Virgin Media

[GaryMcEwan]

Does anyone else have Virgin Media and experienced trying to leave? Looking for some helpful advice.

Took out my Phone, TV and Broadband with them in 2015 after I moved into my flat. Since May 2015 I've had 15 engineers trying to fix the ongoing issues with the broadband connection and also the flakey TV signal.

Was subsequently told by VM that the cabinet was over subscribed and that the cabinet was also at a high utilisation threshold and even overheating.

I've continuously paid my bill even though there has been all these issues, but do I have any leeway to twist their hand to get my costs reduced or even to get out of my contract?

 

[Blindtraveler]

I assume you took a 24 month contract?

 

[GaryMcEwan]

I assume you took a 24 month contract?

No it was only a 12 month contract.

 

[najaB]

No it was only a 12 month contract.

Then you can walk away any time.

 

[GaryMcEwan]

Then you can walk away any time.

Oh believe I would, but I'm in a catch 22 situation. I've got 200MB (when it works right) as I have quite a lot of tech that runs through my broadband and I'm not overly confident if the LLU providers (BT, Sky and the rest) would be able to cope.

 

[DaleCooper]

Oh believe I would, but I'm in a catch 22 situation. I've got 200MB (when it works right) as I have quite a lot of tech that runs through my broadband and I'm not overly confident if the LLU providers (BT, Sky and the rest) would be able to cope.

200MB isn't much good if it's not working.

 

[Domh245]

We've had some persistent issues with Virgin Media at home, with the connection dropping at least 3 or 4 times a day for about a year. We've had two new Routers and several visits from them to try and fix it. W were told last time that it is because of "works in the area" - which was around a time when we were having more drops than usual. However, it still hasn't fully improved yet, and after a bit of debate over the phone after escalating it up through several call centre operatives, my dad was able to get a refund for some of the disruption - although I'm not sure if he got a reduction in the bill going forward.

 

[yorksrob]

I find that however much I try to downsize my package with Virgin Media, I still always seem to end up paying the same. Poor value enshrined.

 

[najaB]

I'm not overly confident if the LLU providers (BT, Sky and the rest) would be able to cope.

Do you know if your cabinet is FTTC enabled?

 

[Sacro]

Oh believe I would, but I'm in a catch 22 situation. I've got 200MB (when it works right) as I have quite a lot of tech that runs through my broadband and I'm not overly confident if the LLU providers (BT, Sky and the rest) would be able to cope.

Doubt you have 200MB, I think only Hyperoptic offer that, you've probably got 200Mb instead.

Have you looked to see if you can get fibre to the cabinet or fibre to the premises, that should be pretty fast.

 

[SteveP29]

If you intend to leave them, keep EVERY piece of correspondence, copy letters that you have to send to them, document phonecalls to them.
I had them for my broadband and got a better deal from Orange so did all the necessary and still got threatened with court for the princely sum of £17
Multiple letters and phonecalls over a three month period had no effect until I called them one day and didn't even let the rep on the other end finish his intro spiel before I launched into a foul mouthed tirade. It was sorted in minutes.

I've also since unfortunately had to deal with them at work, much the same experience, you just can't talk to somebody rational who understands what you want to do (and that's their UK call centres, before anyone thinks I'm having a dig at India)

My other half had Virgin Media when I first met her, she had exactly the same problems when she moved to Sky.

Signing up for their services is a P.O.P, getting out of them is ALWAYS a nightmare in my experience

 

[sk688]

VM's Wifi is pretty fast , faster than Sky , BT or Talktalk etc , so your other options would be someone like Hyperoptic

If you want to stay with VM though , tell them you are leaving , and it is most likely that they will offer you a better deal , either through a price reduction or better contract

Doing so , VM gave me an upgrade from their Vivid 200 package , to their Vivid 300 Package , at no extra monthly cost , after we said we were considering joining Sky at the end of the contract

As someone else said , keep records of all your correspondence

 

[GaryMcEwan]

The main reason that I took out Virgin was because of all the tech that I've got running through it. I can quite easily get through 120Gb a month. I had a look at Hyperoptic by building isn't live yet.

