Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

virginmedia-is-evil.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 153 posts

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#131

Post by Lio »

Nextgrid wrote: post #101
preinheimer wrote: post #69

The thing that kills me with these stories (and if you read the comments there's plenty more) is that customers _remember_. I'll never use Videotron again after the crap they put me through when I cancelled. I'd love to blame monopolies (sure, pick the other guys, but you'll be back in a few years when they piss you off) but the other big offender here is gym memberships, and there's no shortage of choice there. I th…

> I think there's at least 4 different brands within a 5 minute drive of my house. And just like with ISPs, all of them are equally scummy, so it is indeed a monopoly/oligopoly of scumminess. UK has fairly good consumer protection laws, in fact if you express your intent to cancel, they refuse for an invalid reason or ignore it and you cancel the payment and let the "debt" accumulate there isn't anything else they ca…

Is there any recourse to small claims court for the “ex-customer”?

ie once you’ve stated you want cancel and they’ve ignored it could you bill them for your time?

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#132

Post by artistsvoid »

Nextgrid wrote: post #107
lightgreen wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK you can simply cancel the direct debit (most regular payments in the UK happen using direct debit, not by credit card). But as far as I understand not paying for a contract may result in damaged credit history, so the mortgage can become more expensive for example; or they may sell your "debt" to some collector company, who may start bothering you (I heard these stories from friends). So because of these re…

I dealt with Virgin's debt collectors twice and they were reasonable and actually offered better customer service than Virgin itself. When I explained them the situation and why I cancelled the payment they immediately dropped the case and I haven't heard of anything since (it's been 2 years since the first case). Of course, you should always aim to cancel properly, but if the company is intentionally being obtuse an…

This is absurd and really funny, well meant advice could basically be:

'if they don't make it easy to cancel the service, just stop the payment, wait for the debt collectors, reason with them instead of your provider, they treat you better'

(I am not necessarily recommending that, but ... this speaks volumes)

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#133

Post by Ballas »

Scarnface wrote: post #30

I've not had working broadband for six months since moving house and signing up with Virgin. After explaining the issue to the fith rep for the third time one day I was told my 600m/s latency and packet loss was because I had a monthly usage of 500GB on a 100mb/s connection which was therefore five times as much as I'd paid for and that I needed to upgrade my package. There's a reason these lot link your account to y…

Meters per second as a unit for measuring latency? Although, it does fit in with the unit mangling done by the rep...

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#134

Post by Nextgrid »

dingaling wrote: post #128
shoulderfake wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0 competition and regulatory capture so nobody new can come in

The UK ( whence comes this article ) has a very competitive ISP marketplace, there are several dozen ISPs vying for my custom at my property using a variety of connection technology. But most people in the UK sign-up to the Big Three ( BT Retail, Virgin, TalkTalk ) due to their intense advertising and bundle 'deals'. So those three consider themselves the market and compete with one another for that pool of customers…

The UK ISP marketplace is not competitive. In most places you have no choice but to go with Virgin if you want half-decent speeds. The rest of the ISPs are just selling DSL which is crap compared to Virgin and there’s no easy way to tell how well it will perform in advance before signing up (it depends on the state of the wiring).

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#135

Post by Nextgrid »

pseudobry wrote: post #126

I recently had fun cancelling my Comcast internet after switching to fiber. When asked why, I said "4x the download speed and 20x the upload speed for half the price". The tech just said "can't argue with that..."

Yep, with all the horror stories around retentions and upselling I personally never had any issues in that front. I honestly tell the rep that I have a better deal on the technical level elsewhere (that their offering can’t match) and it was always easy.

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#136

Post by Nextgrid »

dijksterhuis wrote: post #68
Havoc wrote: post #36

Looking for fiber in London next month. I guess VM won't be it. Reddit seems to think Hyperoptic is where it's at. With VM as second. That's on raw speed front. So if VM can't be trusted I guess I need to apartment hunt by Hyper...sigh.

See if Andrews & Arnolds would work wherever you move to. I've been with them for a few months now and don't think I'll want to switch anyone else afterwards. https://www.aa.net.uk/ Checking an address on their website will require active BT phone line at the address, but if you call them up they can check the area for you (I did that). I was asking their salesperson about static IPs addresses and all sorts. Answered…

A&A is definitely good but unfortunately they only offer DSL I believe, which is honestly pretty bad compared to real fibre like Hyperoptic or G.Network.

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#137

Post by thinkingemote »

stuartq wrote: post #11
jibbit wrote: post #6

I’ve tried to cancel my virgin media subscription twice (because it’s too expensive), and each time was upsold a more expensive package. I explained this to my wife, who laughed at me, then the same thing happened to her.

I rang up several years ago to try to get a discount for reasons I can't remember. I ended up being upsold and today I'm spending far more money than I should, but my Internet is so, so fast. And my IP address, whilst not "static", changes about once every three years. Not something you'd run a website on, but very convenient as a developer when being restricted by IP range. I've heard the customer service is bad, bu…

It seems a common story, customer tried to cancel or get a cheaper service but ends up paying more.

These call centre staff must be very highly skilled, wolf of wall Street level of hustle.

In Korea they have a word which describes a person who is easily scammed and parted away from their cash: hugu.

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#138

Post by BrandoElFollito »

I do not really understand.

Why not sending a cancellation letter (recommended - not sure what the US word for this is, the kind of letter the other party signs when receiving it and which is a legal way to provide letters) and blocking the payments?

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#139

Post by thrwyoilarticle »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #127
paultopia wrote: post #19

Nothing is harder than cancelling internet service, with the possible exception of cancelling a gym membership. In order to cancel Mediacom's 'service,' I had to send a letter[1] to them, with copies to their general counsel, threatening 99 kinds of lawsuit. I made the letter intentionally deranged, complete with footnotes about financial BDSM, to give them the impression that I would actually do it. They cancelled t…

I once paid twice as much for a gym for the no lock in plan, with pay as you go in advance for a month. They offered me as low as a three month contract with direct debit and I refused. The guy signing me up thought I was nuts. I think everyone else is nuts.

I think I might agree with the guy signing you up: what about the Direct Debit Guarantee? (assuming UK from the term 'direct debit')

Re: I tried to cancel Virgin Media broadband contract

#140

Post by dogma1138 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #103
dogma1138 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HyperOptic or G.Network I’ve used both currently on the latter. However you have little to no choice in the UK. FTTP is only absolve in specific buildings if your building isn’t connected it’s virgin or xDSL via Openreach (pick your ISP at that point however they are pretty much all the same unless you pick Tesco Broadband or some other small scale crap like that so for DSL I would got with Zen or well BT). The other…

I have an FTTP line because there's no other choice. The connection fees were covered by the Gigabit Voucher Scheme which I believe is still around. It's only for businesses, however there is no requirement to actually be trading so you can very well set up a one-man company (12£ fee to companies' house) and then do it. The voucher scheme covered it for 2,5k which is a bit steep but also not that expensive in the gra…

Yes but this is extremely expensive even with the cheats.

G.Network costs me £22 a month for 1gig no caps, there is another small fee for a real IP address since pretty much all FTTP providers use CGNAT.

Post reply on HN