Rant Virgin Media (again)

(This is more of an open ended story)

My situation: Student house of 4, I'm the only one there at the moment as I'm working locally, others move in in october. They want the 50Mbps fibre, I'm using 10Mbps atm.

I've got the as basic as possible tv / fibre / phone package. I used that "chat to us before you buy" feature on their website, and "Emma" told me that if I wanted TV and Broadband it was not possible to have the 2 separate offers (effectively BB for £5/m and TV was £11/m), and combined it's £25/m. (I asked about 2 separate lines and they said no ).
I was advised by the 1st Emma that I could cancel after 28 days after purchase without problems, so I half decided ok about it (remember, the £25 includes BB, unwanted phone line, and less than freeview TV), so asked another Emma about it all. She said once I've signed up I can't cancel. I then mentioned is there a 28 day returns policy and she goes "oh yeah there is". Lovely.

I got the home delivery kit, and the modem wouldn't connect to the virgin line (there's nothing wrong with it as the previous tennants had it here a mere week before). I was then instructed to phone a premium rate number for "technical support" which consisted of waiting ages, then being told to one by one slowly turn everything off and on again (already done countless times). Low and behold, it suddenly worked fine.

The TV channel choice is farely crap, having less than the freeview selection, the on demand stuff doesn't have the choice you get online! Also a load of the channels break up and go blocky?!?

So yeah, just before the 28days are up I'm gonna cancel the TV and stick with the fibre internet (actually pretty good speedwise, shite limits though). Apparently you're allowed to upgrade midontract and start a new one, but not downgrade midcontract.

Does anyone have the geographical number for virgin support please? The saynoto0870 one doesn't work

 

0870s are now free btw from BT landlines.

Also you don't get Fibre to the home with virgin - it's still coax unless they've recently changed this? (They got told off by the advertising people for this!)

Oh and - use freeview into the TV instead of cable? Cable tv is really quite bad most of the time

 

good news on interwebs, the 50Mb service has no caps at all, and they're dropping the price on 1 sep. I'll probably be upgrading; it actually works out a bit less for me if i stop paper bills at the same time.

 

I thought vm recently changed their tech support to be free? In the past they always refunded the cost of the call if you asked anyway.

Have no problem with tv here, try and get them to boost the signal?

 

IMO I'm disliking VM atm, mostly due to absolutely rubbish standards of speed (I may as well be on 8Mb ADSL) getting a lowly 6Mb (if i'm lucky) but we're paying for 20Mb.. So I'm officially calling ******** on their everyone getting the quoted speed advert.

When I come to moving again I'll be getting a BT line (as much as I hate the idea) and going with either o2 or Be* possibly edging more towards o2 as I haz an iPhone... so cheapness. I do loathe the idea of having to have a PSTN line for internet access (more so due to the fact I will just use VOIP) but it's the lesser of two evils really.

With regards to VM's TV service it's unfortunate that you really do only get what you pay for, while the idea On Demand being available on the TV, it's not like I'm averse to using Boxee. If I really wanted to go for a HD TV supplier it would be Sky but being as they want to tie you in to all services they do it's a bit redundant. I don't want a phoneline, I don't want their broadband.

I'm getting more than tired of companies doing the forced tie in bit, either in the way that you get the additional services free whether you like it or not, or the "you can have it on its own for £50 or for a total of £44 if you take a phoneline" way. You either get penalised for not taking it or you get it anyway. I do understand that phonelines are still a strong revenue stream for media companies but I like to shop around, that's meant to be the essence of a free market. That's the complete idea behind de-monopolising BT; to allow competition.

In my world I'd quite happily subscribe to a PSTN line if it could be only used for ADSL (even just allowing 999 and 100 etc service codes to work would be fine and have no ability to call any other number), but as it is I'll probably end up with BT line, o2 ADSL, and Freesat or Freeview dependant on if there's a dish wherever I move.

In closing; I frakking hate synergy.

 

Yeah sorry, cable to the house not fibre, but still I'd have thought it's got to have a pretty decent signal?!
It's an 0845 number, supposedly goes to 01752300300 but it keeps saying phone the 0845 number
Ah didn't know the price is dropping, that's good timing, and didn't know you could make them refund it!

Freeview is definitely the way forwards - I barely watch TV cos of working all the time, might be better to make a simple media pc and download stuff to watch...

 

Seems the price is dropping to £38 for 50mb in Sept. If you ask they will give you credit. Still very expensive though.

 

Is that including line rental? At the moment it's £35 + compulsory £11 for phone line rental

 

38 without, 28 with. I have all three services at XL and am now in two minds as to whether to keep and upgrade to 50Mbit, or kick everything to the curb and get o2 broadband and BT phone line, and a better lovefilm subscription.

 

We've got 10mb cable from Virgin Media, and we're getting screwed on the price; we're paying for broadband only, and it's just a few pennies shy of £17 a month. Just had a quick check on their site and you can now get the same speed for £14 per month (I'm ignoring the reduced rate of the first three months) - but that's only if you take a Virgin Phone line (which neither of us need, as we both have such a high allowance on contract mobiles that calls are practically free). If you want broadband only at 10mbit, it's £20 per month.

Now here's where it gets daft. I then skipped on over to the "bundles" section of their site, and looked at the lowest package they offer: 10mb broadband, 45 TV channels and the lowest phone line package. The price for all this? £14 per month. That's the same price as the broadband & phone package.

If anyone else can please explain Virgin Media's pricing strategies, I'd be very grateful because it confuses the bejeesus out of me.

Unfortunately, we haven't got much choice but to use Virgin where we live - we're too far away from the exchange to get a decent speed on ADSL (2mbit, last time I checked).

EDIT: I just checked the BT ADSL speed checker again (although using postcode, as we don't have a landline) and it indicates a max speed of 1.5mbit. Woot!

 

BLC what you're misssing is the compulsory phone line. When you do the package builder stuff it misses this out, but the offers on their own include it

 

You can call 150/151 from a VM phone to get free support - no need to bother with the 0845 (unless you don't have a VM line).

For the price, VM is hard to beat (once you add phone line cost to Skys prices). We pay £32 and get XL TV, L broadband, M phone. So once you remove the phone line it's ~£20 for top TV package inc all on demand, V+, HD, AND 10Mb internet... and all without having a dish making your house look better suited to a council estate. Of course, if you're not getting the service you're paying for then I can see why you wouldn't be happy!

 

Never use Virgin.

I feel that the problems with them are in fact so well known at this point that those 3 words alone should be sufficient.......although hacked cable boxes are bloody awesom...cough cough