Virgin the cheek of them.

[Fnaar]

Virgins call out and on line

I am SO NOT going to google that

 

[ianrauk]

VIRGIN REALLY S U CK

I've reqached the end with them as well...totally hopeless customer service, they hide behind their website and are totally focused on sales calls only. They dump endless junk mail into my house even through it is marked not to. They never answer complaints except with an automated email to say that have it and then it disappears into oblivion. It took two months of calling, e mailing etc to get them to remove th elandline I never use to save on line rental costs then the bill comes in at over £25 more the next month when I have used even less>>W T F??
The TV is rubbish...the only channels worth watching are available on freeview anyway.
The only thing I am interested in with them is broadband, but trying to get this through to them is proving almost impossible. Yet e mail them on a sales link (even though i was complaining) and they return the call in seconds and try anything they can to upgrade you...regardless of the complaint.

Hopeless. Totally useless.

BT broadband may be slower but perhaps the hassle factor is less over there??

I need fibre optic, at least 10meg broadband.

Virgin know this and treat existing clients like dirt as a result. Its a risky game to pplay Richard...as soon as somebody offers faster broadband for the same money virgin will lose a huge chunk of its client base overnight.

You cant blame Virgin for rubbish TV can you. You get the same TV on Sky etc

Yet my service with Virgin is impeccable.
30meg Broadband with no drop outs (maybe one or two a year).
Their Indian call centre & customer service is very good, as I mentioned earlier.
The missus can talk for England so the free UK calls 24/7 get's great usage.

I love the catch up TV, TV on demand and all the Iplayers that Virgin TV supplies.
I can watch any of thousands of music video's for free when ever I want.

I have 2 boxes supplied. One a HD PVR for the sitting room and normal box for the bedroom.

Every now and then I call up to ask for cheaper rates and usually get.

Oh yes, and no satellite dish on the side of the house...I'm a bit snobby like that.
So it's each to their own really isn't it.

 

[postman]

Just an update we now have a tivo box plus another box to watch telly in another room.That won't happen.
Already this has proved beneficial for we can record and fast forward the commercials.That is a plus,we now have twenty or more HD channels that is also a plus,what a difference in nature progs and the football.The listings are easier to read and there are otherfeatures you can play on.But the progs themselves have not improved.That is not Virgins fault.
Me being who and what i am,i am pleased because we are now paying less,and i have told myself we shall tell them we are leaving again next time to drive the cost down even further,as i did with the mobile.£7 a month for a Samsung Galaxy Ace.500mb 500 texts 200 mins.More than i will ever need a very good deal and a nice phone.
I think loyalty should be rewarded.

 

[MacB]

Virgin have worked for us for years, I had one brief foray into Sky for TV and never again. We have the TIVO box in the main room, our previous V+ box is now in the second room, home phone as it's part of the bundle and their Superhub with the 100MB(rising to 120MB) broadband.

For me it's all about, and has only ever been about, the broadband. Downtime has been minimal and I think I've only made two support calls in about 14 years.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Netflix isn't a bad service, but the new additions has been very poor indeed since February. It's not a bad little service, but you go on the US service and see the titles on there and it's absolutely staggering. The much newer UK version is extremely poor in comparison. One must give them time, but I think even based on this development's been a bit slow. Netflix is still amazing value for money compared to the PPV generic stuff that's been knocking around on Sky/Virgin/BT for years.

Netflix IS a terrible service & it is NOT good value for money, it is the same value USD to our GBP, so it makes the UK service 50% more expensive for a hugely inferior service. I took up their free offer as soon as they released having just got back from the US, it was a complete load of bull. Yet another typical example of Rip-off Britain.

Shame as it had/has the potential to be a brilliant service if only the pigs didn't have their noses in the trough

Alan..

 

[marinyork]

Netflix IS a terrible service & it is NOT good value for money, it is the same value USD to our GBP, so it makes the UK service 50% more expensive for a hugely inferior service. I took up their free offer as soon as they released having just got back from the US, it was a complete load of bull. Yet another typical example of Rip-off Britain.

Shame as it had/has the potential to be a brilliant service if only the pigs didn't have their noses in the trough

Alan..

That's pretty much what I said. However I don't think it's a totally fair comparison. Netflix was a very well established company with discs for a long time in the US with a huge user base. The original download service in the US wasn't anything like what it was today, it's just matured a lot. It is annoying because netflix are paying a lot of silly money for exclusive content and studio deals in the US that they are probably paying too much money out for over there and virtually no development here. However see my point above about the competition commission. Compared to UK though and on demand services going back to 2005 netflix isn't a bad service. It's just annoying that they use different DRM in the UK as that means that I can't watch it on my blu-ray or tv and have to watch it on a computer.

The exchange rate comparison is a fairly standard thing in the UK. A fiver is a very definite price point in the UK. I don't really see your point on that one.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

The exchange rate comparison is a fairly standard thing in the UK. A fiver is a very definite price point in the UK. I don't really see your point on that one.

The point is it is £5.99 here & $5.99 over in the US making it 50% more expensive over here for an inferior service, why? if it's not just about profiteering.

