Thanks EC. Hubby gets the Virgin emails, so I'll warn him to look out for it.

Your welcome 

What Virgin service?

Mines gone up by 3.99

Me too.

Mine is up by £4.50 

I guess it depends on what package you have as to how much they lift it by. Could be worth comparing with each other to see if they are charging each of us different prices. I think my increase is about £3.80.

I've not been notified of anything yet...

Keep quiet then, they may have forgotten about you

I only wanted the phone and broadband and they told me it would be cheaper to have the basic telly package as well (I don't even have the box connected) since then it's gone up exponentially 

If it wasn't for my broadband I'd get rid of it 

The increases in February according to MoneySavingExpert are:

• Line rental will increase by £1/month, from £15.99 to £16.99.
• Line rental saver – where you get a cheaper deal by paying upfront for the whole year rather than paying monthly – will increase by £20/year from £144/year to £164/year.
• Big Easy quad bundle prices will increase by £2/month. Currently customers pay £15/month for the first 12 months and £20/month after. Line rental is paid on top of the bundle price.
• Big Bang quad bundle prices will increase by £2/month. Currently customers pay £20/month for the first 12 months and £30/month after. Line rental is paid on top of the bundle price.
• Big Kahuna quad bundle prices will rise by £3.50/month. Currently customers pay £35/month for the first 12 months and £45/month after. Line rental is paid on top of the bundle price.
• Big Daddy quad bundle prices will rise by £3.50/month. Currently customers pay £80/month for the first 12 months and £95/month after. Line rental is paid on top of the bundle price.

No changes to other prices, call charges or talk plans.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.c...e-rise-from-february

As I don't have Virgin's television, I think my increase is £1.

Pengy,

That is exactly what they told me a couple of years ago, Have TV, Broadband and Telephone and it's cheaper.

I too did not connect my TV box (in fact I'm throwing out a perfectly good box today as they don't want it back!).

I only want broadband.

What I did in March was to drop the TV, try to drop the telephone and keep just broadband. What I ended up with is broadband and telephone (which I don't use). However I reduced my bill from £43 to £28.

I would get in touch and do what I did and that is to drive a hard bargain. They don't want to lose customers so decide what you would be happy with and negotiate as close as possible - it works!

I am going to get in touch with them again and see if I can drop the telephone and drop the price to try and offset the increase. I will do it in the second week of December, close the final date for cancelation of the contract which they allow. I'm prepared to leave (don't want to) but I would.

Give my suggestion a go Pengy and save yourself some cash

I'm gonna do that EC grrrrrr  I hardly use the phone either - I just get calls from PPI companies or marketing calls as most people call me on my moby 

Again, that is exactly my experience, even though I have registered with the TPS for months I still get them in the same numbers!

Let me know how much you get off

The saga of Virgin Media

Well I told them initially I wasn't happy with the £4.50 increase and that I was giving 28 days notice - initially they would only give me a reduction on line rental so I told them forget it.  They put me through to another department who offered phone & internet (I have always had free weekend calls) for considerably less than I'm on now and I said I'd have to think about it as the internet connection was pants.  She offered to put me through to techy people but asked if I wanted the deal so for £26 I said yes.

Techy people tried to help with the router problem.  They offered to send me a new hub which Yodel were supposed to deliver tomorrow but have told me it's coming Saturday unless I get another message saying it will be Monday   techy people had me do a lot of on and off, reboot and other stuff and my connection says limited and the router wouldn't co-operate. Engineer is coming tomorrow which would have been great if the flipping hub was also coming so he could have fitted it grrrr 

I have had the day from hell and initially the dongle I bought wouldn't work but it is now   Virgin Media are funding me the days I don't have my internet but I've been forced to put Baz's very excellent idea into fruition and got a dongle so I'm able to go on line and bless her for organising it for me 

so for now dinge dongle 

Well done for negotiating them down Pengy, the last thing they want is for the loss of custom.

I have yet to get in touch and negotiate mine. I hopefully will be able to drop the telephone and save a few quid.

it's worth it EC they're afraid of losing us as customers as they are haemorrhaging customers because Tivo is apparently a bad box 

I need the interweb because now I've got rid of Sky I need to watch my programmes by internet 

Does anyone know please, if I drop my telly whether it'll take the payments down? I'm on the (free package) they say but TBH I'm not sure whether it is  

I love my Tivo!      That said, I had really crap service when I moved house and was without any services for a week (I too went into dongle-land) they said I'd get three months service foc and I accepted but said i thought it was a paltry offer.   I'm now on my fourth month of free service and I'm not about to alert anyone.....

I should think so, sprout - go on their website and 'build' a new package as if you were a new customer and see what price is quoted?  Then start haggling....  

Ah right, Thanks Kaffs. I need to make savings 

I did just that Sprout. I had Broadband (100mb), TV and Telephone. I dropped the TV (never plugged it in), increased the broadband to 120MB and went from £43 per month to £28 per month.

I would never have Sky because I mainly want broadband. From me Sky is not a good proposition also I don't like their monopoly of sport and hate them in general.

My next job is to get it down further now that the price increase has been announced. I will see if they let me drop the telephone.

I need to keep the phone and BB 

My virgin media is going up by £8 a month in February which means I shall be leaving them unless I can negotiate a lesser price without loss of or change to my services ������

I use my mobile for most things now and want the BB for everything else. I doubt they will let me drop the phone as they seem to want customers to have them.

If you have been on your current package at least a year and you are happy to stay another year I have found using the old "I am leaving, put me through to that department please" works every time. As others have said, you can reduce your package through negotiation.

it's fixed   he put a new black cable box from the thing on the wall on and some new cabling as I wasn't getting any signal - new hub (he had one so  to Yodel) took about 2 hours till it booted but for now it's working 

Moonie you have to give the the I want to give 28 days notice - it worked for me 

Just noticed my next bill will be £4 more expensive. So who has what (services) and how big has your increase been?

Hi EC 

My bill was due to go up by £8.15 a month in February to nearly £70 a month 

I had the XL tv package, with V+ box, weekends free call package, I get free all the time calls on my mobile. I had the 20mb broadband.

So I rang them told them I was gonna leave unless they could offer me something better for less.

I ended up with same tv package, which I didn't want to change anyway, plus a new TiVo box, no extra charge a month. Same phone package, which I was also happy with. Broadband upto 152m, no extra charge.

In fact the whole package is now less than £58 a month, where as it would have been nearer £70 with the 'new' charges.

Job done and happy me  

That is an excellent bit of work Moonie, especially as you want the items in your deal. The 152MB is excellent.

I only have two months to go and I have finished my 12 month lock in. At that point I will re-negotiate.

Fankoo 

I was still in my lock in EC but the threat was enough methinks  

Yes, you are right, they did say you could cancel before 31st December. But I suspect that they would prefer to keep you rather than lose you to another provider.

I am going to lose the telephone and keep the broadband as I may be moving house and don't know if Virgin is in the area I move to as I've not decided upon a house yet.

Tbh I wish I could lose the phone all together but you are required to have a phone line, aren't you. Even if you don't use it. I think the free weekend calls are standard, though I could be wrong about that 

I'm not 100% sure that you have to have a phone line, mainly because when I last negotiated my package I told them I wanted to lose the TV and Telephone line.

I was told that if I were to keep the telephone line they would do a better deal on the package. The way the conversation went I got the impression that I could just have the broadband. My broadband got upped to 100Mb and I kept the phone line as part of the deal.

The other thing is that they like you to have lots of their services because they can then charge for termination of each if you leave early.