Bloody Virgin Media, putting up my costs again!

[parabolica]

FurryExocet said:

megaphone said:

Here we go again! Just got a letter from Virgin, my package is going up by £3.99 in Feb. That's after a £3 rise earlier this year, they're taking the pi$$ again!

Time to get back on the phone to cancellations. I may even bit the bullet and dump them, there are some cracking deals for new Sky/BT etc contracts, lots of cash back on Quidco etc. Yes, Virgin's BB is excellent, but I don't really need 200Mb/s!

It's the same every year! I moved to BT, be warned that the grass isn't always greener!

Indeed. Having had Virgin, Sky, BT and Plusnet all in the recent past I sorely miss Virgin BB - best service in terms of speed and customer relations I've ever had regardless of the price increases. Only wish I was still living in an area they cover.

[kiethton]

parabolica said:

FurryExocet said:

megaphone said:

Here we go again! Just got a letter from Virgin, my package is going up by £3.99 in Feb. That's after a £3 rise earlier this year, they're taking the pi$$ again!

Time to get back on the phone to cancellations. I may even bit the bullet and dump them, there are some cracking deals for new Sky/BT etc contracts, lots of cash back on Quidco etc. Yes, Virgin's BB is excellent, but I don't really need 200Mb/s!

It's the same every year! I moved to BT, be warned that the grass isn't always greener!

Indeed. Having had Virgin, Sky, BT and Plusnet all in the recent past I sorely miss Virgin BB - best service in terms of speed and customer relations I've ever had regardless of the price increases. Only wish I was still living in an area they cover.

Don't bank on QuidCo either - went with Sky via them and they never paid out the cashback....

[IanCress]

megaphone said:

Here we go again! Just got a letter from Virgin, my package is going up by £3.99 in Feb. That's after a £3 rise earlier this year, they're taking the pi$$ again!

Time to get back on the phone to cancellations. I may even bite the bullet and dump them, there are some cracking deals for new Sky/BT etc contracts, lots of cash back on Quidco etc. Yes, Virgin's BB is excellent, but I don't really need 200Mb/s!

Same here. Getting the free (!) upgrade to 150Mb/s in January, then the price is going up by £4 in Feb. There's only the two of us in the house and we don't do any gaming or big downloads, so we have no need for the speed. I'm at least going to look at moving to a lower package and if not possible then changing providers. In Feb i'll be paying £82 per month for the same package that cost me £55 5 years ago.

[deckster]

We can thank that nice Ms May for all these extra internet charges. Mass surveillance doesn't pay for itself, you know.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/04/inves...

[condor]

I've also had the letter, £4 increase in Feb. I get the impression that people are paying different amounts for similar packages. Mine is currently a few pence less than £60/month for XL TV, Tivo box, BB, landline with free weekend calls. I've been with them since 2001.

[KaraK]

Got the same letter myself... grumbled a bit at it but the reality is that for me it's still the best bang per buck internet connection I can get so I guess I'll just press on and pay.

[98elise]

Whats the best alternative?

We just have phone and internet. We have netflix so need to be able to run that, but beyond that our usage is minimal. I'd rather dump the phone all together if possible.

We have sky for TV if its worth going with one of their bundles.

[V8covin]

It's about time the law was changed so the monthly cost of a contract stays the same for the length of the contract,no increases during the contract and you renegotiate at the end of the contract

[FlossyThePig]

deckster said:

We can thank that nice Ms May for all these extra internet charges. Mass surveillance doesn't pay for itself, you know.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/04/inves...

It's only at the committee stage at the moment. A long way to go yet.

[mad4amanda]

Hmmm I feel for you guys Im paying almost £130 a month! for:
TVXL
Sky Movies and sports inc BT sports and sky F1
200 MBPS broadband and superhub 2
home phone inc all calls including france and USA (which we do use) and a load of other countries we dont
1 tivo box, 1 Virgin + box , 1 normal box.
Last time we priced it against sky it was still cheaper!

