Virgin Banging My Door Down - How Do I Leave?

[#1]

Hi y’all,

Last month Virgin hooked my street up and were virtually offering me shares in the company to join up as apparently a bunch of my neighbours identified me as the local go-to guy for IT stuff.

It got pretty embarrassing how far the VM new business rep wanted to go. Not interested in TV. Just BB & Phone.

Long and short I was convinced I had 6 months left on last PN upgrade, and the VM guy wrote my guesstimate date down and proposed to call me back.

Last week I got an email from PN telling me contract was up in Jan, going up in price, and I saw how much more over the price of new contracts I actually was paying already, which only makes the VM offers on their 500 service even more obscene for value and with a simple bit of jiggery pokery for substituting my Static IP use in order to make Virgin work I’m on my way out the door. In my experience of PN I simply never got really competitive retention deals, only fobbed off with modest savings and tricky contracting by slick sellers giving with the right hand, taking away with the left and then upselling the difference and insisting a new router (like I need it when I only use modem mode anyway) was equivalent to a hefty cashback deal…

It’s a little bit fear and trepidation because I see a lot of online feedbackers have made it their goal to trash VM with horror stories and I had considered giving PN another 12 months if they came up with a deal to match new business so I could see how VM pans out with the villagers… but between PN only offering 18 month renegotiations at higher prices than new deals (crazy since they don’t have to foot the cost of a ‘free’ install), BT inevitably fasttracking Full Fibre in response to VM’s sudden move in, and how desperate VM are to get me as one of their first new contracts in my turf, I can’t see a reason to not get me some of that 500meg goodness since my dues are paid because 57 meg for more than VM want to offer me 500 for seems like an expensive antique for nostalgias sake.

First, does anyone have any insight on how this all goes? Clearly VM is a whole new system. They’re slashing the sub and doing all the install for nowt, but does that leave me with two lines and one to cancel or do they arrange the cancellation with migration of the phone number and is it the same socket in the house or new holes drilled in and the drive dug up?

Second, if cancelling PN is left to me, do PN have support email to do that? I really don’t want to do antiquated dial-in and endure endless retention counselling by optimistic grifters who think two pound fifty a month discount - to quote the advert - ‘will definitely do.’

They’re not going to want to move far enough to make waiting to see what happens with VM rewarding, and ultimately I guess even a less than optimal VM speed is vastly superior to overpriced 56 meg at PN.

Advice/info/experiences appreciated.

[#2]

@ThreeSixteenAE 

I guess that the problem with VM and other ISPs is that if it works and the billing is set up correctly then that’s it. It works.

It’s only when things go wrong and you need input from customer service agents that you experience the quality of the services. Feedback from those with no problems is useless. 
If you go with VM I would leave the PN service live until the VM service is up and running. Then cancel, which I believe that you have to do yourself when moving away from the Openreach system.

[#3]

Thanks for your post @ThreeSixteenAE

I'm really sorry to see you're looking at moving away from us.

If you port your landline number to Virgin Media, this will automatically cease your services (home phone and/or broadband) with us and close your account down, so you won't need to contact us to cancel.

However if you don't take your number with you, then I'm afraid you'll need to call us on 0800 013 2632 so we can manually cancel your account on a particular day as we don't have an email address for cancellations.

There is an alternative to calling though to process a cancellation, you can write us a letter (there's details Here)

Moderators Note: Typo corrected

[#4]

Moderators Note

This topic has been moved from Feedback to My Account / Billing

[#5]

Hiya, 

yeah, thanks for that.

It makes me nervous for sure.

I’m not a great ‘leaver’ and I easily get nostalgic about loyalty and nervous about doing something new which is why I was originally going to stay another year and see how VM gets along in the area being so recent an offering.

Biggest irritation I have with ISP’s is how hard they make rewarding loyalty, or retention. When it’s easier to get better deals elsewhere than retention deals staying put, people walk even if they’re not totally committed.

[#6]

Heya, I'll be happy to arrange for someone from our Customer Options Team to call you back and discuss staying with us as I'm sure we'll be able to tempt you with a good deal. 

Feel free to just private message me a contact number we can reach you on. 

[#7]

@ThreeSixteenAE 

You should take look at

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Managing-Your-Account-Cable/Customer-Service-Horror-Stories-are...

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2021/09/virgin-media-and-three-named-worst-for-complaints-by-ofcom/

Dave

[#8]

OK... that's deeply concerning.
Got to admit I'm thinking giving it a year was a better idea.
Are there any ISP's with a service as good as PN that have decent first-time contracts for 12 months?

I'm definitely not letting PN roll on with an extortionate old contract (currently paying £41 a month for Unlimited Plus and the phone package (no extras though)) which they tell me is going UP in price in January as well... And not keen on the business model where loyal customers pay more to subsidise the deals new signups get...

Also any ISP's that have StaticIP's - not necessary but would save me sone acrobatics...

[#9]

@ThreeSixteenAE wrote:
I'm definitely not letting PN roll on with an extortionate old contract (currently paying £41 a month for Unlimited Plus and the phone package (no extras though)) which they tell me is going UP in price in January as well... And not keen on the business model where loyal customers pay more to subsidise the deals new signups get...

That's not necessarily the case at all. I can see we made you a renewal offer of less than a new customer deal Here.

[#10]

I do apologise for that... When I was looking up available offers and got shown higher prices than that for some reason I interpreted that price as a 'minimum' package with lower speed than I'm on, kinda like when a mobile service provider tells you that you 'could have' a much cheaper package by downgrading and I think I'm more than a little confused over whether line rental is included or separate? Also, can you perhaps message me with what could be done on a 12 month contract ? I'm actually now mega impressed by what is a very big saving but I'm nervous to get tied into long contract in case either VM prove themselves or Bt Decide to catch up with FTTP… I’d really like more speeeeed….

[#11]

Thanks for getting back to me @ThreeSixteenAE

No problem, I was beginning to think I was wearing my invisibility cloak.

Line rental is included in the price we've quoted. 

I can't go through our offers with you as I'm not part of our sales & retentions (Customer Options) but I'll be happy to arrange for an adviser to call you back if you'd like? Just PM me your contact number. 

If BT or EE are able to offer you FTTP before we can, we'll waive termination fees if you tell us you'll want to move to them.