Virgin Media Discussion Thread

[fezster]

How did you put the cancellation in, over the Phone or via Chat? Thanks

Over the phone. You have to go through the usual process of being passed to retentions. If you use the number I gave above, it goes direct to them.

 

[SpudMaster]

No you do not, you get 386Mb/s or 48MB/s (again bits vs Bytes).

Here is my 1Gb/s, I get approx. 920-950Mb/s in tests so in MB/s that is max of about 117MB/s

Yeah thats what I said but didn't use upper case cos typing on phone. 386mbps (bits), 48mb/s (bytes). Tbh when I type my reply I was at work a and didn't read your message properly. I thought you were asking a question so I thought I was helping you and not fueling your pedantic little rant

 

[JohnG7]

You are full of BS, how can that be what you said when it was not and I was not being smart.

I was thinking you were not getting full speed due to the fact you are too lazy to press a button on your phone .

I typed this from my phone which I rarely ever do.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

im on virgin 350m package here is what i usually get:

its good download speed. upload is lame but worst is the constant price increases.

 

[SpudMaster]

You are full of BS, how can that be what you said when it was not and I was not being smart.

I was thinking you were not getting full speed due to the fact you are too lazy to press a button on your phone .

I typed this from my phone which I rarely ever do.

Whats your problem? Did you learn something new and recently and decided to go full nazi on everyone in an attempt to look smart?

 

[Elevon]

I have been given another install date of 11th Feb, this will be the fourth one, first was cancelled by them, second and third they came round but could not install BB/Phone due to cable blockage on the street, so hoping fourth time lucky since November 18th 2020.

You would not think getting Virgin BB installed would be this hard. As usual not got my hopes up, I told them you can't install it until the cable blockage is fixed,(they knew this on the second visit btw since they took pictures back in November) both Virgin construction team (spoke with them twice via email) and normal Virgin installation team are aware of the situation, so I hope the left hand knows what the right hand is doing with the Virgin team.

The third install visit was yesterday 28th Feb FYI, and yes they had not fixed the cable issue outside so how did they expect to install BB in my house?
I also gave them feedback rating and two complaints, lets hope they are aware that as a new customer I'm a bit peeved.

Is it rocket science?.. Virgin construction team clears and fixed the cable blockage or connection outside, then tells department of Virgin indoors installation team job done you can now install BB etc to the customer.

 

[Avalon]

im on virgin 350m package here is what i usually get:

its good download speed. upload is lame but worst is the constant price increases.

What constant price rises? The recently announced increase is the first in two years. They held off last year due to everything else going on in the world and added more chans/upgraded speeds for many at no extra charge. You may have had an introductory offer that expired (though we already know yours is still running till the 9th of March) and you went to paying normal rolling contract rates, but a discount ending meaning you pay the normal rate is not the same as a price rise.

 

[Journey]

There is no such thing as the normal rate. We all know it is whatever they can squeeze out of the customer for as long as possible, with the prices increasing unless they have competition, then miraculously they offer you better pricing as well.

My buddy was going to leave and he lives in the L'pool area and can now get Gigafast with Voda, when he called to cancel all of a sudden they could offer him a faster service for less money, but if I'd not told him about Voda, and he hadn't called then he'd be getting charged more. This is what they are trying to stop mobile companies doing with tariffs rolling over from handset tariffs, and it needs to stop with these pretend 'introductory offers' and what ever the price the advertise on the internet, radio and TV needs to be the price everyone gets.

 

[Rensin]

Having read the comments on here I decided to give the retentions team another call to try and get a better deal, I tried in July 2020 when my contract ended and would only knock off £17 to make my bill £115pm

Full house bundle + sky sports/movies incl HD
2x TiVo & 1x V6 box
350MB BB
VM talk anytime.

Sadly I could only get through to VM India and all he would take off was the price increase cost so my bill stayed the same.
I pointed out to him the Ultimate Oomph bundle is cheaper with upgraded boxes & BB why can I not be moved to this package .. supposedly it would cost me £146 pm .. been with them since NTL days and no discount.

As I'm not the only bill payer I would have removed the TV & phone completely but family decided to remove sports & movie bundle as the family use Netflix ect (resulted in my bill now been £110.67 again don't know where these numbers come from)
After 90 mins back & forth I got my bill to £101.67 (wouldn't round it to £100pm or upgrade the TiVo boxes to v6)

I now have
Maxit TV (V6 box, 2x TiVo)
350MB BB
Talk anytime

Still think the price is expensive and a lower bundle but as I only pay for the BB it wasn't my choice on the TV side.

 

[Avalon]

There is no such thing as the normal rate. We all know it is whatever they can squeeze out of the customer for as long as possible, with the prices increasing unless they have competition, then miraculously they offer you better pricing as well.

If they don’t have a normal rate why does it clearly state on all the marketing what the normal rate is? It’s that bit that says something along the lines of ‘£34/m for 18 months, standard pricing thereafter (currently £51/m).’ shockingly that actually means you are signing up to a product that you are expected to pay £51/m for after your introductory discount expires, unless you agree to a new contract which brings with it a new discount. It works the same way with energy, finance, telecoms, media, heck even your average VPN provider usually has a monthly and a yearly/bi-yearly plan, even OCUK have daily/weekly deals and larger purchases get a reasonable discount, it’s what the vast majority of industries do if they operate in a largely free market with light regulation. Supply contracts generally have 2 or more prices, the retail price which is for people who want or need the flexibility, a provider may loose the income stream at any point with minimal notice, they charge top whack for the privilege. Then you have one or more contract rates, generally the longer the contract, the cheaper the deal (VM do 9 month student contracts that are cheaper than retail pricing, but not as good as 18 month offers).

