After years of terrible customer service, unsolicited calls trying to sell me awful deals, and unauthorized changes to my contract, I finally left Virgin Media. But even after leaving, I got tricked again.

I received an email asking me to complete a survey to “help improve their services.” I took the bait, thinking I could finally share honest feedback about their abysmal customer service. But not a single question was about that. The entire survey was just market research — fishing for information about competitors and which services I'm now using.

So much for “improving their services.” What they really mean is: finding new ways to squeeze more money out of customers.

Has anyone had experience of going the full hog with the communications ombudsman?

Virgin Media incorrectly charged me an exit fee of nearly £1k over 8 weeks ago after I switched providers. Throughout they have accepted they were wrong to do so, and despite multiple calls, they still haven't refunded the money (they reckon a 45 day wait for a cheque is normal).

I escalated the complaint to the Communications Ombudsman. Now, Virgin Media has come back and offered to refund the full amount and give me an extra £100 as a goodwill gesture.

Should I accept this offer and end the case, or should I hold out for the final decision from the Ombudsman? I feel like the £100 doesn't fully cover the frustration and the 8-week delay, but I don’t want to hold out just for the ombudsman to award less.

Any thoughts or similar experiences?

I dont know what happened with this move to combine VM and O2 into a single signon. but someones got something wrong somewhere. 

I have been with VM since 2017

Starting around the last week in august I first off recieved a phone call asking for someone i didnt recognise. 

The number came up on my phone as Virgin O2 and it looks like the right number but they didnt ask for me. 

then on the 28th i got a text message for Nasifah asking if id like a broadband boost. 

My names not nasifah

Then i got a text saturday to thank me for calling about moving home. 
I am not moving home and haven't been in touch at all. 

I then spent about 30 mins trying to work out if it was an ad blocker or a problem on the website with the live chat not working on any pages. it was a website problem as it worked later on.

I finally decided to call and after about 15 mins of trying to figure out how to get past the IVR system which is really in a very bad state also,  I spent a long time speaking to a couple of very polite staff members that could barely understand me to try and get the bottom of whats happening and why am I now paying £99 a month for a service that new customers get for £33.

at the end of it all im happy that the first lady i spoke with got the details of the mess up with the texts 

ill be leaving VM as soon as possible to go elsewhere. 

reasons i might have stayed. 

Your support channels should offer support not frustration. 

Your live chat was down and its almost impossible to find the phone number on your website. thank god for googles AI suggestions giving that out. 

your voice recognition based IVR system is a mess. it either doesnt understand what i say or it gives options that i didnt ask for about things i dont care about. 

And yes thank the IVR for telling me that you are moving the home phone lies and that the personal alarm systems for people will need to be notified as they wont work. i say thank you as you told me that 3 times while i repeated the words "potential fraud" or "Agent" over and over again.

I get that you need to do cost saving exercises but overseas call centers were never a good idea. they stilla rent now. including having to explain that [mailto:myname@mybusiness.co.uk](mailto:myname@mybusiness.co.uk) doesnt then have u/gmail.com on the end. not sure why the lady wanted to add u/gmail.com she seemed to really want to. 

Your staff couldn't see my email on my account. no idea why. i can see it...

and at the end of that im going leave anyway as your "default" tariff for out of contract users is a ripoff and you should be ashamed of yourselves. 
"well we feel its your responsibility to monitor yada yada" yeah fair enough. 

i had a contract at 60 ish a month. your default tariff bumps that up to £99 a month. 

new users get the same deal at £33 a month. 

nasty business practice that does nothing but drive away your loyal customers.  

and the only reason i called you, as i would have preferred to use either live chat or not speak to anyone at all is down to your website not working properly any more. the change my package states

"Looking to change your home phone deal?

We're sprucing up this part of the website at the moment, but we'll have it back running as soon as possible. In the meantime, chat to us online and we'll be able to help you out."

 Your merger completed in 2021. how long do you realistically need to sort the website out? 

And before any other replies to that. the same message has been on there for at least  2 months. 

and you cant chat online as the live chat was down. 

