Virgin Media Discussion Thread

brsk unfortunately not in my area.

With Virgin Media, when it comes to renewal, they will try to scam you - if you do nothing, you will pay loads more for the same package you have had for the last year and half. If you threaten to leave and negotiate, you usually end up with a deal similar to what you had, maybe slightly better or slightly more expensive.

Its been like this for decades, and its a very annoying game that you have to play with them to not get ripped off more than what you already have been.

VM BS business tactics.
 
It seems thats not assured success now sadly.

When I rang to cancel, I got an offshore centre which was odd in itself given retentions are effectively sales, and the guy couldnt even match the automated email offer, the offer was hideous.

I have seen 4 posts today where people got personalised offers of the following for gig1.

£35 - after they quoted a CF package. prior to that his offer was quite bad, they said was impossible to budge etc, but then by magic dropped it after he quoted a cityfibre price.
£37
£42
£35

None of these were volt, they were all flat gig1.

Also someone was offered this on volt.

£36 (500mb and then boosted to gig1 via sim, sim cost would be on top of this).

My offer was after a fair amount of haggling £55 (£26 worse than current package). My sim increases to a little under £18 this month, so the offer was basically £73. My offer is by the far worst I have seen anyone post.

On top of this, I cancelled on Monday, and got no attempt from outbound retentions, everyone who posted they got the outbound call, it was within 48 hours.

Interestingly someone posted, that this offshore retentions call centre isnt proper retentions but more like a tier 1, their advice was to hang up if these guys ever answer the call, wish I knew this when I rang.

I dont think I am being unreasonable expecting to pay the going rate of what is offered to other customers. I would tolerate a few pounds, but not nearly 40 quid.

When I quoted the CF price to the retentions I was talking to, there was absolutely no attempt to even get close to it, he simply changed tact to that VM is better quality and that I would have to pay install fee's to change ISP.

There really shouldnt be a lottery on a broadband package, keep it simple and charge everyone the same price. At the very least if you going to have retention deals at least make them consistent with each other.

I wonder how much money is wasted by me having to send the equipment back, cancel the contract, someone else signing up for activation day soon after cut off date, and then them sending me brand new equipment and the arrangement of new contract.
 
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chrcoluk said:
It seems thats not assured success now sadly.

When I rang to cancel, I got an offshore centre which was odd in itself given retentions are effectively sales, and the guy couldnt even match the automated email offer, the offer was hideous.

I have seen 4 posts today where people got personalised offers of the following for gig1.

£35 - after they quoted a CF package. prior to that his offer was quite bad, they said was impossible to budge etc, but then by magic dropped it after he quoted a cityfibre price.
£37
£42
£35

None of these were volt, they were all flat gig1.

Also someone was offered this on volt.

£36 (500mb and then boosted to gig1 via sim, sim cost would be on top of this).

My offer was after a fair amount of haggling £55 (£26 worse than current package). My sim increases to a little under £18 this month, so the offer was basically £73. My offer is by the far worst I have seen anyone post.

On top of this, I cancelled on Monday, and got no attempt from outbound retentions, everyone who posted they got the outbound call, it was within 48 hours.

Interestingly someone posted, that this offshore retentions call centre isnt proper retentions but more like a tier 1, their advice was to hang up if these guys ever answer the call, wish I knew this when I rang.

I dont think I am being unreasonable expecting to pay the going rate of what is offered to other customers. I would tolerate a few pounds, but not nearly 40 quid.

When I quoted the CF price to the retentions I was talking to, there was absolutely no attempt to even get close to it, he simply changed tact to that VM is better quality and that I would have to pay install fee's to change ISP.

There really shouldnt be a lottery on a broadband package, keep it simple and charge everyone the same price. At the very least if you going to have retention deals at least make them consistent with each other.

I wonder how much money is wasted by me having to send the equipment back, cancel the contract, someone else signing up for activation day soon after cut off date, and then them sending me brand new equipment and the arrangement of new contract.
Click to expand...
It's simple.

