Virgin Media’s helpline goes ‘premium rate’

From 1 July 2007, Virgin Media’s broadband helpline will change from a local rate ‘0845’ number to an ‘09’ number costing at least 25p per minute plus a 10p connection charge.

Despite spending £25 million on a high-profile marketing campaign, Virgin Media hasn’t got off to a flying start. It is still suffering from its ongoing dispute with Sky and was recently overtaken by BT as the UK’s largest broadband provider.

Karen Darby, founder of SimplySwitch.com, the price comparison and switching service, comments: “When Virgin Media launched, it pledged to put customer service ‘at the heart of its business’. However, it recently unveiled plans to dramatically increase the cost of its broadband helpline. Virgin Media claims it is introducing the higher charges to dissuade people from clogging up the line with irrelevant queries. While the aim may be to make the service faster and more efficient, customers will balk at paying £2.60 for an essential 10 minute call.

“To give Virgin their credit, they will still provide a free phone number that tells customers of issues in their area that could be causing problems. Virgin also claims that its agents have the ability to refund the cost of the call if the customer’s modem is faulty, if an engineer needs to make a home visit or if the problem results from an unreported outage. Virgin will also call the customer back if the call lasts longer than 20 minutes. However, by this time, the call will have cost at least £5.10.

“Consumers looking for a new broadband service should take into account a variety of factors when making their decision. If a customer is likely to require hours upon hours of technical support, Virgin Media may not be the ideal provider for them. However, rather than basing their choice purely on price, people should also weigh up factors such as connection speed, contract length, exit penalties and download limits. We would always advise customers to examine all their options and select the service that best suits their needs. In many cases, bundle packages offer much better value than broadband-only packages, but only if the customer is genuinely interested in all of the services.”