Virgin dumping customers to Talk Talk

arclight

arclight

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Just received a letter from Virgin saying that all customers not on a cable service are to be transferred to Talk Talk by Spring 2015. What a pain. Need to get a new email address within a year, say Virgin.
TalkTalk does not appear to do a broadband only package and since I want my phone to remain with BT that makes things awkward.

Anyone else faced with this and opting not to use TalkTalk ?
 
TalkTalk do a full package including phone line and I have been with them for phone for years without problems and recently finished with Virgin Broadband go back to my existing TalkTalk Broadband, again without issues
 
When O2 sold their BB service to sky I had BB from O2 and phone from BT. I switched to talk talk for both and have not had any issues either.
 
I wouldn't touch talk talk with a barge pole they were the worst company I ever had the displeasure to deal with with a complete inability to set up a direct debit for our land line they cut us off every month for 6 months useless arses
 
MWHCVT said:
I wouldn't touch talk talk with a barge pole they were the worst company I ever had the displeasure to deal with with a complete inability to set up a direct debit for our land line they cut us off every month for 6 months useless arses
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It is always hard to tell what ISP's are like because they can be excellent in one part of the country and bloody awfull in others. TalkTalk users I have spoken to give them a thumbs down.
Openreach superfast fibre broadband is to be available in my area within 6 months. Quite fancy getting that, but Virgin are looking to dump their non cable customers by Springtime.
 
is this only non-cable customers?

My bill has going up £13 for basic TV 100mb BB & phone - too much I'm feeling
 
This will apply to me but no letter yet.
Quite pleased really as they keep edging prices up while claiming to give more (stuff you do not want like music downloads)
Will probably go to plusnet - much cheaper anyway.

I have had an ongoing battle with virgin over payment method the last year.
They continually pester to go onto Direct Debit and save £5 per month, so eventually I did.
Only then they said oh that discount doesn't apply to ADSL customers (they still keep telling me about it in every letter or email though)
They came out with the most astonishing spin that ADSL customers can't get £5 off because they are already getting a discount applied?!
Except we actually pay as much or more than cable but get pitiful speeds by comparison...

To make it worse the account details always show no payment required and even show part of the direct debit - but it doesn't seem to work - and every month they send a letter saying there is no valid payment so will be cut off if payment not received in so many days.
I then have to go online and make a payment by Credit Card manually every month.
Attempting to sort this out or even get them to understand what is wrong seems to be impossible.
I realised part way through the last marathon session that the person I was talking to did not understand that Direct Debit is not the same as a Debit Card.
Totally useless company nowadays, I expect (hope) they will be taken over or go bust sooner or later.
 
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arclight said:
Just received a letter from Virgin saying that all customers not on a cable service are to be transferred to Talk Talk by Spring 2015. What a pain. Need to get a new email address within a year, say Virgin.
TalkTalk does not appear to do a broadband only package and since I want my phone to remain with BT that makes things awkward.

Anyone else faced with this and opting not to use TalkTalk ?
Click to expand...

and that is exactly why I only ever use the ISP email for communicating with them.
I have a web based email account that I use for everything else so if I change ISPs
I don't lose it
 
MWHCVT said:
I wouldn't touch talk talk with a barge pole they were the worst company I ever had the displeasure to deal with with a complete inability to set up a direct debit for our land line they cut us off every month for 6 months useless arses
Click to expand...


Couldnt agree more, years ago i was with Tiscali, Talk Talk bought them out, couldnt log on couldnt do anything, rang them up only to be told id lost all my emails and if i wanted to recover them id have to use dial-up at a cost to me, dwitched pretty damn quickly, still get the sales people in town trying to hard sell Talk Talk, i just tell where to go
 
neil_g said:
Still 10 years :D
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True...the most beguiling thing for me is that when I first went onto broadband my download speed was 4.5mbs now I'm damn lucky if I get 2mbs
 
Must admit, I'm a relatively happy TalkTalk customer.
We dumped Sky about 6 months ago. My partner was paying a handsome randsom to Sky for TV/Broadbean/Telephone. She was very skeptical about dumping Sky, mainly because of the TV aspect. I bought a Roku to replace the Sky+ HD box and, to my surprise, she was singing the virtues of it to the relies over Christmas dinner.

Anyway, that's a bit o/t.

The transition to TalkTalk was unproblematic. And whilst our Broadbean speeds are not earth shattering, they've been fairly consistent. Even throughout the festive period. I've just reviewed my firewall logs (8 weeks worth) and with on average Tellyboxes streaming Netflix into two different rooms most evenings, we attain a rock solid 5 mb/s. I was also surprised that we seem to be downloading about 200GB a month.

