Virgin Media Community

[Hunique]

We rented a house together in June 2018. There was no internet. We chose Virgin Media's 30-day rolling contract.
I signed the contract in my name. We paid £38 for 100MB of internet.
We had lots of problems with the HUB 3 router and still have to this day. We have had several visits from the engineer to no avail. They replaced it with the same router which is just as bad.
Sometimes the WI-FI goes out, sometimes it comes back. It is annoying.
We are now paying £51.25 for internet, which was £38 before.
And from April it will go up to £58.25.
We would get 125MB of internet for nearly £60, with the worst router ever, with instabil WI-FI. All because we can't have a 12 or 24 month loyalty period.
What is that if not loyalty? For years, we have been paying a price for the Internet that all service providers offer cheaper.
It still means nothing to Virgin Media. The unstable WI-FI has caused tenants to switch to Three Home Broadbrand.
I have held out, but I think this April increase will be the last straw. There was not even a helpfulness to get our WI-FI problem solved.
That is 4 and a half years of experience.

[Client62]

Virgin Media operates a price ratchet system. 

Like car & home insurance used to be, keep upping the price and when the customer walks away then you have exceeded their patience.

This forum has many grumbles about years of poor service from VM - but too few posts saying I'm done & I have just cancelled.

Perhaps due to folks inertia VM have an approach works.

[goslow]

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@Hunique wrote:

We rented a house together in June 2018. <snip>

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There are some unusual aspects to this description.

Why have you continued to pay a higher monthly subscription for 30 day rolling contract over a 4½ year period rather than taking out a longer term subscription?

The 30 day contract allows you to switch quickly to another provider, if you want to, so why have you not already switched elsewhere rather than put up with VM?

The answer to your predicament of VM's poor service and poor equipment seems fairly obvious.

[Andrew-G]

goslow: Why have you continued to pay a higher monthly subscription for 30 day rolling contract over a 4½ year period rather than taking out a longer term subscription?

Because it's a shared house, but the contract is in the OP's name.  He doesn't want to be on the hook for 18 months when the tenancy is probably only assured for six month blocks, and co-tenants might disappear or change at any time?  I suspect with multiple people paying, getting agreement to change is difficult (eg duplicate costs of overlapping a new connection, possible new installation or Openreach reactivation charge).

I've every sympathy with the OP, but appealing to loyalty is unfortunately wrong.  This is a commercial contract, loyalty is an emotional concept that doesn't have any relevance here -VM are a business and aren't loyal to him, he isn't or shouldn't be loyal to them.  VM's offers are legal, and indeed normal practice for larger ISPs.  As I see it he has three options:

1) Bite the bullet, commit to VM for 18 months and a discount deal, cross fingers nothing goes wrong with housemates.  if he moves, hope that he can either use the house moves process to take the deal if he moves, or the out of area process if VM can't service a new address.  

2) Keep paying the undiscounted 30 day notice rate.  At sixty quid a month that's very poor value.

3) Cancel VM and go with ID Net "Ultrafast Basic", no fixed term, £35 a month for 150 Mbps although a £50 a month setup charge if there's not currently an Openreach ONT.  You'd also need to buy your own router as well, a TP-Link Archer C6 Gigabit would be a fair choice at around £35. 

[goslow]

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@Andrew-G wrote:

goslow: Why have you continued to pay a higher monthly subscription for 30 day rolling contract over a 4½ year period rather than taking out a longer term subscription?

Because it's a shared house, but the contract is in the OP's name.  He doesn't want to be on the hook for 18 months when the tenancy is probably only assured for six month blocks, and co-tenants might disappear or change at any time?  I suspect with multiple people paying, getting agreement to change is difficult (eg duplicate costs of overlapping a new connection, possible new installation or Openreach reactivation charge).

<snip>

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But the OP also mentions 'The unstable WI-FI has caused tenants to switch to Three Home Broadband.' so if the original deal was that the OP was the account holder for the property (and other tenants have now bailed out on some kind of sharing internet deal) that is double-curious as to why carry on with VM.

[Hunique]

Yes, you are right.

Several of us rented a house. There was no internet. We had to buy it, so I took on the contract, but only a 30-day rolling contract.
Because anything can happen. People leave. The owner of the house is an 82 year old uncle whose lungs are ruined by covid, anything can happen to him. There are too many uncertainties. And if I have to move alone, I don't want to take an 18-month VM contact with me. Especially since they usually rent out rooms with an internet. I'd be paying unnecessarily.
Half the team we rented the house with has already left.
The fewer we are, the more it costs and everyone wants a stable internet.
Yes I am looking for opportunities. I have thought about ID Net.
In our area there are only 60-75MB download speeds available.
No Hyperoptic yet. No Community Fibre yet. I don't want Sky or BT.
Maybe we will try Three 5G Home Broadband for us too. 150MB average download speed. £24/month rolling contract.

[Roger_Gooner]

This is my understanding: from June 2022 the early disconnection fee for terminating your VM contract is three times your monthly bill (but you still have to give 30 days' notice).

I would caution against 5G as performance is often disappointing.