If my clients had the downtime you have on your site for various services they wouldn't be my clients any more. its somehow accepted these days for massive multinationals to have totally useless services. which im sure you paid millions for. Great investment. 

Your sincerely

Virgin Media Customer 2017 - 2025. 

ps your community forum has live errors in the dev console.

and a react-dom uncaught error.

Just noticed a bunch of instability on Virgin Media since the subsea cable cuts over the weekend. Seeing higher latency spikes, jitter, and random service drops across different sites and services. Anyone else on Virgin picking up the same kind of issues, or is this isolated routing weirdness on my end? Curious how widespread the impact is across their network.

What's the best way to knock this price right down, £150 us a month is going to be bit of a joke only if accept renewal price but if don't its £195 😱, can anyone suggest a good hint and tips to knock the price down 😬

This is a post about my recent bad experience of dealing with Virgin Media Customer Support.

Prior to December 2024 whenever I ran a speed test on thinkbroadband.com VM always ended up with 3 x 5 star stats. However that has now changed to 1 x 3 star for overall satisfaction, 1x 5 star for reliability, and 1 x 1 star customer service. My dissatisfaction started in December 2024 whenever my wife and I temporarily moved home while we had some building work done on our house. Temporarily = 8 months. The temporary address had VM Gig1 so it seemed a no brainer to move the contract because VM's web site said your contract is portable. Well, that was where the problems started.

My contract was a VM Only Gig1 + Weekend Chatter and I was on a discount lasting until May 2025. Discount = £55 PM. not a bad price for gigabit broadband at the time, and I had no alternative Openreach option available as there was no fibre in my area, only poor FTTC. So VM Gig1 was a no brainer.

As the website says, you can get the move sorted in 3-days. Great I thought. However, I wasn't able to complete the transfer on line and so had to speak to someone. I wasn't paying attention as the temporary house move was my priority, so when the agent said that a house move would result in a new contract I didn't understand why but was in a hurry so just let it pass. Now, what happened next, but I didn't realise the significance of this, was that the agent moved me to their new Volt Gig 1 contract with weekend chatter. The existing discount was still in place until May 25, but I was now locked in to a new 18 month contract at the new temp address. I didn't find this out until I was ready to move back to my real home in August. Now guess what? having discovered this revelation, because my contract had increased to £87 PM, which is extortionate when compared to the now available Openreach FTTP contracts available at similar speeds now that Openreach have complete the fibre role-out in my area.

And what happened with VM contract wise as I was now trapped by expensive exit fees if I tried to terminate the contract, well we ended up with another new 18-month contract that ties me to VM until March 2027.

I still have an open complaint with VM seeking to get this contract changed to a more preferential one. I only have the Weekend Chatter product because for several years it was cheaper to keep the phone line even though I do not own a normal phone. All my calls are done by smartphone these days as EE offer me a great all-you-can-eat contract. Volt is VM'S attempt to leverage customers in to their tie-up with O2, but I am really not interested in O2. Where I live O2 = 4G while EE = 5G. why would I move to a poorer service? I have made all these points to VM in my complaint.

I am not hopeful of a resolution as VM are the most difficult company to talk to when it comes to customer support. Maybe it is a USA thing imported to the UK when Liberty Global took over VM. or maybe it is just that VM treat their customers appallingly.

I don't see how my complaint does not end up going to the UK regulator or ombudsman for resolution because Vm have singularly failed to address my concerns at their failure to better inform me about their home move processes, which, in my experience, are totally different to what they tell you on the web site.

My main message to this community is that their is nothing wrong with VM's Gig1 product, but if you have need to move then do not expect anything approach good customer service.

If the regulator cannot resolve this for me then I will never use VM again once my contract runs out in Q1 2027. It is a shame, because it was a beautiful symbiotic relationship, until I needed VM to help me through the stresses of moving.

So, do your research and look at other products before committing to VM as your new ISP!! I'd hate you yo get the same atrocious customer experience as me.

Hi,

I received an email from VM offering “our latest WiFi hub at no extra cost”. It says it will be a stronger signal and a more reliable connection.

Not sure what current system we have but it’s very reliable and fast enough for our needs.

Is this something I should accept?

