up about it and I was told that it was what she called an "invisible discount" and there was no price rise from £28.50 to £30.25 for 50mbps customers.

I was looking to renew but after hearing that little gem of a toilet chunk I cancelled the whole lot.

I won't be lied to. If it was not a price increase why did so many others get told about it!

I tried 200 and it was terrible anyway - and this is meant to be a 300 business area!

Sorry I forgot to say I was also someone who didn't get told about the price rise. I didn't use my connection for about 4 months due to renovation but paid the bill and didn't know it had gone up.

All meant nothing to VM in the end. I am borrowing a BT connection until I can get some FTTC installed.

[Kushan]

Email tom Mockerage and tell him.

[23prince]

Who me? I might well do for the sake of customer feedback but it wouldn't stop me from leaving. I've arranged to pay my neighbour £5 for a month of usage while she is away and in the mean time I am going to get BT Infinity installed.

One thing I do a lot of is FTP and te single thread speeds I get are really really bad, less than 10mbps most of the time. I struggle to get more than 1-2mbps on Virgin even though it starts off at around 9MB/sec ( from a server with 100mbps symmetrical) where as on BT it sticks at 9 all day long.

[Dr Gonzo]

I decided to cancel Virgin last night, and go with the Sky half price offer.

I think the final straw was seeing my recent bill creep up to £77 (excluding any off plan call charges), that and there was a little section on the bill that said it included my £8 loyalty discount, however it said CR £2.97 in that section.
That's for TVXL, 152Mbps BB, Phone XL

Queried that with Virgin, and they said that I'd lose that discount at the end of March anyway taking my services upto £80.
Best they could offer me was TVXL, 100Mbps BB and Phone XL for £72 (ish) or same offer with Evening and weekends at £68

Sky's offer was Family bundle, Fibre unlimited, both 50% off for 12 months, evening and weekend calls (including to mobiles) and line rental for £49.40
Signed up for that, and phoned Virgin back to cancel and they said they couldn't get anywhere near that.

If they could have got down to somewhere near £55 - £60 for a package including TVXL then I might have stayed.

[Kushan]

You are absolutely right to vote with your wallet.

[progers]

I phoned up as my £50 was going up from £50 by £3.99, decided to go from TV XL to M+ as we rarely watch the channels we would lose.

Was asked if I wanted to go down to 50M or up to 100M as I couldn't stay on 70M; what's the price difference says I? Nothing says she!.......No brainier so now on 100M and paying £37 instead.

To me, their business model seems wrong, instead of say losing the £3.99 increase, they have now lost £13 per month, seems crazy and shortsighted!

[23prince]

Originally Posted by Dr Gonzo

I decided to cancel Virgin last night, and go with the Sky half price offer.

I think the final straw was seeing my recent bill creep up to £77 (excluding any off plan call charges), that and there was a little section on the bill that said it included my £8 loyalty discount, however it said CR £2.97 in that section.
That's for TVXL, 152Mbps BB, Phone XL

Queried that with Virgin, and they said that I'd lose that discount at the end of March anyway taking my services upto £80.
Best they could offer me was TVXL, 100Mbps BB and Phone XL for £72 (ish) or same offer with Evening and weekends at £68

Sky's offer was Family bundle, Fibre unlimited, both 50% off for 12 months, evening and weekend calls (including to mobiles) and line rental for £49.40
Signed up for that, and phoned Virgin back to cancel and they said they couldn't get anywhere near that.

If they could have got down to somewhere near £55 - £60 for a package including TVXL then I might have stayed.

I took the TV offer when I left VM and got the top sky TV with Movies and Sports with 2 tivo's and all the extras for £43.49. I'll call them up when my contract runs out in July see what they can do for me with Fibre although I suspect I have missed that boat as it was a leave VM exclusive like you have got.

Bloody good deal though!

[Dr Gonzo]

Originally Posted by Kushan

You are absolutely right to vote with your wallet.

I've been with Virgin for about 7 years, started on M+ with 20 Mb BB, seen the price increase from around £30 per month to £80 (more so since I've been on the Big Kahuna), probably risen about £20 in the last two years for me, and that's including deals.

Originally Posted by progers

I phoned up as my £50 was going up from £50 by £3.99, decided to go from TV XL to M+ as we rarely watch the channels we would lose.

Was asked if I wanted to go down to 50M or up to 100M as I couldn't stay on 70M; what's the price difference says I? Nothing says she!.......No brainier so now on 100M and paying £37 instead.

To me, their business model seems wrong, instead of say losing the £3.99 increase, they have now lost £13 per month, seems crazy and shortsighted!

It's to keep the customers, I find it bizarre that certain combinations of their products trigger deals, and others increase the bundle price astronomically.
I like Sky's pricing for that, as it's clear what you get, and discounts are applied over all different variations of the service so you can pick and chose what you want.

Originally Posted by 23prince

I took the TV offer when I left VM and got the top sky TV with Movies and Sports with 2 tivo's and all the extras for £43.49. I'll call them up when my contract runs out in July see what they can do for me with Fibre although I suspect I have missed that boat as it was a leave VM exclusive like you have got.

Bloody good deal though!

I think the current Sky deal is 50% TV for Virgin or BT customers switching, and the BB deal is for everyone, but not sure on offers for upgrading.

Although I have heard stories of people getting stupidly good deals from Sky just to stay with them (most of them put in their cancellation notice though).

[Stop It]

Originally Posted by Dr Gonzo

I decided to cancel Virgin last night, and go with the Sky half price offer.

I think the final straw was seeing my recent bill creep up to £77 (excluding any off plan call charges), that and there was a little section on the bill that said it included my £8 loyalty discount, however it said CR £2.97 in that section.
That's for TVXL, 152Mbps BB, Phone XL

Queried that with Virgin, and they said that I'd lose that discount at the end of March anyway taking my services upto £80.
Best they could offer me was TVXL, 100Mbps BB and Phone XL for £72 (ish) or same offer with Evening and weekends at £68

Sky's offer was Family bundle, Fibre unlimited, both 50% off for 12 months, evening and weekend calls (including to mobiles) and line rental for £49.40
Signed up for that, and phoned Virgin back to cancel and they said they couldn't get anywhere near that.

If they could have got down to somewhere near £55 - £60 for a package including TVXL then I might have stayed.

Not a bad offer. I suspect now the price rises are "locked in" that VM wont be as aggressive with their offers now.

Back in the new year I rang up to query the price rise. I was facing a near £5 increase for TV XL, 200mb and M phone from £63 to nearer £68. I was given a decrease in my bill for 9 months to £58, a one off credit of £54, and an upgrade to the Sky Sports package for free. Come September I shall see what to do as I can't see that deal continuing, so I may ditch the Sports and continue with the package otherwise unchanged.

[horseman]

Seems like some here have missed a "trick" or 3 unfortunately?
My Big K bundle is still intact as of a year ago free upgrade from 50Tier and the Feb/March increase was £2.99 - a bit closer to RPI.
Simple to mitigate the rise (for a year until next rise in 4Q probably) by using the Line Rental Saver before Feb and then renegotiate again this May when current loyalty discounts finish. LRS works out at about £166 (allowing for loss of interest) and not £184 etc.
Perversely (albeit creative accounting) the monthly bill is now ~£15 cheaper pcm than this time last year!

[Dr Gonzo]

Missed a call from Putbound Retentions this morning.
Spoke to VM this evening to ask them to call in the evening.

Will see what they have to offer if they call again..