The BT cabinet is FTTC enabled but I could only get speeds of up 68Mb. I know that BT are now rolling out or trialling FTTP with speeds of up 1Gb.

Got the new V6 box out of them yesterday for nowt, but I rarely watch the TV.

I did give them the usual 30 days notice to see what they would offer me, after a couple of weeks I started to panic as I never heard anything so I renewed for another 12 months in August of last year.

 

[HOOVER29]

We too have virgin media. Have had several set boxes trying to cure the crappy pixelated pictures on the new tv. They come out & fill you with all sorts of nonsense saying it's the tv or it's the cabinet. Now we have the added bonus of the internet crashing whenever the interference happens. Their vans are always in our street. They've even named them with names like Van Diesel. Hilarious. Not.

 

[Howardh]

Weren't Virgin the old NTL which made TalkTalk look a competent firm?

 

[headshot119]

The main reason that I took out Virgin was because of all the tech that I've got running through it. I can quite easily get through 120Gb a month. I had a look at Hyperoptic by building isn't live yet.

The BT cabinet is FTTC enabled but I could only get speeds of up 68Mb. I know that BT are now rolling out or trialling FTTP with speeds of up 1Gb.

Got the new V6 box out of them yesterday for nowt, but I rarely watch the TV.

I did give them the usual 30 days notice to see what they would offer me, after a couple of weeks I started to panic as I never heard anything so I renewed for another 12 months in August of last year.

Unless you're doing some really serious downloading you won't notice the difference between a 200Mb line on Virgin, and a 68Mb line on someone like Zen, other than the latter will be much more reliable.

 

[DaleCooper]

Although I'm no fan of Virgin (mainly because of the cost) in the seven years I've been with them I have had almost no trouble with my 200Mb connection. I can only remember it failing once for about a day (that was a widespread thing which affected a large area) and I got a rebate for that. The only other problem was a failed router which was replaced very quickly and again I got a rebate.

 

[GaryMcEwan]

Unless you're doing some really serious downloading you won't notice the difference between a 200Mb line on Virgin, and a 68Mb line on someone like Zen, other than the latter will be much more reliable.

I chew through data like it goes out of business. I've got Phillips Hue lights, 4 Sonos speakers, 3 laptops, and 2 tablets. I watch a lot of stuff as well on Netflix and Hulu.

On the plus side, Virgin have today flagged my account as being in a high utilisation area with an under performing cabinet. (ie overheating)

 

[najaB]

I chew through data like it goes out of business....

68Mb/s equates to 30GB per hour or 20TB per month.

 

[headshot119]

I chew through data like it goes out of business. I've got Phillips Hue lights, 4 Sonos speakers, 3 laptops, and 2 tablets. I watch a lot of stuff as well on Netflix and Hulu.

On the plus side, Virgin have today flagged my account as being in a high utilisation area with an under performing cabinet. (ie overheating)

You won't be going through that much data that a 68Mb a second line won't support it.

You've got less running than in my house, and I have no issues. Phillips Hue Lights use hardly any bandwidth by the way, and your speakers will only be using whatever you're streaming to them. Most people use Netflix as well.

 

[Geezertronic]

The VirginMedia customer DNS servers (194.168.4.100 & 194.168.8.100) have been known to be flaky for a long while which doesn't help either. The only way around that is to force your IP and use the Google DNS servers (4.4.4.4 & 8.8.8.8) or the VirginMedia business DNS servers (194.168.4.123 & 194.168.8.123)

My Super Hub has to be rebooted every day (or every other day) as the wireless keeps crapping out (both 2.4GHz and 5GHz) - wired connections (even those via Powerline adapters) are ok. I have been through Tech Support so many times, factory reset the box a few times, I keep changing the wireless channel configurations but to no avail. I rely on my broadband as I work from home so have a constant VPN connected into work. I tried to get them to send a new hub out but they wouldn't