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

Tuesday, Oct 2nd, 2018 (12:47 pm) - Score 27,893

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.

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Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and .
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13 Responses
  1. Avatar photo M says:

    When renegotiating my contract a couple of months ago, I renewed my LRS at the same time with absolutely and literally zero issue at all. The money was taken out my account and my bills still reflect LRS as normal.

  2. Avatar photo Mark Sherriff says:

    I’ve been with virgin media well over 10 years ,when we moved house and was reconnected, i had cheach and chong stoned out of there trèe,they smashed threw the wall with a hammer and bolster to fit the cables..when I complained they sent an inspector out who put clear sylacone in the hole,,my services kept crashing ,slow internet ,t.v freezing …funny enough when the engineer came ,I knew him from school and he told me the set up was all wrong,I phoned virgin to discuss it ,only to be told I was wrong,lucky enough my friend corrected them ,still no joy…I forgot to mention the cables my misses tripped over with our new born son in her hand ,the cables made her trip at the back door..my final straw was when my t.v kept turning over,and internet kept crashing ,there was no way it was worth 120 per month,I phoned up n told them I wanted to cancell as the service wasn’t good enough,at no point was a disconnection charge discussed …a few weeks later I was told that I was told about a disconnection fee ,but not to worry I could pay it in instalments,,as far as I was concerned the disconnection was down to the lack of service..every time I rang up I was put abroad to a call centre and when discussed the issues I had the phone put down or had them divert me here there and everywhere….who breached the contract first me for cancelling for poor services or virgin for not providing a adequate service in the first place

    1. Avatar photo Brian Holloway says:

      I too have had problems with Virgin. I have been with them for 15+ years. I have had problems with the broad band crashing for a yr or more. The engineers have been around renewed the router connectors etc still have had a problem I was now told the problem was in the box in the street
      They said it would be fixed by an engineer.I would be informed when it was done. Never received the call and it was never done. Phone up again was told it would be done. Again it was never done.I rang up threatened to leave, told by an abusive manager there was a fee as I was in contract .So I stuck with the unrepaired problem.Still with internet crashing I decide after a further 9months I was going to start complaining as it was now affecting my tv reception . I now had a new young keen engineer. Explained the problems.He had the contets of the street box renewed. The problem were still present. Three further visits and a keen engineer found that the cable from the street box to inside my house was faulty and it needed to be replaced. So now waiting for hopefully the final repaire. Now Virgin have now new keen young engineers perhaps things may improve.It now needs the managers at the end of the phone to listen more and be more understanding to their customers

  3. Avatar photo Dominic Jones says:

    I find it surprising that VM can get away with charging ‘Line Rental’ when they own the entire network, surely that price should be covered under the contract instead of being another added ‘charge’
    After all its not like they are leasing the cables from Openreach to provide the service.

    1. Avatar photo Steve says:

      Last I was told (back in May/June this year), they don’t own their entire network. Much like their mobile services, where they operate as an MVNO, they use other carriers’ networks for some of their traffic.

      Just a guess, but I’d imagine any of their services which require phone lines does this, and their uncontended business fibre (MIA) definitely does.

    2. Avatar photo Dominic Jones says:

      I was under the impression that Line Rental is to cover the cost of other ISPs leasing the Copper Pair from Openreach, in the case of VM they do own the network between the Street and the Cab, anything back from that (backhaul etc) would be a VM Infrastructure cost and should be funded from their profit?

      Hence why some FTTP ISPs no longer charge line rental on their products as they own the infrastructure upto the POP, and everything behind that is already paid for via Infrastructure costs.

  4. Avatar photo T Westmorland says:

    Chap from NTL fitting our Broadband opened the doors of our electric cupboard and started to drill below the fuse box into the street BANG as he hit a cable. he rapped up his tools to leave saying he was sorry nothing he could do leaving us without power of fitting the broadband. i stopped him from leaving and told him he was going nowhere till its sorted NTL sent out an engineer who was fuming at the chap for being so stupid. VM took over and the cost has crept up the speed has improved but the reliability has fallen my internet drops out every day. rung them they say they can’t send an engineer out because of an intermittent fault in our area even though VM’s site says no issues. i wrote to them and i got a reply saying they tried to ring me but could not reach so they assume the matter resolved. which still drops out every day.

  5. Avatar photo Susan Jukes says:

    I have been a Virgin media customer for about 15 years and up till this year I can honestly say that I never had any problems. But lately the service is always going off and when you phone virgin you are told that a engineer is working on the problem and it should be back on later that day but it never is. I was without my phone, broadband and TV for two weeks and when I complained they told me I would get money back but I never did. It’s a waste of time phoning Virgin Media they just tell you what you want to hear

  6. Avatar photo joseph says:

    Funny how the apparent multiple people all have the same allergy to paragraphs and the Enter key.

  7. Avatar photo geoffrey dawson says:

    did what it said on the comments after being told i could not renew my line rental and no problem was able to renew.

  8. Avatar photo Brian says:

    Had the same issue, bill suddenly increased, line rental saver no longer available according to foreign customer centre. Rang again later in the day and was told that my agreement had expired. Nothing could be done.Asked,to talk to supervisor, was placed on hold and same operator returned. Suddenly it was apparent that my agreement still had three weeks to run, and I was able to proceed with a payment of £196 for the next year.
    At no time was Informed of the LRS expiry as in previous years, very underhand. Anyway, don’t take no for an answer and you may eventually succeed. I have had LRS for 5 years and have no problem with broadband at all, just have to keep arm twisting every time there is a price increase.

  9. Avatar photo Dave says:

    Still works if renewing before 12 month contract ends.
    Last option 2 “Line Rental Saver” does not exist, just got put through to operator who checked and took payment 🙂

  10. Avatar photo a udale says:

    The point is (1) why do you want a virgin phone line.
    (2) most mobile operators now let you tether or hotspot your phone with unlimited internet.

    My three gives me a speed of 96 at 5g.

    (3) most new tvs have built in freesat and free view and uview all free.

    (4) if you want sky tv buy a £20 a month sky tv package.

Comments are closed

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