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Loading ...Goodbye Virgin Media
khenry
After asking how badly one big company can screw up, I had my answer today. Virgin Media has decided to copy BT’s fine for people who don’t want to pay their ISP/Cable/Phone fees by direct debit. Virgin’s charge has been raised to £5 per month over BT’s £4.50 so clearly, the thinking was “I’ll have some of that profit”. I’d already switched phone providers but then moved the line rental as well when BT tried to recover revenue lost by switching with this charge.
The issue is that for broadband users only, a credit card refund is quicker to obtain (depending on the card issuer) when the ISP screws up your charges. Also, when telephoning to start a new contract, Virgin Media demanded the 16-digit numbers of their debit cards more often than they started a proper direct debit, so it’s not clear whether these customers have to effectively sign up all over again to avoid this fine.
I saw that Plusnet won Custom PC’s ISP of the year last year and remembered its multiple awards from sister mag PC Pro in the past. Finally, one happy relative is still with them after four years. On the second call where the operator answered all my questions to my satisfaction, I joined up. I will enjoy telling Virgin Media to stick it, using its pre-paid envelope.
To be fair, without an arrogant move such as overcharging for the same service which wouldn’t necessarily improve, perhaps customer inertia would have kept me at Virgin until September, marking six years with the firm. Even though there’s no contractual tie-in, I’ll probably give Plusnet the full year to see how well it performs and if it’s no better than Virgin, it will remain cheaper than my current package, for the same speed or faster, by £10 per month.
UPDATE: Following on from Combatus’s comment, it must also be noted that Plusnet don’t care if you’ve switched away from paying line rental to BT as long as you still have the line. I was surprised that some ADSL providers still keep this as a condition, but that’s their lost business.
Good on you. I’ve been with Virgin for about 6 years too. The service is very overpriced but unfortunately the phone line here already has a “family” adsl service on it. Seeing as I play games, I didn’t appreciate my ping rocketing when other house members were downloading. Otherwise I would have kissed goodbye a long time ago.
I’ve been with NTL\Virgin for about 5 years. As I only take the BB service @ £25pcm they actually work out cheaper I believe than paying for a phone line + ADSL on top.
I pay by DD and touch wood have not had a problem. I dread the day I actually need to contact them. I’ve very deliberately never changed service or bank account.
When the day comes to move away I’m expecting to have to shut my bank account to prevent them taking what isn’t theirs.
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