Moving from Virgin

[Dos_Box]

I'm pretty unhappy now with my Virgin bills. £50-£60 per month for the basic cable (freeview), phone and 2Mb broadband. I'm tinkering with the idea of having Freesat fitted and moving my broadband to another ISP. Does anyone here have a good package which incorporates phone, and broadband, as Virgin cable TV is next to useless and you actually get more channels on freeview and Freesat?

[Scotmk]

I know a lot of people using Sky + broadband and phone, from £16 per month including BB 2mb or 4mb cannot remember, and you would also get proper sky not freesat then too.

 

If you go for the £21 per month you get all but movies n sports. and BB and telephone.

 

As for the broadband, you get a sky branded netgear router with wireless.

 

all my mates have never had any issues with it.

[Guest Guest]

Ive just got a deal with Virgin. The phone package with free anytime calls to landlines, cheap mobile and international calls etc etc etc, with 10mb BB for £24pm

 

Id never use anyone but Virgin given the choice, ADSL over BT lines just doesnt cut the mustard (well in most cases anyway). My mate has just got the sky package, cracking deal but thye BB is up and down all day long, hes yet to sustain a speed higher than 3mb for longer than a few minutes.

[maniac]

I pay £47 a month to Virgin, that's for their Top TV package with 2 set top boxes, basic phone line and 10mb internet. Sounds like you're paying way over the odds for your sevices from them, ring them up and negotiate as they can move on their prices.

 

Mike.

[Dos_Box]

Ive just got a deal with Virgin. The phone package with free anytime calls to landlines, cheap mobile and international calls etc etc etc, with 10mb BB for £24pm

 

Id never use anyone but Virgin given the choice, ADSL over BT lines just doesnt cut the mustard (well in most cases anyway). My mate has just got the sky package, cracking deal but thye BB is up and down all day long, hes yet to sustain a speed higher than 3mb for longer than a few minutes.

 

I would read the small print. You may find that after 12 months the costs rocket! As for freesat I'm getting that for the HD channels, not to be confused with the normal free sattalite TV

[browolf]

call yourself a techie ~ with 2mb broadband

 

I get my components separately a bit like my software applications!!

 

freesat from an old skybox

telephone from talktalk (free offpeak calls for about £14 total)

8mb @ 8mb from entanet (£30 but thats a high offpeak allowance)

Edited July 1, 2008 by browolf

[LeMarchand]

I'm pretty unhappy now with my Virgin bills. £50-£60 per month for the basic cable (freeview), phone and 2Mb broadband.

 

Even at their "official" prices, that seems wrong. £85 gets you XL everything: ie all TV except foreign and adult, top tier BB, free geographical calls (up to an hour in duration), a V+ box (and you can keep your old one), plus various extras that might add up if you could be bothered to collect them.

 

VIP details.

 

Shame you're already a customer, I have a bunch of "introduce a friend" discounts/invites.

[Guest Guest]

I would read the small print. You may find that after 12 months the costs rocket! As for freesat I'm getting that for the HD channels, not to be confused with the normal free sattalite TV

 

The cost may rocket, ill just give them a bell again and say "hi im considering moving to sky...". Its a 12month contract i have.

 

At the same time i also got a sky+ box installed for free on the bottom package of £18pm or whatever it is. It really does pay to call them and threaten* to leave

 

* Dont just come on the phone all like "im leaving unless you give me a better deal". Use tack and say "ive been looking at the offers sky have and i believe im paying too much. This is what sky are offering... but I like virgin BB so what sort of deal can you do?"

 

 

At the time there was a deal; for £44pm for the XL TV, M BB, XL phone. iirc. Dont know if its still on.

Edited July 1, 2008 by Guest

[Scotmk]

I would read the small print. You may find that after 12 months the costs rocket! As for freesat I'm getting that for the HD channels, not to be confused with the normal free sattalite TV

 

If you get free sat, you wont get HD channels, I am sure you would have to pay for and subscribe to SkyHD in order to watch these.

[kmount]

Freesat does have HD channels..

[Netman]

I would read the small print. You may find that after 12 months the costs rocket! As for freesat I'm getting that for the HD channels, not to be confused with the normal free sattalite TV

 

We've been with Virgin (NTL as was) for 4 years now. Got the 3 for £30 package which sounds the same as yours. Never gone up in price in that time. Every now and then we phone them up and say we're leaving and they throw in extra channels etc. to keep us with them.

