I hate paying a line rental for a phone I don't use - hopefully one day we'll get it all back same as PPI.

Make sure it's worth your while first, if you have a new 12 month contract it's worth doing but if you are partial way through they will have you locked in for a year and no chance of getting a discount with a threat to leave. After contract is over no one should be paying full price for Virgin or Sky services.

My contract ends next month.
Gonna be paying £17.99 line rental + £19.99 for 70Mb broadband.

How good the retentions deals are?

I called up on Friday and took landline plus 50mb rising to 70mb broadband for £25pm for six months, then £28 for the last 6 months of 12 month deal.

did my line rental server on Saturday so saved some money before the increase comes into effect today.

I rang yesterday, renegotiated my contract. Saved approx £170 over the next year with this deal & lowering my package cost, sending me a Tivo box(only ever had basic box) plus free upgrade to next TV package. Well worth a call.

Snuck in there, just in time. Thanks OP.

Thanks done it

Make sure you check your bill every month after doing the line saver. I paid it in March and then didn't really pay any attention to my bill. It turned out they'd been charging me full price and using the £164 as a float. I eventually noticed and they said there was nothing they could do as I'd been paying my bills. They wouldn't go back and correct it, wouldn't apply it for the rest of the time and when I said I wanted to cancel my account said I'd locked myself into an 18 month contract and would still have to pay - even though they'd done nothing that I'd apparently signed up to.

I asked for a manager and they got snippy with me and told me it was my fault and started throwing out stupid analogies like if I'd paid for my car to be fixed and that went wrong... blah blah blah - meaningless! They even asked for another £164 if I wanted to get the line saver.

Was fuming.

Virgin has terrible customer service. I am furious with them. I called recently to see what upgrade I can get and the operator told me I can get 100mb broadband unlimited called can call international 1000 for £26 a month. I repeatedly asked if this price included everything including line rental. They confirmed it did. I also have a recording of this call. However I receive a bill of £45. I called to find out only to be told it doesn't include line rental. There's nothing they can do. I can buy line saver and downgrade but they can't give me that offer. They do this every year. And they not even bothered to listen to the call.

Thanks OP.. Voted Hot.. just spent 15 minutes doing this now and saved approx £155 over the year :smiley:

Shocking, deal's are getting worse.

Going to ring now.

how easy is it to port your number to a new provider?

I think I will call them again, it's hit and miss with them as sometimes you get someone so lovely and at times u will get a numpty.
Lol

on the plus side, got an email to increase my speed from 50 to 70, for 'free'. so that means there will be a price hike soon :laughing:

going to do my sums but that's pretty much the same for me too.

I never use my phone except on the very very odd occasion for the free weekend calls. But still works out cheaper for me to take the phone and the vivid broadband over the year than to take the vivid broadband on its own.

I would continue to push and push for a deal, you have nothing to lose by giving them a ring again and saying what can you do for me if you dont want to lose a customer. Check BT deals and see if they can do it cheaper and then tell virgin!

I think they said if I paid the line rental upfront then the monthly cost will drop to £15 but tbf im not that happy about paying for a line I will never use, like others they told me the 100mb without phone will be £35 per month its ludicrous hiwever I guess they hope you will pick up the phone and make the expensive calls they charge.

I am getting nowhere tbh, I am not in any contract, I have put a disconnection through for the 29th January.

They are only allowing me to pay £144 for the line rental saver (that comprises of a £20 credit). They will give me the service for the first 6 months at £15.99 and then the next 6 months at £18.99, which comprises of 50MB and any time calls and caller display. However, this means me taking my 0845 addon off. Last year I paid £144 for line rental, £17.50 per month and around 3 months free. This time they are not budging... I don't know what to do!

ARRRRGHHH

Is it possible to haggle with VM to reduce their £30 charge for broadband ONLY? I
ps: is line rental saver when you pay upfront for the year?

Think im going to have to rehaggle my deal poss put a cancellation in to see what I get as they are charging me £29.99 per month for 100mb and weekend phone 12 month contract, or is this a good price?

Just looked into the forums and there are users complaining of sloooow speeds and customer service not very responsive. Will stay with BT for now.

They are getting rid of fix lines soon and moving to VOIP. Anyone with a new white superhub is ready to go :wink:

​That's what I mean you can't get TV without a phone line in the package. Don't know many TV services what come threw the phone line :confused:

they don't use Indian call centres anymore do they ?

