Virgin Media - Poor customer service

[Nicklebox]

We have been with Virgin Media for years and i am fed up with how they constantly put up the prices. The latest hike is enormous. I've been calling them to try to negotiate a lower price but they constantly don't answer simple questions. Instead they try to distract by telling you what package you already have, never giving answers to direct questions and offering a "better deal" i just want to pay less money. We currently pay £66 for broadband lowest speed, TV mixed (whatever that is) and phone with calls anytime. Looking online the same to new customers is a lot less. I asked what just the broadband would cost and the said £70 so more than i'm paying now. Also asked what the calls per minute are but they were unable to tell me. I'm so frustrated, asked for manager several times but no luck with that either. Can i ask what others are paying and what package they have. Also any advice would be great.

I cancelled virgin completely, as we didn't have the tv and we don't use the phone. I switched to talk talk and more than halved my bill. The only tv we watch though is on Amazon prime or netflix though, so I didn't care about the tv package.

My DH wants to keep the broadband but they said it would go up to £70 to do that.

Agree...awful and useless, we pay £49 for internet only and its going up next month to £53. I used to have a direct number for an irish call centre but no longer works, they wont speak to me about reducing bill as its in a friends name who is a registered missing person..They cant understand that is why he cannot speak to them etc...i will switch soon to community fibre as half price, virgin dont care if you want to haggle or leave, they used to reduce the amount but now dont.

When you ring select the option that you are thinking of leaving them , when you get through tell them you can't afford it and they can usually get you a better deal cheaper

£36 a month with BT for their fastest, no other stuff tacked on though but I still think £70 a month is extortion unless it's some sort of magic broadband.

I've been with virgin since I bought my first house almost 20 years ago. I moved recently so told them I was cancelling the service. They offered me some deals that were cheaper to try and get me to stay (I was on about £72 per month at that point) and I said I didn't want them, they all included an 02 SIM card that I have no use for. Eventually I said that on their website, new customers were getting a £37.99 deal and why couldn't I have that. They agreed.

I do however now have an ongoing complaint with them which has just gone to the ombudsman because they haven't upgraded my tv box, which was part of the new contract. In my experience with negotiating better prices with them, you have to say you're going to cancel and actually be prepared to do so.

BreviloquentBastard · Today 16:40

£36 a month with BT for their fastest, no other stuff tacked on though but I still think £70 a month is extortion unless it's some sort of magic broadband.

No we just have the most basic available lol

A friend told them she was cancelling in the hope of a better deal. The cut her off earlier then they said, couldn't reconnect as her contact was cancelled anyway so 'only' a few days earlier.

Those few days? Friday the schools broke up with 3 kids, no Internet and no TV. Don't know how she survived the week 😬😂

Whatever you do don't change to BT - their customer service is astoundingly shit.

I pay £20 a month to talk talk, and honestly the only difference is that talk talk has been more reliable.

It’s not awful, it’s non existent. We had a router for 3 years that was faulty and wouldn’t reach beyond 2 rooms. They refused to do anything about it. When the 3 years was up we cancelled and moved to BT for half the price. Virgin wouldn’t give us details of how to get their shit router back to them but kept threatening to charge us for it if we didn’t return it. Would never go back to that company ever again.

We moved away from Virgin because the broadband deteriorated and became awful, it just dropped out all the time.

But before that, we were in a contract for a few years and twice I just phoned up and asked for a deal to stay or else I would move elsewhere as various companies were doing deals for around £25 a month. Both times they'd say if you agree to another 18 month contract we can do it for £28/29 a month, which I agreed to as it saved the hassle of switching. No extended negotiating or waiting on hold for ages, just a quick 10 minute call each time.

The third time I wouldn't stay at any price and now we have BT full fibre broadband and pay £37 ish a month including landline and a call allowance (it would be £30 without, but we have no mobile signal in our house so needed the landline, except we've now discovered the wonder that is wifi calling, so I need to see if I can cancel that). I think we got about £100 cashback when we signed up, or an Amazon voucher of a similar value. And the broadband is faster and much more reliable. Customer service has been absolutely fine.

Look on Moneysaving Expert. They will show you all the deals and you can look for the speed/service that you need for a lot less than £60/70. Why does your DH want to keep Virgin Broadband?

For TV, we have Freesat and also rotate round Now, Netflix, Prime, Paramount Plus etc, we only ever pay for 1 or 2 at a time as we wouldn't have time to watch lots of different things and make it worthwhile paying for more.

£30 for broadband, tv and a o2 sim only deal with virgin.

Not with them anymore but I used to hate the way they’d send the letter and be so jolly about it. Like they were doing you a favour or something by putting the cost up by above the rate of inflation 🤷‍♀️

Oh, and to top it off, the reason we’re not with them is because they literally don’t supply our new build estate. Not our fault whatsoever. Yet the cheeky sods wanted us to pay the remaining three months on our contract to end it! I had to have a right argument with a senior manager before they’d wipe that charge. Guess who won’t be getting my business if/when they ever supply our estate?!!