Worth a call I'd say...

[SimpleSi]

@DB

 

They WILL offer you a much reduced rate if you say you are off or give you much better services for the same price.

 

Just put a note in diary for when the 12months runs out as you'll need to ring up and re-negoiate again otherwise they'll put it bacj up to "normal"

 

 

Alternatively swithc to SKY (I did) and you can get a lot more tv channels and much lower phone costs for pretty much the same money as your current playing.

 

regards

 

Simon

PS I pay extra to get 16Mb/s "unlimited" and I get 6Mb/s -YMMV with distance to exchange.

[Dos_Box]

If you get free sat, you wont get HD channels, I am sure you would have to pay for and subscribe to SkyHD in order to watch these.

 

freesat - HD

 

[Scotmk]

Well that something I did'nt know.

[zag]

Its all about freesat for TV, one off payments and BBCHD + ITVHD (exclusive) for a one off payment of 119 quid for the box

 

For internet go with BE if you can. 24mbit for 18 quid.

 

Phone is the only annoying thing as I have to have a line but never use it!

[ZeroHour]

I love my Sky HD + BB (connect @ 16mb)

No real problems and its okay on price.

[SpuffMonkey]

Yep - as people say - you're paying well over the odds - I'm on the Triple XL pack - free calls all day, 150 odd TV channels & 20MB BB for £56 - though am getting thoroughly annoyed by the current STM policies that are being introduced - so may be looking to dump them soon myself.

[Dos_Box]

Even at their "official" prices, that seems wrong. £85 gets you XL everything: ie all TV except foreign and adult, top tier BB, free geographical calls (up to an hour in duration), a V+ box (and you can keep your old one), plus various extras that might add up if you could be bothered to collect them.

 

VIP details.

 

Shame you're already a customer, I have a bunch of "introduce a friend" discounts/invites.

 

I didn't include call charges, however these do not come to a lot and they are going to lose my custom pretty dammed soon.

[Dos_Box]

Oh, and they add a £5 service charge for me paying online!!

[ajbritton]

Well, all this just takes the cake!

 

I signed up for Virgin a couple of weeks ago (phone & 2MB broadband) hoping to bring my BT & PlusNet costs down. This morning I see them get slammed by OFCOM and now I read this thread!

 

Just watch how fast I rip up those contracts I almost signed this morning!!

[kmount]

Oh, and they add a £5 service charge for me paying online!!

 

Isn't the £5 charge for the use of a credit/debit card? I've seen other companies doing similar, or discounting for the use of a Direct Debit.

 

British Gas told me it was 15% less pcm if we used DD instead of a card and VM said a £x admin charge was applicable if a DD wasn't used.

[triggmiester]

I phoned up Virgin after watching a tonight program on ITV and this guy who was with NTL phoned up and threatened to leave and they cut his bill by £85.00 the next day i was on the phone and they reduced my price by £15.00 so i could get the V+ box, 1 yeat later phoned up again, they put my bb package up to the next level and have reduced by bill for as long as I am with them by £27.50/month which i have in writing.

 

ALWAYS worth a phone call but as other people have said play it cool and dont go in guns blazing and say you have to reduce my bill, otherwise they will just get the hump and let you leave.

[altecsole]

I have TalkTalk Option 3 at £21 pm. This includes: line rental, free local, national and international (Europe, USA plus others) calls and up to 8 meg broadband.

 

I've had if for about 2 years and no problems with the service.

[flashsnaps]

Have used full sky package inc sports/movies and 8mb Broadband about £50 amonth for the last 2years, never had any problems!

[Zoom7000]

I'm currently paying the following:

 

BT Phone Line: £11.75/month (Basic Package - Option 1)

Be Unlimited: £18/month

Virgin Media Telephone & Free TV: £11/month (Very Basic Freeview)

 

I don't use the home phones at all. My wife and I both have plenty of free mins on our mobiles. I have a BT phone line because I wanted Be and the reason I have a Virgin Media telephone is because they charge £11/month for telephone and give free TV with it. The basic free TV package on it's own with a few more channels than the free one I get with the phone costs £25/month.

 

If you can't or don't want to move from Virgin Media, the easy thing to do is threaten them that you are leaving and then watch them throw the discounts at you. Try to get through to the "Disconnections/Customer Retentions" department. My friend has barely paid anything for Broadband with VM ever by continuously calling their bluff. Works everytime.