My only gripe is that we can't have a static IP address.
 
arclight said:
Need to get a new email address within a year, say Virgin.
Click to expand...

On this bit... It is a lunacy to use ISP email as primary service and here is why. Get gmail / yahoo / hotmail / whatever.
 
neil_g said:
looks like cable internet users are unaffected. ASDL customers only.
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Yes - I suspect that they are basically trying to sell their ADSL customers off and perhaps TalkTalk are the highest bidder. I have spoken to some local TT users who are looking to dump them. I have heard enough to make me avoid TT.
Been with Virgin a long time starting back in dial up days and there have been very few connection problems (typically only occurring at 3 - 4 year intervals). I understand that they are dumping over 100,000 ADSL customers. Very shabby treatment.

I'll certainly be using Gmail for all my business email soon. I can make that change soon.
 
I have been with plusnet for just over 3 years & now we have fibre,excellent customer service.:):banana:
 
jockwav said:
I have been with plusnet for just over 3 years & now we have fibre,excellent customer service.:):banana:
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I have read good things about Plusnet. BT Openreach are commissioning superfast fibre optic in my area within 6 months. I don't know if other ISP's will have (or want) access to it. I suspect that I will migrate to BT or Plusnet.
 
arclight said:
Yes - I suspect that they are basically trying to sell their ADSL customers off and perhaps TalkTalk are the highest bidder. I have spoken to some local TT users who are looking to dump them. I have heard enough to make me avoid TT.
Been with Virgin a long time starting back in dial up days and there have been very few connection problems (typically only occurring at 3 - 4 year intervals). I understand that they are dumping over 100,000 ADSL customers. Very shabby treatment.

I'll certainly be using Gmail for all my business email soon. I can make that change soon.
Click to expand...
Why not just have your own domain name, cheap, easy, can move it anywhere....
 
I think you have to look at who really owns who BT owns Plusnet TalkTalk was Tiscali. In my area they were worse than bad and there customer service was dreadful, I started with one small company who got taken over and then taken over by Tiscalli which was were my problems started. Anyway switched to sky and been happy for many years now
 
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dejongj said:
Why not just have your own domain name, cheap, easy, can move it anywhere....
Click to expand...

Need to examine that. Completely unknown territory to me (y)
wave01 said:
I think you have to look at who really owns who BT owns Plusnet TalkTalk was Tiscali. In my area they were worse than bad and there customer service was dreadful, I started with one small company who got taken over and then taken over by Tiscalli which was were my problems started. Anyway switched to sky and been happy for many years now
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Just spoken to my neighbour who left Virgin 3 years ago for TalkTalk. He was getting 4.5 megs with Virgin and gets 9 megs with TalkTalk and excellent reliability. Got me head scratching now :thinking:
 
arclight said:
Just spoken to my neighbour who left Virgin 3 years ago for TalkTalk. He was getting 4.5 megs with Virgin and gets 9 megs with TalkTalk and excellent reliability. Got me head scratching now :thinking:
Click to expand...

Honestly I've been with them since they started, that was with two landlines and broadband running a business ... other than a few teething problems at the start it's been plain sailing. Eventually I went to Virgin for a further phone and cable broadband purely for the type of traffic I needed at the time but when I sold the business I went back to TT broadband and phone only and I've had no issues.
If you want 120MB then Virgin cable is the only way to go but for everyday use TT at next to nothing cost is brilliant in my view :)
 
gramps said:
Honestly I've been with them since they started, that was with two landlines and broadband running a business ... other than a few teething problems at the start it's been plain sailing. Eventually I went to Virgin for a further phone and cable broadband purely for the type of traffic I needed at the time but when I sold the business I went back to TT broadband and phone only and I've had no issues.
If you want 120MB then Virgin cable is the only way to go but for everyday use TT at next to nothing cost is brilliant in my view :)
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:agree: Apart from a couple of problems with help desk, TalKTalk have been pretty reliable for years now.
 
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Fraid my experience differs, while on holiday they gave my landline number to another customer, lost broadband and phone for 2 weeks, wife's university studies wrecked, teenager traumatised lol! Promised discount never happened, customer helpline helpless! Just signing up to plusnet, nothing could be worse than talk talk!
 
