Virgin Media - Extra 'hidden' charges

[captainsossige]

Hi All, I was previously a Virgin broadband customer, and noticed on my May bill an offer to upgrade to broadband M, phone (free weekends) and TV M for only £20 a month.

I telephoned to request this, and specifically asked about any extra charges, as I've been coaught out by the 3 mobile network in the past (video mins, but that's another story).

The advisor informed me that there would be NO other charges than the £20 and any call charges.

My bill turned up yesterday (first one with new charges on) and my monthly bill appeared to be £24.45 a month (nearly 25% than I had anticipated).

I phoned Virgin, the 1st advisor couldn't even understand what I was querying and transferred me to a dept that didn't pick up.

Phoned again, and the 2nd advisor infomed me that:

a) the £20 monthly charge has gone up to £21
b) the extra £3.45 is for 'free' evenings and weekends

I informed him that I hadn't requested 'free' evenings and weekends, and after a some persuasion managed to get my bill back down to £21 AND the 'free' evenings and weekends charges refunded back to my connection date.

Obviously, I was missold and lied to originally. I await next month's bill to see if they've been honest this time around. It's difficult as Virgin operate 'verbal' agreements so you never have any proof of what you'ev been told on previous occasions.

I offer this as a warning for people to CHECk their VIRGIN bills very carefully.

Sossige..

[reallymadwoman]

So the change from NTL hasn't made any difference at all then? I seem to remember they used to do exactly the same thing.

[emmaf01]

duplicate

[emmaf01]

Our bill should be £80 per month- it never is. That's Virgin for you.

[legalpickle]

When I was with NTL, when I disconnected they sent me different bills every week ranging between £25 and £780. One week more, one week less. Same account number and service on every bill. Then they sent bailiff letters, same story, same & different bailiff's with different amounts.

I sent them all a really harsh letter threatening to deliberately pay the £780 and sue them for the whole difference plus court fees and interest, which would mean they'd end up with a loss, unless they waived the whole amount [thought I'd try my luck] forthwith. Within a week I had 5 letters from the different bailiff companies apologizing profusely saying they won't take on any more accounts for NTL against me [wish it was for NTL against anybody!] and a letter with a goodwill cheque of £50 from NTL confirming the whole balance had been written clean and my credit records cleaned up from their errors - and they really did make them clean and I haven't heard a peep since.

I sent it to NTL's registered office with a copy of my dad's last bill - at the time I was living at home and contributing a lot to my dad's telephone bill as well as having my own line - & a letter from my dad threatening to leave [he had been with NYNEX before, so with them for a few years and just started getting broadband from them at the time] confirming how much of his bill I had been responsible for for a while.

The problem is that VM cable is a lot more reliable [infrastructure-wise] than ADSL so if you are a medium user or depend on consistency of the internet and anyway have to deal with a problem broadband provider [my experience is they are all about as bad!] then VM is the choice. My problem is my road is a small road, so they don't have cable installed and aren't prepared to do so without charging a fortune - which isn't worth it coz I'm renting and not planning to live here the rest of my life.

I would much rather cable over bleeding ADSL!