It sounds more like a helpful individual, rather than a company policy. Like all phone providers, Virgin Media make a lot of money out of non-geographical numbers.

Plus, if they were so keen to save customers' money, why do they operate an 0845 number themselves for customer services?

Still, they are slightly better than they used to be: at least they scrapped the 25p/min broadband technical support line.

As late as 7th October I was directed to call Virgin technical support at a cost of 60p per minute for help with what they tell me is "my" problem.  Unfortunately I have deleted the email or I would publish it here!
To make matters worse I consider the issue is theirs not mine. 

And calling Virgin customer service on an 0845 number on their "all inclusive" calls deal costs 7p per minute according to their own tariff document.  So if you want to complain about or query something you have to pay (they have successfully blocked any links to "normal" UK numbers - it's an unashamed money-cow there for the milking.

It really is time that all companies/individuals and government departments/devices(such as hospitals and doctors!) were required by law to provide a normal land line number in addition to the so called "local" rates.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Oct 24^th, 2008 at 1:47pm:


That's assuming they admit it was their fault. If the service just gets better magically the following day, there's no way to prove anything. I was never prepared to risk this. The broadband support number has been scrapped now, so that policy presumably no longer exists.

Do you know the lame excuse they gave me for the premium rate broadband support number? They claimed other ISPs had been phoning up with support questions! Obviously that must have been all the other ISPs that use Virgin's fibre-optic network and cable modems...

As for general PC support, it would be fair enough if you could draw an accurate line between what constitutes PC problems and broadband problems. I'm not convinced that's possible.

Fact is, I gave the premium rate broadband support as one of the many reasons when I cancelled their rubbish service. At the time, they gave me their excuses for it, but went on to scrap it later. So Virgin, it looks like I was right all along, not that you would ever admit it.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Oct 24^th, 2008 at 3:03pm:


I succeeded by switching to a company that offers a freephone support number, in addition to online support requests that are dealt with promptly! (It also happens to offer 6 times the speed for the same price, free use of a wireless router, and doesn't have the pitifully small usage limits that Virgin have on their "unlimited" broadband.) I haven't regretted it for one minute.

Virgin spent 20mins today trying to convince me that if I get all 3 (tv, bb and telephone) they would be cheaper.  They even went as far as lying and saying BT linerental is increasing and will be £14 in April.

Oh boy did they pick the wrong person to try and convince lol.  After I explained that their 3 deal bundle was just basic stuff like basic TV and line rental only.  When you factor in unlimited plan on linerental, a broadband speed that wouldnt be lower (even after their traffic management) than what I get now, it actually worked out more expensive.

Then Virgin disppeared for few minutes and came back with reductions/retention deals they could give me and even then were expensive.

I then asked what could they do if I toot TV and landline with them and kept broadband with current ISP (as they were cheaper by far) and this turned out to be about £3 cheaper with Virgin.

Then I said well BT do free caller display and include calls to 0845/0870 numbers for which he paused and said have you tried the site www.saynoto0870.com.  When questioned why they just dont drop the price of their 0845/0870 calls to a more reasonable price (I realise it's probably not possible for Virgin to include these calls without losing more revenue than BT would), he declined to comment.

The moral of this is despite VirginMedia being one of the most expensive providers of calls to 0845/0870 and have obviously had many people complain they just cant afford (I assume) to reduce the cost of these calls and therefore the majority of their customers probably get told to see this site when they complain about 0845/0870 but still refuse to reduce these costs for those that havent complained and just "pay the bill" regardless upon arrival.  These people probably dont even know just how much it costs to these numbers from VirginMedia.

I bet you even OfcoN use this site to avoid these stealth premium rate calls but yet dont want to do anything about them!

jrawle wrote on Feb 9^th, 2009 at 9:23pm:
Dont forget the fact that they managed to block incoming calls to a geographical for c/s that was in the database for ages beforehand.  This was done, I believe, with the pure intent on forcing those using a geographical to ring them on their 0845.  I suspect VM prob make money from incoming calls to their 0845 as they are a OCP that provide NGNs hence why it was in their interest to block access to the geographical.

The average normal staff probably know how expensive VM are and prob use this site.  It's those higher up the chain that make decisions like how much VM charge for their services that are out of touch!