Beware of railcards. The cost has recently gone up again and so has the minimum spend on London Midland to £13 for travel on Mon- Fri. A standard off peak ticket from Hemel to Euston is £10.70. The ticket office of course encourages you to use your expensive railcard so they can charge you £13.

Do you sense rip off?

Orange Home Phone/Broadband just went up in my case by 37%. I've switched suppliers and am paying the same as before.

Don't sign up for Virgin Media broadband. I have been with them for 2yrs. Since Jan this year they have increased my direct debit every month without warning - seem to have decided they have equal access to my bank accounts as me and no one should ask questions.

Their last increase for June was significant jump and their abruptly worded explanation I received was that they have increased bandwidth to 10Mb from 2Mb. I didn't ask for this: 2Mb was working just fine for us.

I have been monitoring the speed and at best download is 9576 Kbps and upload is amazing 464 Kbps! And, this is at off-peak, insociable hours!

Extremely arrogant in the way they deal with customer's queries.

Don't sign up for Virgin Media Broadband!!! Same problem as the others on here, they have without request upgraded all 2MB customers to 10MB and makeing customers foot the bill for this upgrade. 2MB was working fine and have noticed very little change with 10MB even though I never asked for it.

They think because your on direct debit and contract with them, they have a little clause that reads they can change customers charging fees e.g. (Price Hikes) as they see fit. I worte to head office and basically they said you will have to pay the rest of your contract off if you wish to leave. So I am stuck with paying more for a 10MB service I did not ask for or need!!!!! Even though most other providers give 10MB a lot cheaper then Virgin Media.

Just on another note, this Fiber Optic scam I like to call it, that VM play on to try to fool you into buying VM service is a such a big con. Reason, ask any Virgin Media customer like me, to check there broadband speed online and the technical ones will tell you how slow it is. Then call VM customer service, and excuse after excuse, e.g. times of day, how many people online, etc etc the list goes on forever. Unless most of the broadband meters are wrong, the VM service and fiber slowtic is a dame shame on them.

When my contract runs out I am switching back to copper!!!! HALF THE PRICE OF VIRGIN AND NO DIFFERENCE IN SPEEDS.

Where do I start?

TalkTalk or RAC?

I paid for 1 yr with RAC, being told they are out quickly in most cases (average, they said, was under 45 minutes). Sadly, I needed them 3 times this past year!
1) took over 1-1/2 hrs -- but the guy was nice and helpful, so that made up for it
2) took over 1-1/2 hrs -- guy was helpful, so I figured ok for that, too
3) over 3 hours, still not resolved! I gave them very clear details of the problem, as I know enough mechanical things (turned out I was right!) .. Still, I had to arrange the recovery, being towed, myself!
RAC's customer service answer when I called to complain? "Sorry." That was it. No refund, no compensation, not even a willingness to cut the renewal rate! Obviously, I left them at renewal! NOT A CHANCE I WOULD RECOMMEND THEM TO ANYONE!

Talk Talk was worse! I moved 100 yds away to a different flat in the same block. They told me I could keep my same number -- but they gave me a different one! They didn't tell me I would be without phone and Internet for 4 days, but I was! And worse?? They wanted to charge me 50% more for my broadband! Their claim? It's more difficult where I moved to!! What a load of rubbish! If anything, I am those 100 yards closer to the switching station!!!
I argued and called almost daily, for weeks, and finally their customer service said they'd waive the £70 cancellation fee and let me move on.
So, of COURSE, they sent me a bill for the £70 anyway! I have called them repeated times, each person saying they would fix it. HAH! Thank God I took names, dates and times when I called, as they sent it to a collection agency!
STILL NOT RESOLVED and it's NEARLY A YEAR!

DON'T GO TO TALK TALK (Carphone Warehouse) - their lure of cheaper rates is ripoff and they don't honour their own promises!

I totally agree with your comments about Virgin broadband, the same thing has happened to me they have put their prices up because they are supposedly increasing the speed from 2Mb to 10Mb and I have yet to get the speed increase. i also did not want a speed increase as the 2 Mb was perfectly ok for me. They just take more money by the direct debit and do not even tell you that they are taking more money. An arrogant useless company

We booked flights with Ryan air and once all the add ons were added on it would have been cheaper to go via a major airline.

Unfortunately I found out after I booked but will regret it forever because the flight was quite simply terrible!

ref talk talk, i have been with them for over 2yrs,i have found them to sort any problem out. like any company, they suffer from problems and staff not up to sorting you out.my recent problem was changing banks,they messed up and said they will take 2months together,so i thought my direct debits would be ok. alas no they cut me off for being one month behind,yet agreed to take both months together(i even had it in writing)seems the left hand does not know what the right is doing.so when i tried to make a call to my daughter,i got talk talk instead!
however they sorted it all in 24hours and compensated me over £60 !!! my suggestion to anyone is to tell them you are leaving and going to BT .they then transfer you to a department that wants to save losing customers,the guy did stop me leaving,by sorting and ,as i say giving me £60 compensation.
so you see they do try.i am still with them and have no plans to leave.

ref vista,i must say i have bought loads from them and never had problems,you could well have made errors when buying? they do have addresses in uk

CURRYS home delivery service, promises collection of scrap item when new item is delivered,! that is of course unless you live above ground floor level,then they will deliver the new item and take your payment (in my case £400) then they will refuse to take away the old item which is the same size as the new one just delivered. so you will have to pay for an alternative agency to collect and dispose of the scrap item.they say it is down to health and safety reasons. So why advertise this service?????

I have been with Talk Talk for two and half years now and I have never had any problems with them. In fact I have just went on to a new package where my calls are actually cheaper and it includes getting 0845 and 0870 numbers free.

Read the article on TimesOnline comparing Ryanair Easyjet and BA for flights to Malaga and, I think, Paris. Because of all Ryanair's extra charges, reduced weight allowances, exorbitant penalty charges and everything else, BA came out lower cost for a family of four with 20Kg each on both sample fares. Beware Ryanair. You pays yer money and yer get what you've paid for - nothing for nothing.