TIA

My partner's contact is up in a few weeks and aiming to cancel it and sign up in my name. Anyone got a link?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

My VM hub just arrived today (no clue what version), and while I checked to make sure the wall fitting in my new house said 'NTL', I only discovered while trying to set up the WiFi that none of the existing cables or sockets fit with the ones VM provided. I know the house is old, and might simply require a new cable, but I honestly have no idea what the next step here is. Any advice or help would be appreciated.

The second EE has contacted them that I’m leaving 😂

Happy with the outcome - Reduced by £18.25 to £64.37.

Out of contract - LOL £175 PCM

Before starting I looked up a similar package from Sky on Uswitch (£65PCM). Planned to use that as evidence of willingness to switch.

Then engaged the chatbot. It took 1H25M in an online chat. Rejection of the Tier1 retention offer of £121.94 per month.

Hey presto - I have a deal I'm happy with

The last deal (18 Months ago) put me on a SH5 and I imagine the cost of the new hardware was paid off over the last 18 months so they could drop the price £18.25

People say this is the biggest pain in being a VM customer the renewal dance - found it handy enough overall

Having clicked through various logins it gets me to the 'switch now' button. click it and it takes me to my main VM page showing my package etc. going to the upgrade page says pick one, yet lists none and suggests I chat online.....

I'm probably missing something obvious but its really unintuitive. You want me to upgrade but aren't directing to....

New Hub 5 Router installed on 1gig. Phone works, PS4 works, PS5 works, Firestick works. Laptop doesn't list the new router in "show available networks". It lists every other available VM router in the street, along with several other networks from EE, Three, etc so no idea why it doesnt recognise mine. Connecting with an ethernet cable just says "Connection 2" so I'm not even sure if its the VM router its connecting to

SPEEDS::

Phone: 900 average but sometimes dropping back to 500 600 700

PS5: 600

PS4: 150-160

Laptop (ethernet): 100

We've had a huge credit with virgin media due to a failed install for a significant time (1 year plus). We've had this credit for a while but have finally moved and cancelled for a cheaper service. Our account was closed in June and confirmed we were owed x amount and a cheque would be sent in 45 days. It never arrived and since i have called 4/5 times in which i'm told "as it's a significant amount of money we need to get an extra approval, that will take 24 hours and your cheque will then be sent out and you will receive in 8-10 days". That date has come and gone 4 or 5 times. At this point i don't know what to do. I can raise a complaint with the ombudsman in 2 weeks (as it will then be 8 weeks since i formally raised a complaint with them). I'd rather not go down that route but i think it's my only option. Does anyone have any advice? Or had a similar experience?

Hello, I have an old telewest cable in a new property. I've already tried asking Virgin Media about this multiple times but their service teams are utterly useless.

There's currently no VM broadband or tv service to the property, but if I were to take VM tv (I don't plan on taking their broadband), would they still use the telewest line? Or would they use something modern/another way?

Basically wondering if I can remove/shorten the telewest cables as doing some renovations and the cables are causing some inconvenience due to their location and positioning. I'd remove them myself/ask a contractor to do it (am aware that VM won't actually remove them).

Thanks

Trying to get a better price and twice now the stupid chatbox thing vanished.

The first time after I asked could I have the £34.99 deal, OH NO can't have that as I am already a loyal customer of many years but new people can have it no problem.

They told me click on the upgrade package thing and all I got was an error message and chat vanishes.

I swear they do this on purpose so you give up.

They keep asking for letters from a memorable word that was probably used 8 years ago and I told them I am disabled and have cognitive memory problems.

WHyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy is it so hard to get anything done with them.

I'm struggling to get my 2nd hand Hub 4 router going. My hub 3 has constantly crap connection despite using a VM plug in booster unit. Tv streaming (located in the same room) often has connection issues as does my laptop, so I got a hub4 in the hope of better/stable connection.

I've plugged in the new router and its light turned green hinting a firmware update. 12 hours later is still green. Factory reset and it does the same thing. Logged into the router and ran a diagnostic, which said it could be broadband connection issues (it's not as im back on the hub 3 connected ok), or Gateway IPv4 address is not valid. Do I need to change some setting or have i bought a duff unit? Cheers

VM subscriber, twins watch sky sports on their laptops in their rooms. No issues for all the years they've been doing it.

