Virgin Media Discussion Thread

Soldato
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How long do you have to wait after you cancel to then sign up as a new customer? I thought it was a few months? Or did you use another name for the new account? Thanks.
Within what used to be 90 days, you were considered an existing customer reconnecting, every member of telesales or online signed a specific contract that stated they were obliged to check the previous account/name and any debt on the account and confirm it wasn’t related to the new install and if it was within 90 days, you were to be dealt with via the reconnection process. However a lot of that went out the window a good few years back and now, honestly its pretty unlikely anyone really cares unless the previous account has a debt in your name. The ideal solution is to use another member of the households name, but in a world of online orders and outsourcing, little is going to be checked by a commission based sales person.
 
Soldato
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My contract was ending end of April I took the offer and it said no price rise till 2025
Thanks, My issue is my offer doesnt make it clear sadly, I probably will need to ring them. I have a situation where I might be leaving for CityFibre, but that is now looking very unlikely so probably best I just get VM renewed at this point so will ring them Monday, I assume a rep can just activate the existing offer without hassle hopefully, so I will just be checking with them if the price is good until April 2025.
 
Soldato
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Thanks, My issue is my offer doesnt make it clear sadly, I probably will need to ring them. I have a situation where I might be leaving for CityFibre, but that is now looking very unlikely so probably best I just get VM renewed at this point so will ring them Monday, I assume a rep can just activate the existing offer without hassle hopefully, so I will just be checking with them if the price is good until April 2025.

No it's not clear only said it when I went through few steps to claim it

I did use the chat online with them best they could offer was £25 250mb but when logged into site and going into your offers it was £24, guess I could have put in cancellation and hope retentions called but with no better alternative I didn't bother

We did get fttp installed on street few months ago but only bt , talk talk, Vodafone etc just the bigger names and none of them offering anything better , maybe when current contract ends I hope to have more options
 
Soldato
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No it's not clear only said it when I went through few steps to claim it

I did use the chat online with them best they could offer was £25 250mb but when logged into site and going into your offers it was £24, guess I could have put in cancellation and hope retentions called but with no better alternative I didn't bother

We did get fttp installed on street few months ago but only bt , talk talk, Vodafone etc just the bigger names and none of them offering anything better , maybe when current contract ends I hope to have more options
Wow Virgin Media are so much hard work.

So it turns out my automated retention offer isnt very good, the £36 is actually what they consider to be my current package, I assume the £29 with April inflation added on top, but since that offer ends this month its actually slightly below £90. The actual offer was £51 (plus keeping the sim), if I click no thank you twice it ends up with a final offer of £45 plus sim.

So I rang cancellations, I was expecting at least something a little better, but was actually offered a worse deal with an upsell of full tv channels included, it then took me 40 mins to get them to process a cancellation and I am seeing if I get one of these magical call backs with a reasonable offer or if in 3 weeks I have to go back to them with the tail between my legs.

VM strategy feels like they consider added value to be to give you things you dont want so they can keep the price as high as possible, but for someone like me I just want the one service I want for as cheap as possible. I think I wont be keeping the same price I had, it already was pretty good by VM standards, but I am hoping to at least get close to their inflation adjusted figure.
 
Soldato
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Wow Virgin Media are so much hard work.

So it turns out my automated retention offer isnt very good, the £36 is actually what they consider to be my current package, I assume the £29 with April inflation added on top, but since that offer ends this month its actually slightly below £90. The actual offer was £51 (plus keeping the sim), if I click no thank you twice it ends up with a final offer of £45 plus sim.

So I rang cancellations, I was expecting at least something a little better, but was actually offered a worse deal with an upsell of full tv channels included, it then took me 40 mins to get them to process a cancellation and I am seeing if I get one of these magical call backs with a reasonable offer or if in 3 weeks I have to go back to them with the tail between my legs.

VM strategy feels like they consider added value to be to give you things you dont want so they can keep the price as high as possible, but for someone like me I just want the one service I want for as cheap as possible. I think I wont be keeping the same price I had, it already was pretty good by VM standards, but I am hoping to at least get close to their inflation adjusted figure.

I did try the online chat few times over 2 weeks kept giving the same offer, I think they probably marked my account because the 3rd time said they can put in cancellation and went gave me date and told if I wanted to proceed , £24 isnt the best and isnt the worst so just will go with it I'll have 6 months left when next rise comes in april 2025
they need to remove price rises during contract with no option to leave :mad:

I did see £27 offer on 500MB but thats gone I dont need 500MB myself I was happy with 125mb for me just want as cheap as possible for min 100MB
 
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Associate
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I have to make the call on the 21st for my months notice and hope there are some new deals at that time as I’m currently on 250 for £20.
 
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Associate
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Can I ask if you go up in speed do they offer better services in terms of stable internet, we are over provisioned in my area so currently on 250 for my son as he is a heavy gamer and he wondered if we went upwards the service would change ?
 
