Virgin Media Price Hike.

Ive had an email from Virgin saying my package is going up £15 per month. An increase of almost 20% Now I expected a bit of an increase but £15 is stretching it. Its usually about £4 to £5. Furthermore from now on they are increasing it every April and it’ll be linked to the Retail Price Index (RPI) rate of inflation plus an additional 3.9%, .
Have any of you had an email with a similar percentage price increase?

Martin Lewis talked about this on his money programme

LINK

I am sure Virgin media’s costs and overheads will have increased so it stands to reason they will be passing it on to their customers.

i sacked virgin internet off in august went with 3 broadband i got a 24 month contract for £20 a month 1st 6 month at a tenner i can honestly say its the best move i ever made and the service has been faultless

just been on money savings site my increase is 4.5%

Sorry read you post wrong

Posted by: Stardelta
"I am sure Virgin media’s costs and overheads will have increased so it stands to reason they will be passing it on to their customers."

I'm not for 1 minute disputing that.
What I'm disputing is the almost 20% hike!
Surely this is blatant profiteering I'm awaiting the old chestnut of covid, price of energy, Ukraine war and the cost of petrol / diesel etc to be made the fall guys.

Virgin played that game with me, I sacked them and went with BT, its every bit as goodas Virgin and their call centre staff all speak English

I am with Virgin.

The immaculate contraption.

From 1st January 2023 they gave me for no extra dosh, seven more HD channels

ITV2
ITV3
ITV4
ITVBe
Film4
Hee4
More4

I am on a 18 month contract, but when that ends, the price will nearly double, so it will be back to BT via TalkTalk normally, but I am thinking of giving Sky a go, on the Sky Stream Service, but it will depend on how much they want for it, at the time I switch, because offers come and go, from all of the providers, so I say 'shop around'

But just remember, as the great Oy once said.

"What the Large Print .... Giveth ,,

The Small Print .... Taketh Away ,,"

I'm with Plusnet, owned by BT, mine is going up 3.9%

I'm thinking of switching, Tommy.
Ive been with Virgin almost 30 years. And to be honest, I've found the service very good. But, enough is enough regarding this latest price hike.
If I did change from Virgin, would I still have access to their email service?

No puss, they switch it off if you leave, and this time round I have not used any Virgin Email addresses, I just stick with Gmail

cheshire you get 3 months grace with your email account if you leave virgin ive recently been locked out and am now with gmail.

chesh I'm still using their original blueyonder email, So either I've slipped the net ( get it ? internet) or they are thinking I'm going back,

The email is the only thing thats holding me back at the moment.
All my correspondence is directed there. Bills, statements, ebay, all websites that I subscribe to etc. It would be a lot of inconvenience and hassle to me to change it.
If I could guarantee that I would be able to keep the email address I would have no hesitation about cancelling.

They definitely cancel the email.

We had the same email from Virgin Media a couple of weeks ago.

We rang them up to change our package and it will be £51 from April instead of £95.

We have also been with Virgin since they laid the cables in the Wigan area.

New customers get far better deals - so much for customer loyalty.

What package where you on, Mortarmillbill?
I'm on Maxit tv at the moment, unlimited free landline calls plus internet.

My package will be going up by £7 a month. I wouldn't mind, but I already pay £61 a month as it is, and I have no TV; just phone and internet.

Like Mortarbill says: New customers get far better deals - so much for customer loyalty.

And how much, may I ask, is Richard Branson worth?

Mollie it sounds like your contract has ended. Check If it has find another provider.

Thanks, First Mate. To be honest with you, I don't find things like this easy to get my head around these days.

I know there are other providers, and years ago prepared to go with Sky. An appointment was made and we both took the day off work to accommodate the engineer, who didn't show up. Next day, we went to work and got home to find a card through the door saying we weren't in!

This went on for a couple of more days but, by now, we'd cancelled with Virgin, so I rang Virgin and got the package reinstated.

Then, Sky wrote to us saying we owed THEM £140 for wasting their time.

That was when Mollie put her legal head on and threatened them with a court case if they went ahead, then I told them that they owed us £500 for the one day we took off when their engineer failed to appear.

So, you see, I don't need the hassle.

If you are happy to pay nearly £70 for phone and broadband only, that's up to you. There's no harm in ringing your provider and asking for a better deal, which I'm sure you will get.

