Codenstuff
I understand the frustration, I have only ever once managed to get on chat with virgin, (been with the same company 20 years) and that was before lockdown. Have tried to chat on many occasions to virgin but never available or very long wait or time out.
The phone service usually get through but my experience recently at least 1 hour in lockdown if lucky but the 151 line is at least free so can be left on hands free listening to music.
The service is usually answered at call centres outside of the UK and help can sometimes need a few calls not just one, it took me a year of problems and phone calls continually before my faulty hub3 was finally replaced last year and a recent breakdown took two hour on the phone in two calls.
The costs are extremely high, I pay £74 and that is just tv, broadband and phone monthly with no sky films or sport or Netflix etc. So I may have to consider changing but the problem is I would have to switch to ADLS (phoneline) with another provider and possible poor speeds on broadband, and virgin have about 50% of UK fibre but at least reasonable speed is the only advantage. There is a massive price hike when the cheap virgin start up package ends and if on a fixed contract a huge cost penalty if you cancel early so I have stayed monthly for a quick exit if needed.
As many of the tv programmes are on freeview it may be worth buying my own freeview recorder and ditch TiVo.
I like streaming so do need the virgin fibre broadband but that is expensive also to existing customers. The landline phone is expensive too, but does come in handy. If the tv , phone and broadband were split to different providers it may not be any cheaper unless you just use freeview TV, a saving may be made or take advantage of cheap offers like sky, bt, plusnet, talktalk which are all in my area looking at the wifi signals so plenty of providers to choose from.
It is a good job the 151 call is free as the cost could be high otherwise with one or two hour delays to answer, at least they do not charge for the help line .
ALF28