CS - Little/no budget, no real offer, not even able to issue a new contract and generally outsourced.
Inbound Retentions - Graded offers based on RGU's/services taken, faults/payment history, has some negotiation powers, but is working to a set criteria/budget.
Outbound Retentions - Often the same people as inbound retentions but doing outbound calls on a different campaign, able to exercise more discretion and more willing to use budget. They used to do a second call out where possible, but generally not a given.

In terms of how much money is wasted? Very little. The largest cost in a new install at this point is cabling an un-cabled property, that's already been done, so you return the equipment (minimal cost), it's reprocessed, if it's old, it's recycled, if it's current, it's recertified and sent back out on service calls. The new 'install' just get's new equipment sent out and away they go. It's a cheap way of doing in-field upgrades without a truck roll and potentially keeping faults low, as the new install doesn't require a truck roll and will be with 'new' equipment, and the churn is cancelled out by the install so it's statistically insignificant. The reporting focus is on net additions rightly or wrongly.
 
Interesting info there thank you @Avalon , I expected was some kind of tiered system based on the services the customer already has and what you posted seems to kind of add some substance to it. I am probably the worst type of customer, as all I want is a single thing, broadband, and havent taken on any additional extras like TV, not even temporary PPV type stuff. I did take on the O2 sim and stream box, but that was only because of the bundle in itself making the broadband cheaper.

It a shame as I think the service has been very good, I also dont think the £41 online offer was terrible just not great, but rather the call offers which were bad, I wrongly assumed the £41 offer would stay there as a fallback if the call didnt go well, but it got invalidated by the events of the call, if it didnt get invalidated I would have activated it as I tried to after the call.

If the CF install goes ahead which now seems likely, I will end up probably not being so bothered, although will still report back if I get an outbound call making me any offers to stay.
 
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This will be the first time i've explained something and you haven't disliked it or accused me of trying to defend <insert company/industry/process here> this is progress :D At this point broadband has little upsell or cross sell potential, they literally used Volt to try and change that and increase uptake in SIMO. With a landline or SIMO, you may make calls, vote in competitions etc. with TV you may purchase a PPV etc. or shove the movies/sports on for a month or two and forget about them, a solus customer is rightly or wrongly the least incentivised in sales or retentions, so generally you as a solus broadband user will be given average offers at best unless you tick 'other' boxes.
 
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The team on X were able to cancel my services yesterday.

Today there's been 4 calls from outbound retentions - either they are really desperate or just silly!
 
Gave my 30 days notice today price increase from next month out of contract is £26 higher and they couldn't even get to my current price. £7 higher was the best they could do, hoping they ring up with some good offers but if not I'll be heading to a competitor.
 
Just did the renewal dance, out of contract my price for 350 was going up from £24 to £64 a month. Got it for £25, glad it's sorted but wish the price was fixed so you didn't have to jump through hoops every 18 months.
 
Well decided to call up as Mariusz post reminded me, currently on 250 for £21 and best I got was the same speed for £61 so cancellation in
 
RobTi said:
Well decided to call up as Mariusz post reminded me, currently on 250 for £21 and best I got was the same speed for £61 so cancellation in
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they offered me £25 for 250 on the live chat, but on the your offers when logging into account on website it was £24 so just took that
 
The team on social media (X/Facebook) might be able to help - they tried to force an upgrade to Gig1, so clearly they can help with that.

£61 for 250mbps is absolutely shocking!
 
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Brsk just come to my area , seen the guys doing cabling-urfibre?

Brsk leaflet through the letterbox today, once I'm out of contract I'll be switching.
 
RobTi said:
Can’t get anything on the web site every link takes me to the page about 2024 price increases
Click to expand...

might be account specific, its called your offers on your dashboard . what I found if you selected not interested it would drop it down 5% further
 
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