Trust Nationwide

Advantages: Efficient, reliable and reasonable value
Disadvantages: No obvious problems

...expected: they should not be anything surprising. Nonetheless, there are sectors of the market where the risk is not just of poor returns but of actual losses. Over the long term one can perhaps ride these out, but it's vital to remember that the risks are such that one can lose money on equities. Now, there are two things that one can do to limit these risks and their consequences. The first is to adopt the principle that one should never invest more in these investments than one is prepared to lose. So, something which is far from guaranteed may default and pay out nothing or very little: if you don't put in money which you can't afford to lose, you won't be finanicially crippled, whatever happens. Second, however, you can diversify, and that is where unit trusts come in. Instead of risking your capital on a small selection of equities...

richardashdowne 03.04.2003 · Read review
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Review of Nationwide Unit Trust Managers

virgin media

Advantages: TV till you drop and good internet.
Disadvantages: Poor customer services, poor prices,

...Virgin have gone down in my expectations and i am currently thinking of leaving them. When i first joined virgin media it was called telewest, i signed up to a large tv package and the internet at a cost of 40 pounds per month. This worked fine untill virgin media took over, Although they did bring better and more chanels to the table the prices went up and the customer service went down. When virgin took over they rang me to say i would be better off if i got the whole package which included xl tv, 20gb broadband and a phone line with free weekend calls as it would take my bill down to 35 pound a month, i also pay for disney cinemagic aswell so it would basically be taking 5 pound off my bill which i thought was fair enough. Since then the bill has went up and up and up! I still have the same package to which i had 4 years...

vikkiz 19.10.2009 (20.10.2009) · Read review
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Review of Virgin Media

Virgin on the ridiculous!

Advantages: Nice wedding ceremonies
Disadvantages: Poor booking service, unreliable rep, poor quality accommodation

...We were going to America to get married. It should have been the holiday of a lifetime. It wasn't!!! For example, we ended up with fourteen amended invoices, no insurance (which we had paid for), incorrect accommodation and a week in one of Virgin's hotels where the ceiling fell into the bedroom. Let me explain? Like thousands of other people nowadays, we had decided that we wanted our wedding to be that little bit different so we chose to go to Florida in order that we could enjoy the hot, sunny climate and get some nice wedding photos on the beach. That was the idea in principle. In practice, it turned out to be a lot different and a big disappointment. We had always known that Virgin Holidays had a very good reputation and never really saw any bad reviews about the company. We therefore decided that we would spoil...

matthewsmum 07.11.2005 · Read review
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Virgin Media

Advantages: none
Disadvantages: Freezing tv channels, unhelpful staff

...Virgin Media took over Cable (not sure exactly when), They offer sevices such as Broadband, tv and the phone, their bills are on a monthly basis. The reason I chose Virgin I signed up with Virgin approximately 6 months ago, the reason I decided to sign up with them is because my family are all customers of Virgin and I thought it would be cheaper on the phone calls, also I prefer the monthly bills rather than quarterly bills like with BT. Arranging for installation I had a leaflet from Virgin with their phone number on, so I phoned them give all the details they needed and they give me an installation date which was approx a week later. While on the phone I arranged to pay by Direct debit. Day of installation I recieved a welcome letter stating the date and time of my installation, the following Monday was when I was to...

jenny967 08.01.2008 · Read review
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Review of Virgin Media

Virgin Experiences

Advantages: Some good on demand services.
Disadvantages: Poor TV picture on Samsung and LG sets. Broadband throttled.

...This is an outline of our experience with Virgin Media who took over our cable connection. Some aspects have been quite good but others far less appealing. A Sudden Unexpected Takeover ************************************* Having been one of the early adopters of Telewest's cable TV and 'phone service since the first cables were laid in Birmingham, I've found the service fairly reliable for over a decade. One day it became apparent that our provider had changed (without warning) to Virgin Media. The first thing I noticed was that the TV menus changed their format from the blue backgrounds of Telewest to the black ones favoured by Virgin. We had some glossy leaflets arrive which announced what was on offer though not it a way relevant to us. Our 'phone number didn't change and neither did our email address that contains the name...

FlameDruid 03.10.2007 · Read review
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Review of Virgin Media

Are you a train Virgin?