Today they've gone to watch the NFL and noticed the sky sports player app isn't used anymore and instead it's played through the website.

And it's telling them that only one device is permitted to be logged in at a time. I'm hoping this is just a "glitch" but from what I can gather it's been a couple of days for other users too.

If this is how it's going to be then it sucks. Might have to sail the seas for future use!

Edit I've caved and ended up ordering a second box for one of the kids'bedrooms. At least this way, one can watch on a laptop and the other through the 2nd box

So had my renewal price through: 500mb BB (gig thru volt) mix it Tv some phone stuff that isn’t used.

Currently paying £45, renewal was £96

Used the chat agent to get this down to £56, still very gouging. So no thanks.

So here is the question…if I cancel I can run the gauntlet of getting the call to get a slightly better deal. Or if that fails I can cancel and get my partner to sign up and take one of the decent price deals, she uses O2 as well so we should still be able to get volt to up the speed.

Any issues with just doing this going forward? Swapping bill payers at every renewal, or is that a one shot thing?

Ta

I'm trying to order the WiFi pods but can't get the home scan feature to work on the connect app. It just keeps timing out and saying "oops something went wrong"

Is there any way of ordering them (I can get them for free so don't want to order 3rd part ones) without going through the connect app?

Thx

Hi all,

I signed up to Virgin Media August 2024 for £29.99 M350, I now pay £32.23. I think my contract ends on 17 December 2025. Should I reach out now on getting a new offer or an upgrade? as I can see Virgin offer more speed for £29.99. The speed I'm getting atm is enough, won't mind either getting a reduced price or upgrade.

I recently received an email telling me that my v6 software was out of date and I needed to update to 360.

When I watch programmes on the commercial channels I tend to let them start recording then half way in start watching the recording so I can skip the ads. I have heard that this is not possible in 360?

Can you record multiple channels whilst watching another?

What are the REAL pros and cons of 360, not the laundered version on the VM webpages?

Hello everyone please ignore my name I am in UK. I plan on buying the Gig1 plan as virgin website says it’s available at my house and I got a letter in the post but I have some doubt. When virgin put the boxes in last year there is not one on my exact street and I want to know will this mean I can’t get it

I’ve been with VM for at least a decade and have been negotiating the cost at each renewal. Usually I’ve had a reasonable deal, but this year I was annoyed at having to do this and asked for 1 gbps tor the same as I’m paying now for m250 — £29. That’s what new customers get so I thought if I’m going to commit to 24 months with price increases, I should get the same deal.

After a while they offered m350 for the same price or a £5 discount on the m250. Thinking that I might be able to get a better deal, and being annoyed with all of this, I told them to cancel my contract, which they did. Disconnection day is the 18th.

For those those who received offer calls: when did they call you? And when should I just surrender and ask for what they offered? (If it is still on offer) I should add that I have no other good options where I live, so can’t just move to a better company yet. Openreach is coming, but who knows when.

As the title says, been with this ISP for 18 months and now that I look at the renewal it's 24 months and price rises twice during that period. What's the point of committing to 24 months then?

Absolute and utter joke selling a service with lock in period and 2 price hikes baked in during the duration of the contract.

Surely if I'm locking 24 months as a customer that the price should also be locked. Is it that outrageous?

Sorry for the rant but we are just sheep at the mercy of these leeches. Can't wait for a fibre provider to start rolling out here...

edit: Putting this to bed, it was great to see I wasn't the only one. I'm cancelling everything with this company. Decided to go with onestream which a lot less speed but at much cheaper 12month contract which will have one price hike in April (not happy about that as I made clear but...no other options)...Openreach's website has my address as "We’ll be building in this area in the next year" so that sealed the deal for me. I'm not committing to 24months with virgin if there's a possibility there'll be FTTP coming my way at some point in that period. Apparently, I can also upgrade to a FTTP contract with onestream if the install during the 12 month period. Thanks for all the thoughts and opinions.