​I've just booked virgin line rental & broadband to come on 22nd of this month. can I use wifi without line rental?.

I'd forgotten about this thanks op

I have the 150Mb package, speedtest.net says 156Mb down and 12MB up.

All i can say is if anyone decides to join VM check your paperwork then once you've done that check it again!! VM have a tendency to agree one thing verbally and contract you into a whole new thing

Which areas is the voip service available in?

If any VM users with the 100 or 200 packages I am interested in the actual speed you get?
Interested in getting rid of the fixed line and using VOIP.

Have been offered 50MB broadband, caller display, talk unlimited anytime and taken my 0845 bundle off.
I think they said £15 per month for the initial 6 months and then £18 per month for the remainder 6 months.
I will pay line in advance so even with the price increase I am not paying more but I am not paying considerably less.

I have sent a disconnection request last week but no offers forthcoming yet.

Lol

with discount I pay £25.25 for 150mb BB. Ditched the phone line a year ago

Never had a customer service issue with vm, if I have a problem which is very rarely. They are out to fix it within 48hrs.

Nobody bleats about how good there service is. For one, I am pleased with my VM service I've had for the last 3 years and found customer service excellent (and I've had to use it a few times)

If you search you'll find all sorts of crap that folk have to deal with BT, Sky, Plusnet etc. Sometimes it's better the devil you know.

yup, im a happy customer for 7 years now. always phone up a few times a year and try to wangle a deal. in the 7 years, the service has been down maybe twice. cannot fault it. seriously don't get where people say they have a crap customer service. ive been speaking to their agents for years and always find them to be very helpful.

it helps if when we ring up we're polite too.

my current situation is this:

ive paid line rental upfront which was lets say £170 for the year. because ive got the phone line I get my tv and BB for £10 per month. so £120(tv and bb) + £170(line rental) =£290

now last time I phoned, if I leave the line rental then my monthly bill for BB and tv would be £20 per month so that's £240 for the year. saving of £50 if I don't take the line rental.

Its the OH, she insists on having home line even though we have unlimited everything on our mobile.

not sure what to do.....

Seeing some comments about Virgin customer service has made me bit nervous as just taken out a package out with them which i thought was a good deal......

Big Kahuna Movies package consisting of;
BB XXL (200mb Unlimited Broadband)
TV XL (230+ Channels, including BT Sport and 500GB recordable Tivo box)
Phone M (Talk Weekends)
Sky Movies
Free Manned Installation

We have also matched the web offer of the free Wireless Speaker and will arrange for the £115 credit to be added to your account as well. The cost of this package will be £52.98 for the first 12 months. The price of this package after the discount period is £90.99 if no changes are made, but as discussed you are free to remove Sky Movies to reduce this price at any time with 30 days notice.

I only get the phone line rental as that qualifies me for a discount. so I pay upfront for the year. if I take the line rental off then I lose my monthly discount. need to sit down with some figures and see whether I am actually better of with our without the line rental.

I've just signed up to a new Virgin package, install later this month. I'm paying £17.99 line rental. Can I do anything?

Not true .. You can only get tv if you have cable, plus tv is a split broadband cable, phone is analogue cable, they often give you a free tv box with phone to temp you to sign up to it :smiley:

I should have said cut down even more, the most popular ones (Google it)... ie a.b.teevee :disappointed:

I hate paying a line rental for a phone I don't use - hopefully one day we'll get it all back same as PPI.

Whoops so not as good a deal as I thought. Will have to haggle when contract up for renewal.

As a family we looked at our use realised we rarely watch live TV never use the landline and only watch iplayer, NOwtv with free vouchers so don't need TV or phone. Thought £30 wasn't bad for 100mb , there is always a better deal out there isn't there :wink:

once you are out of contract, you need to go on a webchat with them, tell them you are leaving, even if its a total lie and say you are going to go to normal broadband because its just to expensive, use the sky deals as the hook for example. They will then either offer you a better deal or put in the cancelation through, during the cancelation period their retention department will call you and offer you a deal to stay, push them as hard as you can, they will give you a discount. You will be tied into another 12 months and then pay the linesaver.

There is something else to consider, if they put the price of the phone up you can get out of your contract even if its still got time to run. Do the above and they will probably give you a reduction to leave. We are on 125Mb broadband only for £19 for 18 months, on a 12 month deal, it was cheaper overall to get that than including a phone line which we never used..

