Forum Discussion

Michael99's avatar
Michael99
Dialled in
2 years ago
Solved

If I have jump through hoops every 18 months to renew contracts I’ll be leaving Virgin after 20 years

I renegotiated my contract a couple of weeks before it was due to expire and talked with an agent and accepted the deal they offfered which was £80/ month despite my phones now being billed separately on O2, as the old contract expired and moved into the new contract period I was then then billed £50 over the amount I was expecting and I just assumed it was because of the two week transition period. Now I’ve received this months bill and it’s £157 and am having to work my way through the phone system *again* to sort that issue out and they’re now “trying to find me a better deal” despite having already accepted the deal they offered. This whole process has taken an hour so far and I’m still on hold waiting for the second same offer to be finalised giving me the time to write this essay. By the way, I ended up having to choose the phone option that I’m thinking of leaving because all the other options just led to a useless text message with. “Information”. It seems Virgin now pull every trick they can to stop you talking to someone. Your customer service is a far cry from the service I originally joined back in the NTL days and it’s just no longer worth the stress. The moment an alternative fibre provider is available here I’ll be dropping everything and moving everything over to alternative providers. I’ve never said anything like this and even recommended Virgin to friends but it’s now intolerably bad.

 

p.s. the above inflation price increase was just the icing on the cake.

  • unisoft's avatar
    unisoft
    2 years ago

    Yip. Customer since 2007 but as of next Thursday won't be.

    54 mins was about the time offshore retentions wasted putting me on hold countless times and then randomly transferring me to anther offshore guy who wanted to know what I was using the internet for, how many devices. I'm also fed up of the every 18 months fisaco and lock-in to 18 month contracts with 2 legal tie ins for price increases that you have no idea about upfront! VM didn't even bother ringing back this time after initial contact, and I am certainly not going to chase them as signed up elsewhere now...

  • unisoft's avatar
    unisoft
    Knows their stuff
    2 years ago

    Yip. Customer since 2007 but as of next Thursday won't be.

    54 mins was about the time offshore retentions wasted putting me on hold countless times and then randomly transferring me to anther offshore guy who wanted to know what I was using the internet for, how many devices. I'm also fed up of the every 18 months fisaco and lock-in to 18 month contracts with 2 legal tie ins for price increases that you have no idea about upfront! VM didn't even bother ringing back this time after initial contact, and I am certainly not going to chase them as signed up elsewhere now...

  • Michael99's avatar
    Michael99
    Dialled in
    2 years ago

    …and since I can no longer edit the original post, they’ve now deactivated my second TV box so now it’s back to the phone merry-go-round again tomorrow because it’s past 9pm.

    • Ashleigh_C's avatar
      Ashleigh_C
      Forum Team
      2 years ago

      Hi there Michael99 

      Thank you so much for your post and welcome to the community forums, it's great to have you here. 

      I am so sorry that you have faced this issue with your new bill, I would be more than happy to look into this with you via a private message. 

      I will pop you a PM across now, please keep an eye out for the envelope at the top of your screen alerting you to a new message.
       

      • palcouk's avatar
        palcouk
        On our wavelength
        12 months ago

        I contacted VM by phone on 15/04 about my bill which showed I was being charged for WiFi Booster, £8.00, which I dont use allthough an unsolicited pkge was sent to me some considerable time ago, and also paper billing at £1.25, I stopped paperbilling years ago.

        The person I spoke suggested some savings with a different Pkge - I was on the phone for 82 mins! Today I read the contract, it transpires its at a discount for xx months then rockets to more than I pay now. I dont accept this new Contract, so I phoned VM today 16/04 - I dont remember the login word so I gave other details including payment on my bank 28/03 and the amount - I'm then told that doesnt match and what is the latestet bill - I dont have an April bill - agent repeats the same Q and I give same answers, I was not rude/abusive agent then hangs up.

        Where now?

  • asim18's avatar
    asim18
    Rising star
    2 years ago

    Yeah, it's a shame this industry is completely unregulated when it comes to pricing. 1 person pays £30 for a package and the other person gets ripped off with £80 for the same package. And then they get ripped off doubly because they are chancers and put £120 on your direct debit and hope you don't notice you're being overcharged.

    I wish fair-trade was a legal requirement.

    The amount of people who see VM as a complete scam/fraud company must surely be in the millions! I read at least several posts per day claiming they have fallen victim of some sort of fraud.

  • 1DigitalMedia's avatar
    1DigitalMedia
    Joining in
    11 months ago

    My 18 month contract was coming to an end on 21 April 2024 and I was notified by Virgin Media to this fact. So on March 28, I went online, signed in and chose the set-up I wanted for the next 18 months into 2025. This lowered my monthly bill for the next 18 months but also increased my broadband speed that I use for my business at home. This would be activated on April 21.

    I went online again in early April and sure enough everything was in place so I download my PDF of the contract that I had entered into. This also prevented my from entering into any other deal online. All good to go!

    Today, April 29 I receive and email saying my current package had increased price due to the contract ending.....Huh! what!

    Called customer service (what a disgrace) I gave details of the contract number and they seemed to be in a confused situation. There was silence on the phone, then they came back telling me that they will try and get another deal for me that may match what I've asked for.

    I said to him but I've already got a contract and I've already signed online this contract so why can't you honour it?

    • RT123's avatar
      RT123
      Up to speed
      11 months ago

      If you’ve got proof of the contract agreement, try messaging the  Virgin Media account  on X or Facebook (they are a UK based team who are a bit more helpful than regular CS)

      You could also look at other options since it doesn’t appear that you are actively in a contract (it hasn’t been added to your account). I’m hearing of some days with web orders but three weeks? 

  • archercj's avatar
    archercj
    Fibre optic
    11 months ago

    My last contract renewal was back in Feb 2023. It went like this:

    - received an email stating a renewal price which was cheaper than what I was paying (£80)

    - rang them to confirm it was like for like as there was no mention of Netflix. Was told 100% it was the same just different bundle name. Agreed to renew yet within 30 minutes one of my two set top boxes had been disconnected and I had lost several channels on the remaining one. It took them 3 weeks to reinstall the STB (engineer had to visit). In the meantime:

    - further telephone conversations to renew went on the lines of 'that email is incorrect the actual price is £140pm'. And when I escalated it they quoted £157. It took, I reckon a total of 30 hours of telephone calls and online chat over a period of 28 days to sort it out.

    So why did I renew - because at that time they were the only true fibre supplier and I have three adults in the house regularly working from home and needing to Teams meet most the time. 

    Contract renegotiations start again next January and now City Fibre is available I will be moving to a fibre provider plus probably going with Sky Stream. Sad really because the actual Virgin service (broadband + TV) has been rock solid over the several years I have been with them. And, like many who have experienced similar experiences, all because Virgin use an off shore call centre, give them no ability to negotiate or sort your issues out and you have to battle through the escalation process, at great cost to your own time, to get someone based in the UK who has the ability to sort you out. I wonder how many people have jumped ship because of this.