Customer Confusion Over Fate of Virgin Media’s Line Rental Saver

Some customers of UK cable broadband, TV and phone operator Virgin Media have been left confused and frustrated by support staff after they were given conflicting information about the fate of ‘Line Rental Saver’, which offers a discount in return for annually pre-paying your line rental charge.

In the past it was common practice for the largest ISPs to offer a discount in return for pre-paying line rental by a year in advance (aka – Line Rental Saver), although this started to change after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) began requiring providers to include the cost of phone line rental into their overall broadband package price (here).

Nevertheless some providers do still offer such discounts and until recently Virgin Media did too (i.e. £196 for 12 months’ line rental – an annual saving of £32 vs the standard monthly rental of £19). Unfortunately the cable operator has now quietly stopped offering LRS to new customers, although VM’s website does say that the discount is still “available to existing customers renewing an existing line rental saver plan” (here).

The problem is that many of those “existing customers” are struggling to get the service renewed. In some cases this occurs because the subscriber has allowed their old LRS plan to lapse and as a result they end up being treated like new customers and thus cannot order it (this happens a fair bit since VM has also stopped sending out LRS renewal reminder letters).

Meanwhile, in other cases, customers who are still within their existing LRS term are being told that they cannot renew. After a quick Google we found that a number of related threads about the issue exist on VM’s Community Forum, although this one covers it best. Some example gripes can be found below.

VM Subscriber JeanHShort said:

“I tried to pay my annual line rental and they told me there is no longer line rental. It has been moved into the package price so there is no longer any “line rental” to pay annually to save money. Call Centre misinformed or Virgin just trying to stop the use of LRS immediately?”

VM Subscriber clawuk134 said:

“I just called them and was advised there is no such thing. All LRS has been stopped since August. and they will not offer renew to existing customer on LRS.”

VM Subscriber DifferentLogin said:

“My LRS was due to expire on ********** 2018, I dialled 150 and got through to the same unhelpful foreign call centre where I was told that my LRS could not be renewed. I gave up after 50 minutes of unfruitful discussion.”

According to VM’s support agents: “There has been a change in policy” and this means that LRS “isn’t something we offer anymore I’m afraid“, although they did also confirm that if an existing customer does “renew it before it runs out then it will still be valid however once it’s removed, we’re not able to add it back.” Sadly this doesn’t explain why some existing LRS customers are also still struggling to get it renewed.

Luckily some of those that have succeeded were able to impart a little advice. Assuming your LRS plan is still active then the general advice seems to be to contact Virgin Media’s retentions department instead, which can be achieved by dialling 150 and selecting the option to leave Virgin Media permanently. Apparently they’re a bit more helpful than the normal front line staff. Somebody else also suggested the following process.

Tip to Renew Line Rental Saver on Virgin Media

To get to the LRS people when you call up (i.e. call 150 from a Virgin Phone Line or 0345 454 1111 from another phone) then you should choose the following:

* Initially choose Option 1 for “Broadband, TV and Phone”
* Then select Option 1 or 2 (depending if you’re calling from the phone that is on the account you want to talk about or another phone)
* Then Option 4 “Make changes to your account”
* Then Option 1 “Add a new service”
* Then Option 2 “Line Rental Saver”

Experiences do seem to vary but hopefully one of the above two methods will help you to fix the problem and avoid those “computer says no” types on VM’s front support desk. As usual we have asked Virgin Media to comment and will add their response if it arrives.