[FurryExocet]

KaraK said:

Got the same letter myself... grumbled a bit at it but the reality is that for me it's still the best bang per buck internet connection I can get so I guess I'll just press on and pay.

Why press on and pay? In all the years I was with Virgin, I never once paid their increase. Every year, I would ring them about it and my price would go down, rather than up. You get tied into another contract, but you pay less. One year they stood their ground, so I gave them the 30 day notice, 2 weeks later they rang and conceded to my price decrease (even got quicker broadband thrown in)

It shouldn't need to be like that, but Virgin bank on the fact that most people won't bat an eyelid and will just accept the increase.

Sadly my area doesn't have Virgin, I'm stuck with the piss poor service from BT

[CraigyMc]

FurryExocet said:

Sadly my area doesn't have Virgin, I'm stuck with the piss poor service from BT

I moved house a couple of months ago and the area I'm in only has BT.

Happily, it's BT FTTP (so, 9 micron optical fibre all the way into the house, no copper at all, so the phone has to have its own little battery UPS).

BT are crap to deal with - but their optical network is great.

[Wombat3]

Am about to have the exact same conversation with VM. Currently paying £104 for 70Mb BB, TV XL, nlimited anytime calls (which I don't need) and Sky Sports.

Think Sky sports is going to get binned + the call package & maybe even the whole lot in the end.

Tried looking at Sky yesterday and their website is infuriatingly complex and tells you next to nothing. The information is presented in a deliberately obscure way & its just designed to hide the true eventual costs. Gave up, their loss in the end.

[megaphone]

Anyone having a better luck getting a deal? I've just called retentions and they're offering me more or less what I'm paying now if I take 12months line rental. So

Big Kahuna (152mb BB, XL TV and phone) £43 for 6 months then £46/m. Advance line rental £164.

So works out at £58.16 a month.

Anyone getting a better deal for similar, if so how?

[chrisxr2]

No this is completely untrue, you can give thirty days notice for breach of contract though.

blaineuk said:

If you are on a deal with them, your price will stay the same until your contract runs out.

[chrisxr2]

The mobile phone operators manage to keep the price the same for the duration of the contract, three certainly do.

V8covin said:

It's about time the law was changed so the monthly cost of a contract stays the same for the length of the contract,no increases during the contract and you renegotiate at the end of the contract

[All that jazz]

I've just found in a pile of junk mail a letter from them back in November telling me that my recently taken out 50MB broadband and phone package would be increasing by £3.49 per month from February. Not amused seeing as I only took it out a few months ago. What's the best plan of action to "fix" this folks?

[Evolved]

All that jazz said:

I've just found in a pile of junk mail a letter from them back in November telling me that my recently taken out 50MB broadband and phone package would be increasing by £3.49 per month from February. Not amused seeing as I only took it out a few months ago. What's the best plan of action to "fix" this folks?

Vaseline

[outnumbered]

megaphone said:

Anyone having a better luck getting a deal? I've just called retentions and they're offering me more or less what I'm paying now if I take 12months line rental. So

Big Kahuna (152mb BB, XL TV and phone) £43 for 6 months then £46/m. Advance line rental £164.

So works out at £58.16 a month.

Anyone getting a better deal for similar, if so how?

I'm about to be in the same position, and was planning to point out that it'd be a fair bit cheaper for me to use BT for phone/BB/TV, given the TV channels that I need. Did you do something similar, or just ask for a discount ?

[GreigM]

All that jazz said:

I've just found in a pile of junk mail a letter from them back in November telling me that my recently taken out 50MB broadband and phone package would be increasing by £3.49 per month from February. Not amused seeing as I only took it out a few months ago. What's the best plan of action to "fix" this folks?

Only thing you can really do is cancel. I believe you should be able to do so without penalty:
http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/news/protection-for-...