# Virgin to increase prices again 2019



## Frank (11 Oct 2018)

Just got a mail to say the price is going up in Jan
I wouldn't mind I just negotiated a 6 month discount with the loyalty dept.
It does say that seeing as the contract is changing customers can exit contract withing 30 days.

In good news took a chance on the VM sim card for my personal phone for 5 a month for 5 months and the signal has improved over last time I tried.


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## qwerty5 (11 Oct 2018)

It's not within 30 days. My email says to give 30 days notice before 14th Jan.

Happily for me Siro started up in my estate this year  They're €25 a month for the first six months and €55 thereafter. I'll be switching to them. I'm not bothered for doing the virgin shuffle of saying I'm going to quit the service and then have them haggle a new price for 3 or 6 months.

I'll switch to Siro now and if they mess about at the end of the contract I'll switch to virgin for a year or so to get the real discounted rates. Rinse and repeat.


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## dub_nerd (11 Oct 2018)

I also got the mail. The increase is 7% which is a fair bit given they seem to put it up every year or two. I've already trimmed my Virgin Media services back to broadband + phone, and the phone is just to maintain a number -- I use VoIP instead of using their line. Might eventually switch the phone number for incoming calls to flynumber.com, which allows call forwarding and voice mail delivered by email etc. For how I use the landline it's actually handier _and_ cheaper. Will keep an eye out for Siro. It's nice to have competition. In fairness to VM they are a country mile ahead of all other broadband options right now.


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## DeclanDublin (12 Oct 2018)

I got the email as well and signed up to SKY BB for €30 a month as opposed to VM €56 now and €60 in January. I had an old Eircom line and they're sending an engineer to reconnect it.   Hopefully it not a problem as they say the line still exists. Speed is a lot lower than VM at max 80 MB compared to VM 240 or so, but, as SKY pointed out, you only need around 7/8 MB to run Netflix. We'll see how it goes. Personally, I think VM have lost the run of themselves with their charges. They offered €38 for 6 months then back to normal, I declined. I think over €600 for BB a yr is way too much.


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## iamaspinner (12 Oct 2018)

I also got the email.

I recently called Eir to get information on their broadband only service as it was (and still is) cheaper that Virgin's. It's also slower but I don't need top speeds. They told me that if I had to cancel my contract with Virgin they would pay the €200 cancellation fee.

I then called Virgin and said I wanted to cancel as I was moving to another provider. After a few offers from them and "no thanks" from me they ended up offering me the €39 p/m for 6 months deal for new customers (including a landline I don't use), which I took.

After the 6 months I will re-evaluate. It's good to know that your new provider will pay any cancellation fees to get your custom. I wonder what they're not telling me!


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## mugsymugsy (12 Oct 2018)

Word of warning over EIR get everything in writing before you sign up. Heard horrendous stories of deals being offered and then getting stung later on.


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## dub_nerd (12 Oct 2018)

DeclanDublin said:


> I got the email as well and signed up to SKY BB for €30 a month as opposed to VM €56 now and €60 in January. I had an old Eircom line and they're sending an engineer to reconnect it.   Hopefully it not a problem as they say the line still exists. Speed is a lot lower than VM at max 80 MB compared to VM 240 or so, but, as SKY pointed out, you only need around 7/8 MB to run Netflix. We'll see how it goes. Personally, I think VM have lost the run of themselves with their charges. They offered €38 for 6 months then back to normal, I declined. I think over €600 for BB a yr is way too much.


I agree VM broadband is pricey, but it's not really comparable to landline offerings. Although a few people will get the full 100 Mbps out of those "up to 100 Mb" offerings, most won't. My old Eircom line with "up to 100 Mb" actually provided 2.5 Mbps, whereas VM actually deliver their stated 240 Mbps.


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## Sue Ellen (12 Oct 2018)

mugsymugsy said:


> Word of warning over EIR get everything in writing before you sign up. Heard horrendous stories of deals being offered and then getting stung later on.



Wouldn't touch them at all.  Horror stories all over the place.  Elderly neighbours were told that EIR would contact Virgin on their behalf to do the switch which they couldn't do as contract still in place and householder can only do this themselves.  There was no offer at that time for Virgin to waive contract fee.  Solicitors letters arrived with interest added so they had to settle for nearly €500 after many months.  Dreadful service on telly and when they contacted the call centre phone was hung up on a few occasions.


