Dos_Box Posted November 18, 2015 Posted November 18, 2015 Just had this arrive in my inbox: [TABLE=width: 100%] [TR] [TD]From February next year, your bill will be going up by £3.49 a month [/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Dear Customer, We know it's never nice when prices go up. That's why we're always looking to give you an even better Virgin Media experience – with faster broadband speeds for our customers, more unmissable TV shows, and the best ways to watch them all. [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] What is annoying is they don't exactly say what it is for. I'm on the basic TV package and 50Mb broadband but the email tends to waffle on about services I either don't have or never use.
TIOAOA Posted November 18, 2015 Posted November 18, 2015 Seems like this is happening more frequently I swear it was only 2 months ago when they did exactly the same. You ring them up to complain and they put the blame on Sky or BT. I told them it was unacceptable and managed to get a discount but only till the new year when no doubt the cost of my package will rocket up. But what are the alternatives they have us over a barrell
korifugi Posted November 18, 2015 Posted November 18, 2015 Same here - I just tore them a new due to this being the third increase in about 9 months. Problem is I like the broadband, I like Tivo. Grrrr.
LosOjos Posted November 18, 2015 Posted November 18, 2015 Given Sky's big announcement today, they're really not making themselves look like a great option at the moment... I've been chomping at the bit to get Virgin in my area, but with rising prices and no sign of new content, I'll probably stick with Sky when my contract's up for renewal early next year (unless the Sky Q box and/or 4K content costs a fortune, then I'll jump ship!)
elsiegee40 Posted November 18, 2015 Posted November 18, 2015 is it....Virgin on the ridiculous? * Passes coat to @Domino * Close the door on your way out please!
Popular Post Domino Posted November 18, 2015 Popular Post Posted November 18, 2015 I'm perfectly Cable of finding my own coat thank you! I tell you, the lack of respect, anyone would think I'm Branson new to this place. 5
Dos_Box Posted November 18, 2015 Author Posted November 18, 2015 Unless Virgin have something up their sleeves I think Sky have just pulled a similar stunt as to when Steve Jobs pulled an iPhone out of his Pocket and the entire phone industry went 'Oh, bugger'. Or, Virgin may be clever hand have realised that customers just want on-demand services such as Netflix et-al and are building their backbone to support streaming options and can afford to sit back a bit. I've got an old Tivo and can't even give it back to them preferrign Netflix and other delivered via the Roku 3. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Dedicated packages from a single provider via their own hardware or consumer choice delivered over a providers network to cusomers hardware.
Zoom7000 Posted November 19, 2015 Posted November 19, 2015 (edited) Unless Virgin have something up their sleeves I think Sky have just pulled a similar stunt as to when Steve Jobs pulled an iPhone out of his Pocket and the entire phone industry went 'Oh, bugger'. Or, Virgin may be clever hand have realised that customers just want on-demand services such as Netflix et-al and are building their backbone to support streaming options and can afford to sit back a bit. I've got an old Tivo and can't even give it back to them preferrign Netflix and other delivered via the Roku 3. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Dedicated packages from a single provider via their own hardware or consumer choice delivered over a providers network to cusomers hardware. Dedicated hardware from the supplier will always win out as the vast majority of users are not technical at all. For those of us more technically inclined, that's where the consumer hardware falls in to place, but despite how slow and clunky it is using Netflix on a TiVo box, the vast majority of subscribers are probably using it as it's an all in one (1 remote!) system. I don't think Virgin have any plans for 4K content at all, most of their content is delivered by Sky anyway, so it'll be a while before it's even offered to VM subscribers and then it'll be even pricier! I'm only just looking to buy myself a Freeview HD TV next week and happy to go from HD to 720p/1080i! (Hopefully Freeview will be updating to 1080p sometime in the near future!) Edited November 19, 2015 by Zoom7000
featured_spectre Posted November 19, 2015 Posted November 19, 2015 (edited) We looked at virgin here for the internet speeds and tivo box...couldn't justify paying nearly £60 more for the first 6 months and then £100 more each month for what is effectively less channels (we have the complete sky TV channel package for £80, including fibre broadband and phone, with added bt sport and HD), everything I get from sky (free calls to mobiles, international calls etc,) virgin want £140 for their closest comparison...for the first 6 months after which it goes up to £180, and a one off fee of £100. How does that make sense for a new customer? Edited November 19, 2015 by featured_spectre
GrumbleDook Posted November 19, 2015 Posted November 19, 2015 We would be lost without our TIVO as a PVR and we cannot get even close to the Virgin speeds here for a similar price ... and I need it for work. Generally TIVO works, but the other services (iPlayer, netflix, etc) are unusable ...
Dos_Box Posted November 19, 2015 Author Posted November 19, 2015 There is a special hell reserved just for the Tivo Netflix app!