Non of this has any reasonable comparison to mobile handset billing which you mention, as the pricing in those cases stays the same when it should drop once the hardware loan is repaid, they don’t usually sucker you in with a high price, and if they do you’re a special type of customer, they also usually throw new handsets at you early if you have mama fed to pay your bills on time as networks love to keep good payers on the books.

To use your friends example, if he was out of contract, of course they could discount it, if he wanted to get Vodafone of course they could be competitive. Remove that ability and everyone like you who has the sense to do a deal ends up paying retail pricing, yes logically it would be reduced slightly, but VM are a business and they exist to make money, they aren’t going to make less of it because they have to have a single price, that doesn’t seem to reward loyalty any better than the current system does to me.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Iv worked with Vodafone in the past and can say it doesnt really matter if you have been with them 10 years or 10 months the deals you get will be the same.
Some companies do offer a lot more loyalty discounts though. Virgin media doesnt seem to be one of them.

 

[flexo786]

Hi, if anyone is looking for virgin mates rates deals. There is a few good ones atm so feel free to trust me and I can go ahead and refer you.

 

[shiver]

Well this is going to be fun, attempted to arrange move with virgin yesterday. First via chat, the bot eventually attempted put me through to an agent but they never responded in an hour or so. Tried to phone later on, sat on the queue for nearly an hour and then it hung up.

I want to stay with VM but hoping to do a simple self install at new place. Having broadband is especially important with both my partner and I WFH. Guess I’ll try again on Monday

 

[MartinPrince]

What constant price rises? The recently announced increase is the first in two years. They held off last year due to everything else going on in the world and added more chans/upgraded speeds for many at no extra charge. You may have had an introductory offer that expired (though we already know yours is still running till the 9th of March) and you went to paying normal rolling contract rates, but a discount ending meaning you pay the normal rate is not the same as a price rise.

Too right. I'm on the Ultimate Oomph and paying £79 month. Contract ends in April when it goes up to something daft like £150/month so I'll have to do the whole cancel and re-join in the missus' name rigmaroll instead of just calling up and getting the current deal which is £79 for 18 months.

 

[Avalon]

Too right. I'm on the Ultimate Oomph and paying £79 month. Contract ends in April when it goes up to something daft like £150/month so I'll have to do the whole cancel and re-join in the missus' name rigmaroll instead of just calling up and getting the current deal which is £79 for 18 months.

It’s hard to beat Quidco + introductory offer, but the retentions deals can do sales offers and a little extra if properly motivated.

 

[TonyM19]

Considering leaving VM after about 20 years. Just getting a bit too expensive for what we use it for and ongoing issues with wifi signals. One of the things that's holding me back is losing my email address. My understanding is that they will keep it open for 90 days is that correct? I don't know if I can face transferring 20 years of email contacts/passwords etc. Is there any sort of switching service for this? Is there a way to back up my current emails to use with whatever provider i move to?

 

[Faded]

So now I'm all setup with the 350M packages and have been sent the Hub3 (Was still using the 2 up until recently)

The Hub seems to be terrible though, internet is slowing down at times and a few devices randomly lose connection.
Has anyone else experienced this and can offer any advice?
I've seen suggestions such as changing the wifi channels, splitting the 2G and 5G channels and even getting your own router and using the hub in modem mode.

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[Avalon]

Personally I would have stuck with the SH2 if at all possible - the 3 has issues, it will bog down with even modest UDP traffic, the mitigation of the Intel Puma chipset issue isn’t perfect and frankly it’s just a mess, even at the point it’s being phased out. The SH4 isn’t massively better, but it supports a newer standard that allows for the potential to access faster speeds, but the UDP issues are still an issue, though can be worked round.

 

[Avalon]

Considering leaving VM after about 20 years. Just getting a bit too expensive for what we use it for and ongoing issues with wifi signals. One of the things that's holding me back is losing my email address. My understanding is that they will keep it open for 90 days is that correct? I don't know if I can face transferring 20 years of email contacts/passwords etc. Is there any sort of switching service for this? Is there a way to back up my current emails to use with whatever provider i move to?

Regardless of if you move ISP or not, move your email to either your own hosted domain or gmail etc. No reason to still use ISP mail or remain with one because you don’t wish to loose it.

 

[MartinPrince]

It’s hard to beat Quidco + introductory offer, but the retentions deals can do sales offers and a little extra if properly motivated.

Yes that's true, I got £200 off with mine with TopCashBack when I took it out last April. It took 6 months for me to get the cash in my PayPal account but it did eventually come. (They also take £5 so you end up with £195)

Personally I would have stuck with the SH2 if at all possible - the 3 has issues, it will bog down with even modest UDP traffic, the mitigation of the Intel Puma chipset issue isn’t perfect and frankly it’s just a mess, even at the point it’s being phased out. The SH4 isn’t massively better, but it supports a newer standard that allows for the potential to access faster speeds, but the UDP issues are still an issue, though can be worked round.

It's impossible to retain the SH2 going above 200Mb - or more precisely VirginMedia make it impossible. Plus if you have a fixed phone with them it now plugs into the SH3/4.