Is Virgin Media basically telling its old customers just P off?!

[IwantToRetire]

I am not surprised by this, and know it has been an issue for some time, but talk about telling your existing customers you aren't valued!

My current contract which is due to expire is around £70pm - it was a discounted deal and has had bits added to it for free over past 2 years.

So they tell me if I want to renew with same content, it will now be £170pm

Or then can do a stripped down package for £130pm

And then at the end of the email they tell me that the stripped down package of £130 offered to me, for a new customer would be £40.

Hardly a clever sales tactic!

Talk about letting you know they dont care about you!

Thanks for letting me rant.

It's the total cheek of being so blatant!

Phone them.
Cancel your package - JUST AFTER your monthly payment date ( so you have time left between that phone call before your service is cut off. ie the physical cut off can’t be done until a month after your last payment , as you are paying them a month in advance )

They will ring you back on the first or second of the month and offer you a much better deal to stay. And they will cancel your ‘cancellation’

insider info - The number of deals they can offer you are limited. There are only a certain number per month. When they’re gone they’re gone. So ALWAYS ring to negotiate your new deal in the first couple of days of the calendar month. That’s when they have the very best deals on their screen to offer you.

Interestingly the VM offers number has rung me twice despite my telling them I want to leave.

But just cant face silly telephone games and am having a break over the weekend.

Also still getting feedback from local residents re good internet providers. None of them seem to be perfect.

But bad as I feel about how they are trying to run rings round me, I am so sorry for those who have been treated so badly by VM at a time of loss or illness.

What a crap world it has become.

We just swap provider every five years. BT did not care last year when we told them we were moving to Virgin. They just said ‘Oh well, we can’t match that price so go ahead.’ The chap on the customer service line even told us the best date to cancel to get the most for our money and avoid exit fees.

I think they’re all the same. We just left sky and went to virgin media for the same reason. Price went up a lot and new customers were getting a great deal. I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ll just have to swap providers every couple of years to get a good deal.

I've been with VM for around 15 years, I stuck with the name changes from the mid 90s and have never had Sky or any of the other companies.

I might be in a small minority but I've never had a problem with VM. I currently have BB, TV and landline and now have Netflix and Sky Atlantic for £66 per month plus a stream box.

They come out pretty quickly when there is a problem, no charge, not even when I accidentally cut through the landline when hacking back next door's overgrown bushes that had come through the fence.

I find them quite easy to deal with on the phone (so far) but I've seen plenty of people whinging about Sky and Toob so unless VM give me an outrageous contract when this one ends, I probably will stick with them.

We’ve just gone to Virgin from Sky because they do exactly the same. Don’t think sky are any better!

Ring them up and they will do you a better deal.

Virgin media are the worst.. Took me ages to extricate myself and complicated sending back their shit. New provider community Fibre is cheap and fab

useful insider info, but it's ridiculous to have to play "chase me" games with a service provider. there should be standard advertised prices so everyone knows what the costs are, not individual deals

Well I am coming back to report on what happened to me, and my only excuse is that I have a terrible cold and can hardly talk let alone think.

I realised today by not following up immediately after that told me my £70pm package was going up to £170, that I was now under the 30 days to cancel.

So rang back, and although she went through a whole who are you, why are you phoning, she offered me my same package at the same rate - and have given me Netflix for 2 years free.

So I just gave in. And have accepted. But said this was all too stressful and because of them discontinuing the email service which they were able to tell me I have had for 19 years and 11 months(!) and would be less likely to continue.

I really appreciate all the posts on this thread, and feel my circumstances are nothing like as bad as others have been put through by VM - and others.

I haven't heard anything from them about emails, but did receive this this morning about closing the VM Store. Sounds like VM may have been bought out?

Virgin Media Store is closing
Rakuten TV is your new destination for watching movies and TV box sets

Virgin Media Store is closing. From 1 November 2026, you’ll need a Rakuten TV account to buy and watch movies and TV box sets. Once you have an account, you’ll be able to:

• Access a library of over 10,000 movies and shows
• Enjoy Rakuten TV’s movies and live TV at no extra cost
• Watch in Ultra HD

Getting set up is super simple:

• Head here
• Enter your username and password
• Accept the terms

And that’s it – leave the rest to us.

I think they haven't been bought out but were taken over by O2 some time ago. Apparently VM had or still has a huge debt. It maybe that O2 is getting them to dump anything they already do. Apparently there are also changes to VM mobile phones.

So selling off their Store to an existing provider of a similar service is maybe just another slimming down. So now you will have to pay any additional sub to get a service that was available as a VM subscribers.

Apparently it wont impact catch up services and on demand. Although who knows that may go in the future.

I haven't had formal notification that I need to migrate my email address, which I think it quite bad. But seems about par for their level of just basic communication.

Did you see this? I didn't until AI told me.

If this is how you run a business feel I could muddle along like this ... and not care about customers.
https://news.virginmediao2.co.uk/helping-customers-understand-upcoming-changes-to-their-virgin-media-email-services/