Farewell after 25 years but my Virgin media journey starts again
After 25 years, my time as a Virgin Media customer has come to an end. I first joined Virgin around 1999 or 2000 back when a representative came directly to our front door to sign us up. Over the years, I've generally been very happy with the service Virgin provided. Like any long-term relationship, there were highs and lows: times when I negotiated for better deals and times when I paid more than I probably should have. But through it all, I remained a loyal customer, and in return, I received mostly reliable service. Recently, I realized I was paying significantly more than new Virgin customers for the same broadband service. It wasn’t just about other providers offering better prices, it was also frustrating to see new Virgin customers getting deals at nearly half the price I was paying, with added perks.
My 18-month contract was coming to an end, so I called Virgin to ask if I could be matched to one of the offers, I saw online. I was told no. Despite my loyalty, I wasn’t offered anything even close. It felt like Virgin had no interest in retaining their long-term customers. The representative I spoke to seemed more interested in ending the call than helping me.
On March 26, I officially requested disconnection. I received a text confirming the service would end on April 25. As expected, a few days before that, Virgin reached out offering to discuss ‘a fantastic deal’. I replied via WhatsApp on April 17. After being transferred to the retention department, an agent named Robie offered me a new deal. Each time I declined, he reduced the price. Eventually, we agreed on a deal I was happy with. Then, complications began. Unknown to me, my daughter had panicked about me cancelling and had signed up for a new Virgin contract at our home address the night before. This caused a conflict in the system, and Robie couldn’t process my deal. He advised me to ask my daughter to cancel her deal, especially since the one I negotiated was only £5 more expensive and I was concerned about keeping my long-time Blueyonder email account.
We cancelled my daughter's order the same day and received confirmation. I returned to WhatsApp, and a new agent (Jericho) picked up Robie’s notes. We eventually agreed on the same broadband offer. However, Jericho encountered technical issues and couldn’t process the order, assuring me it would go through within 72 hours and that my disconnection would be cancelled before the 25th.
Three days passed, nothing. On April 21, I contacted Virgin again via WhatsApp. The new agent (Cristalyn) told me my account had already been fully disconnected. I was confused and frustrated, but this wasn’t supposed to happen until April 25. The agent waived the reconnection fee and promised the service would be restored within 24–48 hours. I was asked to reboot my router and again reassured me that everything was on track.
On April 24, still without service, I contacted Virgin again. This time, the agent said reconnection takes a minimum of 48 hours. That evening, I called and spoke to Elizabeth, who said the reconnection request had been declined but that she would raise another one. I didn’t fully understand the reason, but it appeared the mix-up with my daughter’s account had caused more issues. The next day, I spoke with several agents before finally reaching Josh, who gave me the clearest explanation so far. He confirmed the error was on Virgin’s side, acknowledged that my daughter’s account had been closed, and told me he would personally monitor my reconnection. I was promised £20 as a goodwill gesture. He submitted another reconnection request and said it would take up to 72 hours. But 72 hours later, I was still offline. I contacted Virgin again and after another long wait and multiple agents, I spoke to Michael. He said reconnection could take 3–5 days and he was surprised I was staying very calm, admitting he’d be furious if it happened to him. I agreed to wait another day, Michael also said he would be looking into my account and that he was not in the next day but Josh was so I would be fine. The next day and next agent I spoke to didn’t give a name (he had a French accent) but assured me this time the reconnection would happen within 48 hours as he sent a request to the support team. I tried to ask what would happen if it didn’t, but he cut me off, saying “it will happen 100%” and cut the call. Of course, it didn’t. In one of the WhatsApp chats, another agent suggested it might be easier to simply open a new account. At this point, I was desperate. I called and spoke to a lady who confirmed I could set up a new account. Guess what, better deal than I agreed on 17th of April.
So here I am still with Virgin, but not by choice. They're the only provider in my area offering broadband speeds over 250 Mbps, so I simply don’t have a real alternative. After 25 years of loyalty, I'm technically still a customer but this time a new one.
Throughout this ordeal my daughter, who works from home, suffered the most. You can imagine the frustration she went through. She had to rely on mobile data, work from various locations, travel twice to London, and even stay at my son's house, which wasn’t ideal with four young children, including two babies. One of our neighbors kindly let us connect to their Wi-Fi, but the signal was barely strong enough to send an email. And that £20 goodwill credit? It was wiped out by the “new installation fee,” so thank you, Virgin. Not that I care about the £20 anymore. I just wanted to be connected and treated with some basic respect after two and a half decades of loyalty.