Don't feel bad about doing this, money is better in your pocket than theirs, we are with Sky for our TV and for the last 10 years we have been on a deal, think I must have only paid 2 or 3 months full subscription and last 4 years have had 2 years of 60% off and 2 of 75% off. I just tell them we cant afford it.

Is there anyone else who finds that their description of Netflix is confusing to the point of seeming like it's deliberately misselling?

For my Big Kahuna bundle the wording was 'TV. Great TV Stuff included: Hours of on demands streaming with TiVo and Netflix.' Now to me that sounds like included in your package is the ability to watch hours of on demand with Netflix. Not the opportunity to pay a further £8 a month to watch Netflix.

The thing that aggrieves me is that could have been solved simply with an asterix. For a company that loves terms and conditions and has a huge tome at the bottom of that page, they didn't make any mention of the fact that an extra subscription is needed. Added to this, when I spoke to them on the phone about the package and asked is Netflix included, they said 'Yes it is'. At this point it should be absolutely compulsory to say 'but you'll need to pay a separate monthly subscription to use it'.

I took up a sizeable contract on the belief that Netflix would be included in what I receive only to be told it isn't. That's having read all the available terms and conditions for that package.

Not to mention the fact that the contract that I was sent has a completely different price on it to the deal I signed up to. When I phoned them about it the guy had no idea why but said this keeps happening. Not happy at all. They've now agreed to honour the initial price but the promised phone call back about Netflix never materialised.

I think it's probably worth at least a discussion with the ASA. What do you guys think? Was I stupid to think Netflix would be included from the information on their website or do you think it's deliberately misleading?

You can get virgin BB without a phone line but only if you are using their cable BB. If you are on an their DSL connection then yes you need a phone line therefore have to pay line rental.

Not true.

Nice one. :smile:

I was with virgin for a long time, just cancelled, as they have cut there news group service :disappointed:

£30 just for bb? :confused:

I only pay £29 for 1tb tivo with more tv pack, line rental, 80mbps bb, talk weekends

In effect, you are still paying line rental

Can you really opt out from the line rental altogether if you have broadband/TV package? I didn't think that was even possible, but when you think about it, why shouldn't it be??

I called when I received letter saying our package is to raise by £4. The best thing is as they issue the price rise you have until 30th Jan to cancel your existing package with no cancellation fees. So phoned them and explained with a simple compare to talk talk(fiber skysports sky movies) £20 cheaper. Guy offered new contract with no price rise and £11 loytay discount for 18 months so I pay £65 for xl TV xl broadband skysports and sky movies so I result in the end.

Was thinking of paying the line rental upfront even though I am half way through my contract because will not be getting bt fibre optic for quite a while in my area so not bothered in locking in another years contract but there annual price increase of £3.49 a month starts next month so really paying the line rental upfront will just pay for that so not saving anything unless there is a way of getting out of the annual price increase.

you couldn't pay me to go back with Virgin... their internet service was the worst I've had in 20 years of internet.

Exact same thing happened to me. I didn't persevere to check and took the first rep's word that it wouldn't increase. Of course, it did.
Oh, and the Line Rental / Overpayment reserve happened to someone I know, too. In their case, they paid via automated telephone system, not via an operative, if that made a difference?

The broadband service is very good, however.

hi I was thinking of signing up to virgin media broadband. please can u tell me how I can qualify for this deal. which tariff is it on etc. thanks in advance.

Are you in a BT/Openreach Fibre optic area? Because I'm in the same position as you, only need the broadband without the phone line but we're now paying over £34 a month for the same 50mb fibre after the initial cheap offer deal ran out in November. The only thing is, we may not have much bargaining power with VM if they're aware that we don't have BT Fibre broadband in our area, just standard broadband. So if they're aware of that situation they'll realise that they haven't got any competition and don't really have to haggle over the price. Not sure what to do, really.

Don't trust Virgin Media as far as you can throw them, IMHO.

I signed up for a year's broadband at £21.99 a month in June through uSwitch. Fixed price, 12 months.

Last month I got a letter saying my bill was increasing from January by £3.49 a month. Yet on the back it said that if I was on a promotional price, they'd honour it.

So I thought I'd call to make sure. First, I get through to India. The guy goes away to check and says yes, they'd honour my price. I ask him to put it in writing to me by email. He says he'll do it as soon as we're off the phone. An hour goes by, no email.

I call back an hour later. The next guy says sure, if that's what he said, that's what'll happen, but that they can't actually email from their offices.