Talk Talk have been awful, at peak times we were getting round 0.3Mb on a rural exchange (we are 3 minutes walk from the exchange with a near perfect line). They sent out 5 BT engineers who all confirmed the line was working properly. The last engineer told us that Talk Talk takes bandwidth away from rural exchanges at peak times and feeds it to the bigger exchanges... they claim not to traffic shape however this is a form or bandwidth shaping (which they make no claims about).

We switched to BT 2 weeks ago, the line syncs at the same speed as Talk Talk (a fraction under 8Mb, max you can get in our area), however the throughput is a rock steady 7.5Mb / sec. It's exactly the same line and the same exchange.

Talk Talk ... avoid.
 
Mikesphotaes said:
:agree: Apart from a couple of problems with help desk, TalKTalk have been pretty reliable for years now.
Click to expand...

You'd be praying nothing wrong happens, like the phone cable to your house degrading and eventually snapping (shortly after you leave them in despair). :lol: I couldn't say much better words about virgin service and level of support. Both are about equal, so there is no change as far as I am concerned. Happily I don't deal with either any more.
 
4wd said:
This will apply to me but no letter yet.
Quite pleased really as they keep edging prices up while claiming to give more (stuff you do not want like music downloads)
Will probably go to plusnet - much cheaper anyway.

I have had an ongoing battle with virgin over payment method the last year.
They continually pester to go onto Direct Debit and save £5 per month, so eventually I did.
Only then they said oh that discount doesn't apply to ADSL customers (they still keep telling me about it in every letter or email though)
They came out with the most astonishing spin that ADSL customers can't get £5 off because they are already getting a discount applied?!
Except we actually pay as much or more than cable but get pitiful speeds by comparison...

To make it worse the account details always show no payment required and even show part of the direct debit - but it doesn't seem to work - and every month they send a letter saying there is no valid payment so will be cut off if payment not received in so many days.
I then have to go online and make a payment by Credit Card manually every month.
Attempting to sort this out or even get them to understand what is wrong seems to be impossible.
I realised part way through the last marathon session that the person I was talking to did not understand that Direct Debit is not the same as a Debit Card.
Totally useless company nowadays, I expect (hope) they will be taken over or go bust sooner or later.
Click to expand...

I got so fed up with Virgin years ago and with live TV in general that I dumped both.

Now I use a broadband dongle with 3M (speeds are low but I only use it for general surfing) and buy DVD films and Boxsets from Ebay or Amazon.

Get all the news I need from the online papers etc.

And it costs a lot less and I can watch what I want not the regurgitated crap on "live" TV.

And I save £145 a year in licence fees to start with.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!:D
.
 
One thing appears obvious. There is a great deal of inconsistency. ISP's that can be great in one part of the country can also be poor in other parts.
 
On ADSL they are all using the same BT line anyway, unless there's a problem with their supplied router or the line it shouldn't make much difference to speeds unless they are throttling the connection.
The way any problems are resolved is what is different between them.
 
daugirdas said:
You'd be praying nothing wrong happens, like the phone cable to your house degrading and eventually snapping (shortly after you leave them in despair). :LOL: I couldn't say much better words about virgin service and level of support. Both are about equal, so there is no change as far as I am concerned. Happily I don't deal with either any more.
Click to expand...

BT actually renewed the complete line from the telephone pole last year as part of their own maintenance plans (nowt to do with TalkTalk by the way).

The fibre box was put in a couple of years ago, about 50yards from my house.

So hardware-wise, not a lot to bother about.

I will probably change to fibre sometime this year for an initial £5 a month and already get half price subscription for a year by taking their free Youview box.

As I said, only their Indian helpdesk has given me any bother and even they managed to get BT to renew my master box and line last year too.
 
Has anyone worked out how this will proceed?
I see TalkTalk offer new customers a year unlimited pay and only line rental - about £17
If we get shunted to that package by virgin 'automatically' will we be inelligible,m - I suspect likely.
But if we moved now (or to plusnet or whatever instead) you'd get the discount obviously.

Still no communication from them about it here but there's an article on the Virgin site about how you will be seamlessly moved to Talktalk if you do nothing - takes some finding though - and no mention of above points!
 
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Must check with hubby - I think we are Virgin cable. I definitely would not want to be with Talk Talk ever again - even if it was free, in fact even if they paid me - still wouldn't be enough to cover the dismal download speed, regular complete loss of service, hours on hold trying to speak to someone, anyone about the lack of connection and the worst customer service I've ever experienced.

The best part of switching to BT was that they rang Talk Talk to cancel and I knew I'd never have to endure trying to contact them again!

Moved now as married so if hubby isn't on cable we'll be changing before Talk Talk gets involved in any way.
 
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