Thanks, I think I'll try to do that, if I can get a human being to answer the phone, but that's as likely as getting an appointment with the King of Siam, but it's worth a try.

Actually, it wasn't Sky we tried to get with; it was BT, and it was back in 2007, so I'd forgotten. Just checked the letter I sent them.

If you have an on line account you could use their chat function. Good luck

I don't have an online account, but I'll try by phone anyway. Many thanks for your help.

We have a business phone with BT. £72 A MONTH, NO CALLS, NO BROADBAND, JUST LANDLINE ONLY.
The January bill came - £72.
My wife (Wiganer) (say no more!) uses the business mobile (Tesco) to ring BT and pay their extortionate bill.
Tesco's latest mobile bill came through today. It was £13 more than the usual monthly amount.
When checked, it turns out Tesco have charged us £13 for that call to BT, to pay the rip-off BT bill, and when I investigated further, BT have also charged us for ringing their payment number (08702 405 566).
Plus Tesco charged a connection charge to BT's line and BT charged a connection charge to their line.
It's like paying your phone company for a call AND paying the receiving phone company as well.

You never see these companies on Rogue Traders!

We have had BT, Sky and Virgin and as far as my Wife and I are concerned, Virgin is by far the best.

And from next April, their prices will only go up in April in accordance with the retail price index plus 3.9% and be based each year on the preceding February retail price index increase.

When we had Sky and a Engineer came to our house, we were charged for the visit which has never been the case with Virgin and when we changed to BT, their Engineer did not connect our landline which we need because of getting no mobile signal and it took me the best part of a week to get them to restore it. This being the second time that BT left us with no telephone connection due to them a few years ago, getting our house number mixed up with a neighbour who received a visit from a Engineer about a fault I have reported. When I contacted BT by my next door neighbours telephone, I was told that my reported fault had been repaired. Needless to say after the second botch up by BT, went back to Virgin and got a better recording box as part of a new package deal.

And the secret is to just get what you need and can afford which is in our case is just the basic package of broadband, telephone and television which together with the Freeview channels is sufficient for what we do on broadband, telephone and what we watch on television.

i also have been a virgin customer for years and they promise no increases in their contract ,yet year on year on ,up it goes.
every end of contract i wave them goodbye and a few days later they have got a better deal on offer. not for existing customers ,but for new ones and as i am ostensibly new ,we get a decent deal ,not the cheapest but fairly reliable.

For those claiming benefits this might be a good offer. Useful for the

"Rainhill" mob tomplum keeps referring to

LINK

Owd Codding Codger

"and when we changed to BT, their Engineer did not connect our landline"

So how did BT get you on Broadband, but not on Landline ?

because they are worked off different systems .

If you don't have an online account with Virgin Media and have paper bills it costs £5 more a month I believe.

yes it is .

Forgot to mention in my previous posting that when a second BT Engineer came over to find out what had happen, he removed our telephone from the porch where it had been for years, brought it into the lounge, put it on the floor in front of the television, connected it to the new BT box behind the television and scuttled out of the house like Usain Bolt without a word.

Virgin Media kindly restored the telephone to the porch at no extra cost to us.

And in reply to Tommy No Stroke, the landline is on a different connection system than Broadband and Television and the media companies also are faced with increasing costs which include a large and increasing wage bill of their employees.

We have a basic package with Sky (over 10 years)which is 32mb for broadband and a landline which costs £25 a month. I use the internet to look at WW and the News plus late evening U tube for music (the voice +voice kids etc)The phone I never use silly price I think its 23p connection charge +16p a minute just have it for incoming calls +answer machine. It suits my purpose and have no problems with it

Ring them up and ask to be put through to cancellations, 9 times out of 10 they will offer you a big discount to stay with them, I have done it 3 or 4 times over the years and it has worked every time, if they don't offer you the discount say you need to ask your other half before you commit and hang up then try again a week or so later, they will only have so many deals they can give out so the quota for the month could have been reached, you must speak to CANCELLATIONS though or else it wont work.

Owd Codger

"And in reply to Tommy No Stroke, the landline is on a different connection system than Broadband and Television"

So why did you have separate connections for your BT (Broadband/TV) and Landline ?

it comes as standard .

Whupsy

"it comes as standard"

What makes you say that ?

