Virgin

[Lonsdale73]

Ten, twelve years ago, Virgin was possibly the best of the bunch, prices were good, coverage fine and service was great. But year on year the prices went up and up. I had a basic package with them and after a while I noticed the channels it included I was getting for free anyway on a Freeview enabled TV. When I pointed this out and suggested they remove the TV package, the price for broadband and phoneline only went UP! Last July they contacted me to remind me that my contract was due to expire at the end of August and the proposed new contract would be some 25% higher than the one about to end. I told them then that unless they could come back with a better offer than that then I would not be renewing or extending my twelve, thirteen year association with them. They said they'd get back to me. Last week in August I'd still not heard from so I phoned then to reiterate I would not be renewing the contract. They tried telling me I had to give 28 days notice if I wanted to cancel a contract that was about to end naturally within a week. They are still hounding me for a month's payment which I continue to refuse to pay.

 

[Lonsdale73]

How much reduction do you get by threatening to leave?

Sod all.

 

[Glitch]

How much reduction do you get by threatening to leave?

Not much recently because I’ve been reducing the package.

When I had the full blown VIP package I could get £15-£25 a month loyalty discount.

New customers get the best deals with hefty discounts for 18 months.

I have a 1Tb Tivo and a second V6 box. Today I asked for an upgrade for the V6 which doesn’t do 4K/UHD.

They’re changing it to the new 360 set up for a one off £24.95 and no monthly increase. I thought that was reasonable.

 

[Jester129]

Gave up Virgin donkey's years ago. Bought a Freesat box and got a chap to change the 'pointy thing' on the dish. Tv stuff now free. SWMBO hates it when I talk about changing internet provider, "We'll have to change our email address again!". Got that sorted by setting up a generic gmail address so it doesn't matter which provider we're with. Dumped BT after being with them for years (their internet is brilliant) so went with Plusnet, the only issue with them is that their email is REALLY slow, so the gmail thing works like a dream. Brilliant now.

 

[kevinlightfoot]

Just an update,the engineer was knocking on the door at eight this morning,spent many a while trying to rectify the problem before admitting that the router was not up to the job and the fault of the black lines at the top and bottom of the picture could not be put right and off he went.Got in touch with Virgin and after a very long conversation with the complaints department we finally got the system cancelled,not paid them any money and don’t intend to.In my opinion if they can’t do the job as they say they can then they should get it sorted before they install,very traumatic experience from start to finish.Going back to talk talk.

 

[Glitch]

Just an update,the engineer was knocking on the door at eight this morning,spent many a while trying to rectify the problem before admitting that the router was not up to the job and the fault of the black lines at the top and bottom of the picture could not be put right and off he went.Got in touch with Virgin and after a very long conversation with the complaints department we finally got the system cancelled,not paid them any money and don’t intend to.In my opinion if they can’t do the job as they say they can then they should get it sorted before they install,very traumatic experience from start to finish.Going back to talk talk.

That's very poor.

Did they not suggest ways to boost the WiFi? It's not unusual to have dead spots and there are always solutions.

Their Hubs in Router mode are notoriously poor. I run mine in modem mode with my own router. My Wifi works throughout the house (including loft conversion), the garden (somewhat weakly) and half way down the road!

VM launched their own WiFi boosters in January

Intelligent WiFi Plus from Virgin Media combines a suite of new, automatically deployed features on its Hub 3 and Hub 4 routers with brand new Intelligent WiFi Pods that help to extend WiFi reach and speeds throughout the home.

No idea about the black stripes (not sure i understand the problem) but there are a couple of forums out there with people that live and breathe this stuff.