But I still don't trust it, so they put me through to the UK. The UK then say no, I will be charged the price increase and all providers do this. They'd only protect my price if I was on an offer direct with them, instead of uSwitch etc.

Since I'm a new customer however, on this occasion, he'd refund me a month (and a bit) rental in advance. I've been with them six months already!

But the point is, I was lied to, twice, and only found out because I persisted.

Like I say, don't trust Virgin Media, and check everything's in writing before you take anything out with them.

Can't see the benefit of having a phone line these days when u don't have to.
We pay £18.25 a month for 50mb broadband and that's the only bill we have. Did a deal a couple of months ago and will do the same next October. Never pay full price for it ever.

Yes Virgin allow BB only but costs 50p less than having the phone & BB - so if u don't ever use the phone & think you can save £160 or whatever think again because they just up the monthly price of the BB because 'it's not part of a package' for that practice alone I wish some one would fine them. For me their BB has been faultless and fast so don't want to risk swapping provider so am stuck being fleeced.

What voip service did you recommend?

Just phone them up annually and say I'm going to sky. They then offer a few deals to stay with them and I sign up to another 12 months. Research available deals first with other providers so if they call ur bluff u can state exactly what is available elsewhere!

Does not surprise me to see other Virgin Customers who are still waiting for their phone line to be fixed after being out of action for so long.
I am now into my 3rd month without a phone
Virgin used to be a pretty good Company but now they are truly awful.

Last time i renewed it worked out cheaper to have a line as that meant a bundle was cheaper than just broadband.

How did you peeps negotiate dropping the line whilst keeping just the broadband?

Why not just ditch the analogue land line all together, you don't need it on VM. Get a VoIP service instead. I went with SIP Gate 2 years ago and haven't looked back, no line rental and cheaper rates than a conventional phone line.

I've been with VM for about 4yrs now - Broadband only and I signed up online I think back then, can I take advantage of this deal? I don't even know If I renewed with them :neutral_face: can't remember signing anything or anything like that.

Guys I was paying 17.50 per month for broadband last year 50MB and I paid £144 for tye line rental saver. I got around 2/3 months free.

But now they are not budging much.
For the same line rental saver they will allow it at 164 but they will credit me £20 so that means 144.

I currently also have a talk 0845 add on so if I take that off I will pay £15 per month plus the 144 for the line saver.
Ps I get anytime UK calls.
Is it ok or shall I try harder?

While they appear cheaper for BB and TV they are very costly for home phone, a recent 13 min local call cost £1.58 would have been 39p on my mobile. They also charge extra for caller ID.

Horrible company, as soon as my contract finishes, I'm moving to another provider.

I paid line rental saver late December by CC, they have now charged the £164 again on my bill for next month, they don't seem to understand when I say they have made a mistake and just believe it will sort itself out. A really hard company to find any sensible people in their call centre.

No need to have a phone line with VM. In fact I have gone from paying nearly £80 a month X large TV 50mb BB and line rental to just £30 for 100mb broadband. I can watch most things I want online :wink: and never used the landline just used my mobile

another thing is the phoneline its dearer if you dont want it :confused: i know, i never use the home phone but had bills that are extortionate just for the odd call, be warned

Excellent, thank you! :smile:

I did that a few weeks back, also another thing that i was not aware off, when i got my new TIVO box i kept the old one. I was not even using it, but Virgin Media was charging £6.50per month for that. So i sent it back and get a cheaper monthly payment

phone them and say you have found a better deal elsewhere, if they don't play ball ask to be put through to reconciliation department. end of the day you will get a better deal just by telling them.

I paid my £164 by credit card and had an email from VM to confirm the line saver rental had been paid.

What deals were you guys able to negotiate when you said you were going to cancel?

All packages seem to be for 18 months, is it best to cal them nd discuss a 12 month contract. My BT phone and infinity 2 is up for renewal at the end of the month so looking for an alternative. Is Virgin BB good (200 package)? What about customer service?

How early can you pay it up front before the current one ends?

Did the same. No price increase in fact even taking into account existing discount am approx £4.50 per month better off on current price so less monthly payment and no increase

Funnily enough I did the same thing this morning before reading this - was paying way to much & negotiated a much better 12 month contract & paid upfront for the line rental.

It's a new 12 month contract, doesn't start until 19/01/2016.

I signed up online for line rental + bb under the uswitch £5.99 + line rental deal.

Can I call them and get the line rental saver?