Forum Discussion

quango2k's avatar
quango2k
Tuning in
5 months ago
Solved

complaints that are never resolved!

My contract has just come to an end and the new "deals" offered are just comical, as are the responses by "Customer Service"...its getting beyond a joke! 

I am on M350 and was paying just under £50 a month with a discount applied. I have been a customer for well over 12 years now. My contract is just about to end and has jumped back up to £60. My renewal offer is £48.92 on the website, however, they offer new customers M500 for only £33 a month! I contacted customer services after several hours of waiting on the apparently quicker way to contact them...whatsapp. Only to be offered an even higher price as a deal!! Then I was palmed off onto a "Manager" who came up with the same offer as my renewal on M350 as an apparent deal when the other person did the same price for m500....useless. 

I do not understand the logic of treating loyalty with higher prices! There are two options really, Continue to make £33 a month, keep a customer happy and likely to recommend Virgin to friends and family...OR, make £0, lose a customer who would be very unhappy and unlikely to return and for sure will never recommend Virgin to anyone. Its a very strange business tactic. I don't get it! 

Now getting quotes from Toob and Sky so I can wash my hands for good of this nonsense. The ONLY good thing about Virgin is the help you get on these forums, the rest is complete trash! 


  • quango2k wrote:

    My contract has just come to an end and the new "deals" offered are just comical, as are the responses by "Customer Service"...its getting beyond a joke! 

    I am on M350 and was paying just under £50 a month with a discount applied. I have been a customer for well over 12 years now. My contract is just about to end and has jumped back up to £60. My renewal offer is £48.92 on the website, however, they offer new customers M500 for only £33 a month! I contacted customer services after several hours of waiting on the apparently quicker way to contact them...whatsapp. Only to be offered an even higher price as a deal!! Then I was palmed off onto a "Manager" who came up with the same offer as my renewal on M350 as an apparent deal when the other person did the same price for m500....useless. 

    I do not understand the logic of treating loyalty with higher prices! There are two options really, Continue to make £33 a month, keep a customer happy and likely to recommend Virgin to friends and family...OR, make £0, lose a customer who would be very unhappy and unlikely to return and for sure will never recommend Virgin to anyone. Its a very strange business tactic. I don't get it! 

    Now getting quotes from Toob and Sky so I can wash my hands for good of this nonsense. The ONLY good thing about Virgin is the help you get on these forums, the rest is complete trash! 


    Dude, do a search of the forums. You'll find MANY long term customers including myself who walked into the distance with another provider this year. It seems to be a policy not to keep existing customers by getting tough on renewal prices. Unfortunately, VM management have forgotten that competition is at record high in a lot of areas now, and even if it isn't in an area, get a 4G/5G dongle for a bit, and come back 90 days after leaving as a new customer with new customer pricing maybe even gifts with the package. You might even get newer kit than you had before. Even if you manage to scrape a deal, plenty then got the run around when the contact was incorrect or billing was.

    I do feel some empathy for the VM forum staff who try and sort these issues out on here as best they can, because they must feel each day is deja vu and have the same frustration internally with bad system integration, inter departmental communication and procedures!

  • goslow's avatar
    goslow
    Alessandro Volta

    Everything you have written suggests that you should be putting in your cancellation to VM and switching supplier.

    • quango2k's avatar
      quango2k
      Tuning in

      It's in process unless Virgin want to try and resolve it. I don't hold out much hope though. Just shows what they really think of their customers. They should reward loyalty, not treat long standing customers with such distain. 

      • Carley_S's avatar
        Carley_S
        Forum Team

        Hi quango2k 

        Welcome back to the community forums 

        So sorry to hear that you've decided to cancel with us due to the available re-contracting deals offered to you. There are usually loyalty discounts available for customer that have remained with us, our apologies if the deals offered to you this time aren't suitable for you. We always take on board the feedback we receive so we can collect the information and use it to learn more about the areas we need to improve. We will certainly pass this information along to the relevant teams.

  • unisoft's avatar
    unisoft
    Knows their stuff

    quango2k wrote:

    My contract has just come to an end and the new "deals" offered are just comical, as are the responses by "Customer Service"...its getting beyond a joke! 

    I am on M350 and was paying just under £50 a month with a discount applied. I have been a customer for well over 12 years now. My contract is just about to end and has jumped back up to £60. My renewal offer is £48.92 on the website, however, they offer new customers M500 for only £33 a month! I contacted customer services after several hours of waiting on the apparently quicker way to contact them...whatsapp. Only to be offered an even higher price as a deal!! Then I was palmed off onto a "Manager" who came up with the same offer as my renewal on M350 as an apparent deal when the other person did the same price for m500....useless. 

    I do not understand the logic of treating loyalty with higher prices! There are two options really, Continue to make £33 a month, keep a customer happy and likely to recommend Virgin to friends and family...OR, make £0, lose a customer who would be very unhappy and unlikely to return and for sure will never recommend Virgin to anyone. Its a very strange business tactic. I don't get it! 

    Now getting quotes from Toob and Sky so I can wash my hands for good of this nonsense. The ONLY good thing about Virgin is the help you get on these forums, the rest is complete trash! 


    Dude, do a search of the forums. You'll find MANY long term customers including myself who walked into the distance with another provider this year. It seems to be a policy not to keep existing customers by getting tough on renewal prices. Unfortunately, VM management have forgotten that competition is at record high in a lot of areas now, and even if it isn't in an area, get a 4G/5G dongle for a bit, and come back 90 days after leaving as a new customer with new customer pricing maybe even gifts with the package. You might even get newer kit than you had before. Even if you manage to scrape a deal, plenty then got the run around when the contact was incorrect or billing was.

    I do feel some empathy for the VM forum staff who try and sort these issues out on here as best they can, because they must feel each day is deja vu and have the same frustration internally with bad system integration, inter departmental communication and procedures!

    • quango2k's avatar
      quango2k
      Tuning in

      Tell me about it. A few months ago I had a problem connecting to a server, I knew the problem and called Virgins "technical support"...he waffled on about selling me a package instead of which I was 100% clear, I AM NOT PAYING ANYTHING and do not want any packages. The guy took control of my PC, see that I already know what I am talking about, panicked and closed the link..couldn't fix anything. Then next month, a package was added to my bill for the technical support that I never asked for or agreed to...then for days talking to their "Customer service" and them saying they cannot remove it and would need to delete my entire package then charge almost double to give me back what I already had!! I was ready to drive to their headquarters and drive through the window!  

      It was only when I got on here and @john_GS messaged me he managed to fix it! He seems to be the only competent person they have in the entire business! Which is an utter shame. 

      Customer service is dead, these faceless companies just get worse and worse, greedier by the day. 

  • The irony of Virgin Media reporting a 3.3b loss in 2023....I wonder what they could have done to help mitigate this? Hmmm...maybe keep the customers they already have happy. The jokes write themselves.