Chuckster Posted November 19, 2015 Posted November 19, 2015 How about TalkTalk? I know they have had their fair share of problems as of late, but I am rather pleased with their broadband and telephone service. I am on an 18 month contract and currently pay £17.50/month. I get speeds of up to 16Mbps (usually around 10meg), anytime unlimited minutes to landlines, mobiles and international calls (North America and across Europe). Provided, of course, you cancel the call within 59 minutes and re-dial. I have Sky TV and pay a discounted price of £14/month for the first 9 months. After which it will revert to its normal price of £28/month. I always call Sky a month before my subscription package goes up and renegotiate a further discount for another 9 more months. As a customer of both companies I am satisfied with their offerings. I believe TalkTalk currently are offering Love2Shop vouchers worth £50. When I joined at the beginning of the year it was £75.
fiendishlyclever Posted November 19, 2015 Posted November 19, 2015 I've got 50meg Virgin, soon to be 70meg - just gone up to £18.25 a month and I'm paying am average of £7 a month for Sky (basic package). I have a sip phone with a local number and don't pay line rental, just for outgoing calls. Like with anything you have to decide what you want to pay, have your arguments (eg competitor prices) and haggle in a respectful but assertive way to get it.
XiJ Posted November 20, 2015 Posted November 20, 2015 I pay £30 for 50mb broadband and a sim only 1gb data deal not virgin. I pay £29 to sky for F1 and all other channels expect sport and movies. It has multi room and two full sky+ boxes If I left Virgin, by the time i added line rental and got fibre broadband there wouldn't be much difference - and my speed would drop from 50mb to 10 (And Virgin doubling speed soon)
caffrey Posted November 20, 2015 Posted November 20, 2015 I only have phone and broadband and it's gone up a bit, but I got a shiny new modem and new speeds too
Achandler Posted November 20, 2015 Posted November 20, 2015 I only have phone and Broadband and mine is going up by £3.49 according to the letter they sent me. I could get a flavour of Openreach Broadband but this 2015, I live on the edge of a city and speeds of upto 4MB a second is not an acceptable standard nowadays. Not when trying to use on-demand on a sky box etc. Sky keep trying to sell me there unlimited Broadband free for a year, but they simply can't complete with Virgin for speeds in my area. Nearest exchange is 3 miles away, hasn't even got fibre broadband yet, it's going to "soon" but it has being going to "soon" for over 2 years now. Even then 3 miles of miserable BT copper doesn't appeal to me, I don't even know where the BT master socket is!
eyetea Posted November 20, 2015 Posted November 20, 2015 We pay around £40 at home for Virgin Interwebs (50MB) and land line, no other packages! Waiting for our letter now
SpuffMonkey Posted November 20, 2015 Posted November 20, 2015 We pay around £40 at home for Virgin Interwebs (50MB) and land line, no other packages! Waiting for our letter now Yeah thats about what I pay - but I phoned up and moaned and got the 70MB upgrade early, the free calls at anytime phone package and the Freeview only TV with the Tivo PVR thrown in for free - a good mornings work!
Zoom7000 Posted November 20, 2015 Posted November 20, 2015 I have the same problem, living a distance from the exchange, I would only be getting ~40Mbps with BT/Sky/etc for the same price as 200Mbps from Virgin. However, I'm not getting anywhere near 200Mbps at the moment in the evenings due to high utilisation issues that have been going on for over a year and the ETA has been moved back and back and back! A few months back I did a speed test at 0.91Mbps!
mthomas08 Posted November 20, 2015 Posted November 20, 2015 Just had this arrive in my inbox: What is annoying is they don't exactly say what it is for. I'm on the basic TV package and 50Mb broadband but the email tends to waffle on about services I either don't have or never use. Surprised they didn't say why, I've had all sorts of letters from them and it says why. Think I've had two minimal price increases one for Sky Sports and one for BT Sport (it did say why). Still I can't complain too much because I get everything and it's still a cost saver compared to rivals.
tj2419 Posted November 20, 2015 Posted November 20, 2015 Might be worth noting you can cancel the contract within the next 30 days. I had a letter saying the same and in the small print at the bottom it said basically if you don't like it you can cancel the contract by 31st Dec with no cancellation fees. Could use it to negotiate the price down or try get rid of the cost rise?
eyetea Posted November 20, 2015 Posted November 20, 2015 Yeah thats about what I pay - but I phoned up and moaned and got the 70MB upgrade early, the free calls at anytime phone package and the Freeview only TV with the Tivo PVR thrown in for free - a good mornings work! Teach me your ways! What did you moan about to get all that thrown in for free!
featured_spectre Posted November 20, 2015 Posted November 20, 2015 Surprised they didn't say why, I've had all sorts of letters from them and it says why. Think I've had two minimal price increases one for Sky Sports and one for BT Sport (it did say why). Still I can't complain too much because I get everything and it's still a cost saver compared to rivals. The problem I've found with virgin, is they'll up your price if you use the package or not. My mum is with virgin, doesn't have sports or movies, yet they upped her package costs for the increase in costs for licencing the sky sports and sky movies...something she doesn't use.
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