Alan...

 

[marinyork]

The point is it is £5.99 here & $5.99 over in the US making it 50% more expensive over here for an inferior service, why? if it's not just about profiteering.

Alan...

I was being charitable. I know what the point is, it's a childish and trivial point.

As for the content again I refer you to the competition commission wussing out of continuing a proper investigation into pay movies in the UK and studio deals.

 

[cyberknight]

I left sky at the beginning of November but the wife is disabled and in the house most of the time and a lot of the channels she likes to watch are not on freeview. I got an offer through the post from sky saying if I went back to them I could have 50% off for 1 year. Rang them tonight to take up the offer but they could not find the offer I was talking about and asked if I would like 75% off for a year instead. I`m now back with sky.

Ray

I did similar , threatened to leave and they did something to my phone bill that saved me money and did half price tv for a year .What with the free broadband i am happy enough .No virgin here and if i was to go freesat i would be about £5 a month better off currently compared to my sky bill what with a phone/broadband package i would have to sort out.
Trouble is most of the stuff i watch is only on sky channels

 

[sheddy]

Virgin manage to annoy me regularly despite the fact that we don't subscribe to their services. Every week or so I usually get one or two letters from them - some are just the ones popped through every door, and some are actually addressed to our house informing us that we are the only people in the area who haven't taken up their services. I refuse to open then and either pop them straight into the recycling or back into the letter box.
I don't see why they think that bombarding me that regularly will get me to change my mind! It just makes me cross at the waste of paper and time.

Likewise.
I send mine back without a stamp. Some addresses here http://www.blogs.stopjunkmail.org.u...op-To-the-Occupier-junk-mail-from-Virgin.html

 

[Large]

Andrew is spot on. Speak to the providers regularly and threaten to take your custom elsewhere. Works a treat in most cases and where it doesn't you know you're doing the right thing moving to a new provider.

I've got TV from Sky, telephone and broadband form TalkTalk. I've tried shopping around and haggling and got the cheaper from the incumbents. The broadband is not great, but cheap and is sufficient for my limited usage. If I were using it for online video games, then it would be too slow. I'm not that sad, though.

The same thing applies to car (and any other) insurannce. Direct Line renewals quoted me £300 more than last year. I went to their web site and put in the same details and - hey presto - the price was exactly the same as last year's. One 2-minute phone call later, and all was the same.

Similarly, I have a Warranty Direct (Pinnacle Insurance) extended warranty on the motor. The quote was £649 online and £679 if I wanted instalments. I called, haggled, and got it for £499 spread over four equal quarerly payments with no interest.

You can tell I'm in procurement!

 

[Deleted member 26715]

I was being charitable. I know what the point is, it's a childish and trivial point.

You clearly earn far more than me then if paying 50% more for an inferior service is acceptable to you.

Alan...

 

[jonny jeez]

Yet my service with Virgin is impeccable.

Check

30meg Broadband with no drop outs (maybe one or two a year).

Check

Their Indian call centre & customer service is very good, as I mentioned earlier.

Check

The missus can talk for England so the free UK calls 24/7 get's great usage.

Check

I love the catch up TV, TV on demand and all the Iplayers that Virgin TV supplies.
.

Check

I have 2 boxes supplied. One a HD PVR for the sitting room and normal box for the bedroom.

Every now and then I call up to ask for cheaper rates and usually get.

Oh yes, and no satellite dish on the side of the house...I'm a bit snobby like that.
So it's each to their own really isn't it.

Check, Check and check.


Blimey Ian, if only you were a little prettier I'd swear we'd been separated at birth.

 

[marinyork]

You clearly earn far more than me then if paying 50% more for an inferior service is acceptable to you.

Alan...

No, I just don't worry. You could have been funny. Here's what Kevin Bridges had to say about something costing 50% more.

Kevin Bridges:-
Is everyone having a good credit crunch?
....
Right, but the final straw for me, I was in a shop right, and I was buying a packet of bakels, a packet of space raiders and a packet of Johnny's onion rings.
Does anyone know the collective term for these crisps?
....
Exactly. Now imagine my shock when the guy asked me for forty five pence!
Now when 10p crisps are costing 15p , that's when I began to take an interest in economics.
That's when I started watching Bloomberg and reading the financial times - ooh the FTSE is up, what the Dow Jones, who knows what that means but it's only a matter of time before we're paying a quid for a chomp.

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

Dumped Sky tv ages ago. I lost interest in Premiership football years ago, which is what kept me with them in the first place. The decent American TV series that are on Sky Atlantic are often old anyway, and I have as such seen them ages ago. I would rather pay for DVD boxsets for newer stuff, it work out cheaper and it's yours forever.

Sky also used to have me by the short and curlies when you could not get broadband without a tv package from them. With Sky being the only decent broadband LLU supplier in my area I was screwed. Talk Talk were the only other company (read they are rubbish), or BT which was expensive at the time anyway. Since Sky dropped the need to have their crappy tv to get broadband the first thing I did was cancel the television. I hardly watch any television at all.