Soldato
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Had a look here, wow what they tried to get me to pay is horrific compared to whats on uswitch.


Might give my sister a call and ask her to sign up, I remember in the past having her account in my name without me living at her address and VM accepted it, so hopefully can do other way around. New customer Account switcheroo less hassle than cancelling poker stares?
 
Associate
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Had a look here, wow what they tried to get me to pay is horrific compared to whats on uswitch.


Might give my sister a call and ask her to sign up, I remember in the past having her account in my name without me living at her address and VM accepted it, so hopefully can do other way around. New customer Account switcheroo less hassle than cancelling poker stares?
Over the years I have had both my parents signed up and this year I have had a talk with my son to be ready if they don’t offer anything
 
Soldato
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Had a look here, wow what they tried to get me to pay is horrific compared to whats on uswitch.


Might give my sister a call and ask her to sign up, I remember in the past having her account in my name without me living at her address and VM accepted it, so hopefully can do other way around. New customer Account switcheroo less hassle than cancelling poker stares?

I found moneysupermarket to offer better with bill credit
 
Soldato
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Can I ask if you go up in speed do they offer better services in terms of stable internet, we are over provisioned in my area so currently on 250 for my son as he is a heavy gamer and he wondered if we went upwards the service would change ?

the latency / ping doesnt change, only makes a difference if you start downloading stuff , gaming doesnt use much bandwidth unless you streaming the game as well thats where more upload speed helps
 
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Associate
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The VM service is just unreliable in general - it doesn't matter what speed you're on! Also terrible for latency - but if it's the only option in the area (apart from FTTC) there's nothing that can really be done.
 
Caporegime
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The biggest problem with Virgin Media if you're on their XGS-PON network is that it's impossible to talk to someone who knows how to do anything other than follow a flowchart and maybe offer to let you out the contract if the service is still bad, there are no high quality wholesale customers on their Nexfibre network who might make it slightly more bearable to use. They also have the same approach as every other big provider to out of contract price increases and having to negotiate every 18 months. But if things aren't broken then the actual service that is delivered is good, other than things like IPv6 being a missing feature still.

If you're in a DOCSIS area then you have all the above to deal with alongside a terrible access layer that is well beyond its useful life.
 
Associate
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I mean there are general outages from time to time that affect the whole country/large areas but I agree that some areas will be better. But if the network is overprovisioned in an area, that's probably not helping in terms of it running well.

To the opposite effect, I've seen outages reported on national news websites that don't affect me!
 
Soldato
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For me its been way more reliable than all my previous DSL providers in the past decade or so. The uptime is great, also luckily not suffering congestion so very consistent speeds. Its a shame I am having to go through all these contract shenanigans because of their greed.
 
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Associate
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Is that £39 including the cost of the sim? if so thats very good.

I currently have £29 plus sim cost which totals at about £43 month, my automated retentions offer is £36 plus sim, but unclear if it includes a April 2024 rise.

My sister recently upgraded them to gig1 for a total cost (not using volt) of £55.
No sim included, just 1000/1000 package,
How long do you have to wait after you cancel to then sign up as a new customer? I thought it was a few months? Or did you use another name for the new account? Thanks.
AFAIK its 60 days, but people have done it after 30, if you have someone else at the address, you can just sign up as them, I just had 1 day of downtime, 15th internet went off, then the 16th new installation happened :)
 
Soldato
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For me it’s been way more reliable than all my previous DSL providers in the past decade or so. The uptime is great, also luckily not suffering congestion so very consistent speeds. It’s a shame I am having to go through all these contract shenanigans because of their greed.
So they’re greedy because they are doing exactly what you both agreed to in the contract (xx months with discount off retail price, then retail price on a 30 day rolling contract)? They’re a business, they operate introductory/contract pricing with an increase at the end of that, it’s the same with mortgage deals/credit cards and energy (less so in a capped market). You aren’t being greedy by negotiating a new contract any more than they are by sticking to the old one. Book a disconnection and new install if you want the best deal, use Quidco/TCB or whatever site has the best offer for your needs, but don’t expect them to fall over themselves trying to throw money at you to stay just because, that’s not how business generally works.
 
Soldato
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The VM service is just unreliable in general - it doesn't matter what speed you're on! Also terrible for latency - but if it's the only option in the area (apart from FTTC) there's nothing that can really be done.

Unreliable in general? It's not unreliable for me and many others. so don't use words like "in general". It can depend on area, lots of areas can have an excellent reliable connection, the latency thing aside which some would not even care about or notice.
Ive been with them for years and the internet has not dropped at all for well over a year or more, I think the last outage I noticed that effected me was during the start of covid when everyone was at home putting huge demand on the network infrastructure.
I am looking to switch though to go full fibre but mainly because I can get it a lot cheaper (community fibre)
 
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