Advantages: fast, few delays
Disadvantages: occasional delays, cost if booked late

...It's coming up for the party season again so I have recently spent rather a lot of time making travel arrangements, one method of travel I seem to utilise rather alot these days comes in the shape of the West Coast Mainline, between Manchester/Stockport and London Euston, while in a previous life time I was very familiar with the Manchester/Edinburgh section of this same line, this route is operated by Virgin Trains and has been for several years. Thankfully these days the booking process is somewhat easier than it used to be, having to go in to the train station to book tickets I always found a somewhat draining experience as there was invariably a queue of people apparently wanting to purchase tickets for the next train due and only one counter open, now you can book online at one of several sites, my preference is virgins own, but...

scuba_angel 02.11.2009 · Read review
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Virgin Media - Getting better...

Advantages: Basic sky channels are back!, Some good VOD content, good unlimited internet packages
Disadvantages: VOD reliability not 100%, webmail reliability & mailbox size, customer service rather 'hit or miss'

...** Important News/Update (Edit) 16/11/08:- Ok so on Thursday the basic Sky channels finally returned to Virgin Media, at least for those of us who are on the higher TV packages (their included in the L and XL packages, which are the two most expensive packages, I believe), which was good news for me! now I can access Sky1, Sky2 and Sky3 (Sky3 is also available on Freeview), as well as Sky News and Sky Sports News and for people on the XL package, we also get Sky Arts and Sky Arts2 as well as Sky Real Lives, which is nice, so obviously im quite relieved and impressed with that. I've also been trawling through the VOD content recently, I now feel more tempted to watch cable alot more than I have done over the last year or so knowing i can catch Bones and 24 Redemption and I can catch Fringe, a new show showing on Sky1 and its being...

IzzyS 26.07.2007 (16.11.2008) · Read review
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Review of Virgin Media

Like a Virgin, better than Sky every timmeeee.

Advantages: Easy to use, cheaper than Sky in some ways, good Customer Service! On Demand service is excellent.
Disadvantages: Tied into a contract, not available everywhere yet, cannot buy individual channels like with Sky.

...Virgin Media About Virgin Media once formally known as NTL has been one of the most popular service providers for the last 5-8 years, getting more and more popular with their innovative way of getting your TV, Broadband and telephone to you. Instead of using cables, Virgin use fibre optic which is where the picture, internet and telephone are send down the small glass wires rather than down a metal cable. Think of those little lights you get, which look like hair sticking out of the top, and when you turn on the light, it is transported right to the tip of the ?hairs?, rather than coming out all over the place. This is how Virgin work, the images are transported directly to your TV via these little fibres. Virgin Media offer your whole package together without having to pay extra bills for line rental to BT...

stephbond89 14.11.2009 · Read review
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Review of Virgin Media

NEVER GIVE A VIRGIN AN EVEN BREAK

Advantages: Broadband better than any ADSL.
Disadvantages: Watch their prices, and don't ignore special offers just because you are already a customer

...I didn't so much opt for Virginmedia cable broadband; it was more like having someone approach you in the children's home and announcing "these are your new mummy and daddy" with no input from you. My original broadband supplier, Telewest joined forces with NTL a while back, and then with the addition of Virgin Mobile became Virginmedia. My current broadband-only package with VM is what they term the XL version, i.e. the fastest, and at 20 megabytes is just about the fastest you'll find. To be fair, when a cable company says you'll get 20 megabytes, there's none of this "up to" malarkey, since distance to the local exchange, always a contentious point with ADSL is limited to the length of cable from my house to the dark green cabinet on my street corner, thus everyone on cable broadband is only a couple of hundred metres from...

BNibbles 15.03.2008 (09.06.2008) · Read review
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Review of Virgin Media

I didn't think Trust would work either

Advantages: Stops all BO, long lasting, great value for money
Disadvantages: None, does exactly what it says.

...Trust will not, and is not designed to stop you sweating. I must make this clear from the start. This is a product designed to prevent body odour. And it is on this basis that I decided to try it. My usual deodorant, for reasons unknown, had begun to work a lot less effectively. I am not a smelly guy, but by the end of an 8 hour day in a stuffy office I was not at my freshest. By the time I went to the gym and worked out for an hour - with the increase in body temperature and sweat - I was conscious of not smelling so great. This needed fixing fast. My first reaction was to change my deodorant brand. I tried about 5 or 6 different deodorants to no avail - by the end of the day I had the same problem. Perhaps I had developed an immunity to regular deodorants? Who knows. A friend recommended a product called Trust. She told me that it...

tre101 12.06.2009 · Read review
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Review of Trust