on 29-01-2024 20:52
Wasted 2 hours on the phone today trying to get virgin to sell me a streaming box that they advertise on their site for a one off fee of £35. I was originally offered it for £40, and then told they could do me a deal and reduce it to £35. After that though it all started going down hill. As I had to renegotiate my annual contract on 15th Jan my broadband was reduced by 100GB and I lost all of the BT sports channels. For this improvement my bill went up from £64 to £77 per month. As I had asked to get this streaming box, I was subsequently told my discounts(!) would have to be revised and that they could give me the box for free, but my annual bill would be £100 per month (advertised as a one of cost of £35 with no monthly fee remember!!).
I said that this was not acceptable and to just forget my request, but whilst I was on, could they re-price my account by removing all sky movies and sports channels as other than F1 I don’t watch any off them. This resulted in my bill increasing to £141 per month!!! What is going on with Virgin media!! I cannot for the life of me follow this sort of business model of we will give you less but charge you more.
Anyone at Virgin want to try and pick this apart and explain properly to me why I cannot just buy this box for £35 as advertised on your website????
on 29-01-2024 22:00
Hi kcb3010
Only one Stream box is allowed per account, and it can't be used in conjunction with any other VM set top box (tivo, V6 or 360)
Additionally VM don't sell any of their set top boxes. The boxes are loaned out to customers and repaired or replaced if they become faulty. VM expect the TV set boxes (with the exception of the older tivo's which are now obsolete) to be returned whan a customer cancels otherwise an additional fee is added to the final bill to cover the cost of the equipment if it isn't returned.
The box isn't advwertised for sale for £35 on the website. You may be confusing that with the £35 activation fee for customers that do take the Stream offering.
Screenshot below from https://www.virginmedia.com/tv/stream
And from the Legal Stuff on the same page, "Stream from Virgin Media: Virgin Media broadband required (min. 50 Mbps). Not available with other Virgin Media TV services."
30-01-2024 12:43 - edited 30-01-2024 12:50
@kcb3010 wrote:Wasted 2 hours on the phone today trying to get virgin to sell me a streaming box that they advertise on their site for a one off fee of £35. I was originally offered it for £40, and then told they could do me a deal and reduce it to £35. After that though it all started going down hill. As I had to renegotiate my annual contract on 15th Jan my broadband was reduced by 100GB and I lost all of the BT sports channels. For this improvement my bill went up from £64 to £77 per month. As I had asked to get this streaming box, I was subsequently told my discounts(!) would have to be revised and that they could give me the box for free, but my annual bill would be £100 per month (advertised as a one of cost of £35 with no monthly fee remember!!).
I said that this was not acceptable and to just forget my request, but whilst I was on, could they re-price my account by removing all sky movies and sports channels as other than F1 I don’t watch any off them. This resulted in my bill increasing to £141 per month!!! What is going on with Virgin media!! I cannot for the life of me follow this sort of business model of we will give you less but charge you more.
Anyone at Virgin want to try and pick this apart and explain properly to me why I cannot just buy this box for £35 as advertised on your website????
Sounds like you already have broadcast Cable TV (V360 or V6) on your account. You cannot have both the Broadcast & IPTV products on the same account, as they are covered by different carriage agreements. It's either give up the broadcast product & have one stream box, or add another broadcast box at £10-15 extra a month.
Copied from the Stream T&Cs:
Stream from Virgin Media: Virgin Media broadband required (min. 50 Mbps). Not available with other Virgin Media TV services. Compatible with Hub 3 and above. Stream box requires an HDMI cable connected to TV. HD TV set and a Stream box connected with HDMI cables required for viewing HD channels. Number of inclusive HD channels depends on package. 4K compatible TV/device required to watch Ultra HD. Stream box and remote remain property of Virgin Media.
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