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## DeclanDublin (12 Oct 2018)

I'm somewhat concerned around the Eir line and BB speeds. The bloke I spoke to in SKY said that my line was capable of around 85 MB, so  we'll see what happens and I'll report back on both.  I was happy with VM but the constant push to increase the price was annoying. I accept they had an expensive outlay on infrastructure, but averaging out bills of €600 + on BB is high compensation for the service.  As an aside, has anyone used anyone else they would recommend other than VM & SKY?


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## Frank (15 Oct 2018)

some positive feedback VM tech arrived sunday at 10 am 
fitted a new line and box to the bedroom 
wasn't happy with main line to sitting room replaced that too 
then checked BB and found a problem I wasn't aware of and fixed that too.

Hands up nice bloke and diligent made a change.


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## dub_nerd (17 Oct 2018)

How daft is this? I signed up for e-billing with Virgin Media a long time ago, and got an email each month notifying me when my bill was available to view online. I've been using VoIP more and more, and Virgin's phone service less and less. So now there are rarely any phone charges on my bill so the amount is identical from month to month. I still like being informed of when the bill is ready, to prompt me to do some home accounting. Six months ago the emails stopped arriving. On querying this with Virgin Media recently I got this:

_Dear dub_nerd,

Thanks for getting in touch with Virgin Media's customer care.

We understand that the last email that you got from us was on March informing that your ebill is ready. *We only send this email if there is any changes on the amount from the current bill to the previous bill*. For example, your February bill is €57.77 and your March bill is €54.99, we send you an email that your bill is ready for your March bill but since there there is no changes on the amount for the following bill on April which is €54.99 there will be no email notification. I would like to inform you that your bill is generated every 28th of the month.
_​I signed up for e-billing to save them the costs of postage. Now an email is too much to expect?


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## iamaspinner (17 Oct 2018)

I get an email from Virgin Media every month to tell me that my bill is ready.


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## DeclanDublin (31 Oct 2018)

As an update on all this. I rec.d a call from VM after I had confirmed I was cancelling and moving to SKY, that they were prepared to offer €29.95 fo 6 months and then €57 (or thereabouts) for the balance period. I told them had they offered that BEFORE I left I would have taken it, but I'd already agreed to SKY. The VM agent told me I could cancel in the 'cooling off' period, blah, blah blah, I told him they (VM) had said they had offered the very best deal on offer initially and I took them at their word, now they're saying something else. Anyhow, I committed to SKY and will stay with them for a year anyhow, but it appears VM's 'final offers' on best deal s aren't that 'final' after all.


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## Leo (31 Oct 2018)

DeclanDublin said:


> but it appears VM's 'final offers' on best deal s aren't that 'final' after all.



The only thing that will encourage them to alter their behaviour is more customers doing the same thing and switching


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## mugsymugsy (31 Oct 2018)

Just rang up got the speil about how they are aligning prices to make it consistent across people so people don't pay or less....then when I said ok I'm cancelling she said well we can take a look at your account and see if we can offer something to you! I said no thanks due to the price increase I'm leaving. 

It actually it suits my situation to exit contract so thanks Virgin media for the price increase and prompting me to get that sorted.


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## DeclanDublin (2 Nov 2018)

Just a further update on this.  I completed the switch to SKY BB today. I had already had SKY TV out to fit satellite dish and Q box with 500 GB of memory. Whole package (discounted for a yr, €50).  I had some concerns over speed and connecting via phone line as opposed to VM's  fibre cable, and also service levels, but it is up and running and working very well.  They told me speeds of around 85 MB's and I'm getting 95 with ethernet and 92 WI-FI.   Very happy with overall experience. There was a bit of a hiccup in a delayed engineer's visit which req.d a call to SKY (who, BTW are very, very busy) but the lad in SKY (in the UK I think) sorted it all out and pronto. Considering my VM package was around €62 for BB & home phone alone, the SKY offer was very good, and I can record programs, even if I've no chance of watching em!  Plus. AFAIK, the technology seems more advanced. I was using a very old router, now I have a very sleek and efficient new one that seems much better. So far, so good. Hats-off to SKY.


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