Tommy No Stroke

Please explain what you are on about as from what I can see, you don't seemed to grasp how modern media technology of Broadband, Television and Telephone operate independent of each other under the same one package, be it BT, Sky, Virgin etc.

Owd Codger

I see, so if you get your broadband from BT, which includes, Sky, TalkTalk etc, you have to have another line installed, from the telephone pole, into your house

Tommy No Stroke

You are still not with it are you.

With BT, you get Broadband, Television, Telephone and Landline from a BT box inside your house which comes from a outside wire from a pole in the street.

But BT are at last after many years of a wire from a pole now coming into the modern world of fibre optic cable of Virgin!

Owd Codger

I see, so BT have run a separate fibre optic cable into your house ?

BT, and its predecessor, Post Office telephones have used fibre optics since long before any of you had heard of Richard Branson/Virgin.

Initially, government prohibited BT from offering cable TV, but permitted Cable TV companies to offer telephone service, which is why you saw the latter's optical fibre in homes first. It was unnecessary for BT to use for 'The last mile', as it has been called, when they were only supplying voice signals.

But BT rolled out fibre optic cables to the street cabinets, in order to be able to provide a reasonably fast broadband speed, over the existing street networks.

Fibre optics coms begins in mid 1960's, when the various professional journals catalogue the developments of the varied technological requirements. You get a slightly different story depending where you look. I was at that time a subscriber to The Post Office Electrical Engineers' Journal, I recall they regularly covered the development.

First working fibre optics transmission system was at Telefunken Research Labs, Germany in 1965.

In 1968, NASA used fibre optics in the television cameras that were sent to the moon, though this was classified and not made public for some time.

Imperial College, London, Corning Glass, USA and Bell Telephone Labs were the main drivers, although US government's breaking up of 'Bell' delayed things.

The first Commercial fibre transmission system was a feeder to a transmitter installed in 1973 by STC. (Standard Telephones and Cables)

The first full fibre network was NORAD's in 1975. Not as easy to snoop as electrical signals in cables: again this was at the time classified.

In 1977, Post Office Telephone's exchanges began to use fibre optic links between exchanges.

My point being that OC's contention that BT was "coming into the modern world of fibre optic cable of Virgin!" shows a misunderstanding of what the systems are which lie behind what we see in our homes.

Notification from Sky my package will be going up by 16% in AprilBecause I am a scrouge will see what offers are on after this and give Sky a bell to see if I can get a better deal . We know loyalty means nothing but been with Sky over 10 years and I think my contract is up for renewal in August any way. If there are bargains to be had for new customers ONLY with Sky then I will take a contract out in my wife's name and she has her own bank account. The billing address would be the same but the account would be completely different

Thats a good idea in theory that, Peter putting it in someone elses name. Let me know how you go on. If it works I'll try it myself
I can't see it being that straightforward though otherwise half of the UK would be doing it For one, do they not go off an existing customers billing address? I imagine the alarm bells would start ringing if you tried to cancel and then rejoin with the same surname and address.

When I went back to Virgin from my bad experience with BT, the sales person asked me if I was married and when I said yes, he asked to speak to her and proceeded to give her a better deal including a better recording box.

Might only happen if you are a returning customer and married.

I made enquiries about this a few years ago and they said has long as the billing account was different there was nothing they could do to stop it How do they know who lives where man/wife or brother /sister.

It's nearly 12 months since I left Virgin and went to SKY Yesterday a guy from Virgin, came to the house and offered me the same deal I have with SKY i.e. TV Broadband and Unlimited calls, with a faster broadband connection and more TV channels for what I'm paying with SKY now i.e.£30.00 a month. I told him my contract still has 6 months to run. but no doubt the price would increase "a lot" from what I'm paying now when my contract finishes,.. He left me his card and phone number, (he lives in Wrightington) and said to give him a ring a month before my deal with Sky expires.

Cheshirecat
I have just checked our package and it is :-

M125 fibre broadband

TiVo box and Mixit TV

Phone rental, anytime chatter, caller reject and permanent line block.

The new price is £52.70 per month for 18 months and then it goes up again to £71.70 per month.

I am not sure which channels we will be losing yet as the new contract only starts in April.

just had a txt of 3 broadband concerning my april price rise, its going up from£20 to £20.90