Shady tactics and lies - avoid
I write this in hope someone will read in the future and spare themselves the experience of opening an account with Virgin. I had the terrible idea of signing up woth them. I spoke with a salesman who assured the contract was full fibre. When the contract came, the wording on it were for hybrid broadband. I called back immediately to cancel and a very rude employee called John Paul told me that I couldn't cancel my account because it wasn't in the system yet. I managed to speak with the salesman again, who revealed he wasn't really sure about hybrid vs full fibre and offered to send an engineer the day after. I agreed. The engineer never showed up. When I called them back, I learned the engineer appointment was mysteriously cancelled without notification (they couldn't tell me by whom or why of course), so I had spent the whole Saturday morning waiting for the engineer for nothing. I finally was able to cancel (which is very hard to do, they keep making excuses) but of course my O2 account, part of the package, that was opened by the Virgin Media saleaman, needed to be cancelled separately, so another 1/2 hour of phone call, verification, explanation etc. On the phone service, it's almost impossible to speak to a human operator: the only way is saying that you're thinking of cancelling, they'll put you through the retention team who can't do anything, but they'll eventually transfer you to the other teams. Even getting there is hard: the voice password system doesn't work, and you have to dial in your password after 3 attempts. Imagine an old person trying to cancel or fix something, they'll never be able. Obviously there is no option for "the engineer never showed up", and if you select the wrong option you will descend into robocall help until they tell you to go to the website and hang up. All operators are from Asian countries, thick accents, hard to understand. A scam, hopefully the regulator looks into those shady practices.Virgin Media Outage
I live in WS10 (Wednesbury) in the West Midlands (Sandwell). I've experienced outage in my area since 31st March 2025 (it is now 2nd June 2025!). I signed up for SMS updates and get multiple SMS's every day extending the date for resolution. All say that the latest update is that an engineer is on site and they're working to fix the problem - then multiple times every day extending the date and/or time for resolution. I work from home for mental health services in the NHS and every day has been distressing for both myself and patients when I'm constantly, multiple times a day, unable to connect to MS Teams or get kicked out of my meetings. I've been forced to make a complaint today via the on-line form - which wasn't working either(!) which has been a further source of frustration. Wonder if anyone in the area is experiencing the sameContract Cancellation Terms outrageous
Beware - it is strictly speaking "legal" but an affront to common fairness. In the smallpriint of your (broadband) contract the cancellation terms mean you would have to pay the full amount for every month left on your contract. For example, I have been with Virgin for twenty years, renewed my contract for Broadband and phone last November. The cost from May 2024 onwards (for the 12 months of the contract) will be £69, which is far too expensive compared to other providers, but to cancel it I would have to pay £12 x 69 = £828, yes OVER EIGHT HUNDRED POUNDS, for the privilege of NOT receiving their service for 12 months! This is discraceful and morally quite wrong. SHAME ON YOU, VIRGIN So "Buyer Beware" certainly applies ( and I bet this gets deteted by the admin!)
Virgin's inflexibility with pricing for loyal customers
I've been with VM for around 20 years, and every contract renewal have a similar conversation about pricing for existing customers and why they continue to penalise me over new customers. This year I wanted to drop my landline (it's not a landline anymore so pointless really), stop the TV service (which I have never actually used) and go from 500MB to 1GB service. The cost for a new customer taking 1GB broadband only is £42 a month, for 18 months. When I called Virgin, the cheapest they could get it for me would be £68 a month! Even to renew my current package would be £51 a month, which is still more than the new customer and I would need to take an 02 contract out as well at a minumum of £5 per month. Sadly I have given my notice to Virgin, I cannot agree with a 50 per cent penalty for existing customers, but I really do not understanrd this instransigence. On the other hand, my area does not get any other FFTTP until Dec 2026, so I might end up takiung out a new contract in my wife's name, I assume VM does not care about that, as long as they get the business?
