Virgin Media Really Sucks
Above you can see the promise made by Virgin Media on their website. Below you can read about my experience and how it differs from the above. I know Virgin Media is new, and I know it’s bound to have teething problems. But there’s only so far that excuse can stretch…
One of the things I really didn’t want to do with this blog was turn it into my own personal soap box for airing vendettas about bad experiences. But I’m going to have to make an exception this time.
However, I am going to keep my bitching ‘off the front page’. If you want to read more about why Virgin Media have really shot themselves in the foot with claims regarding any level of customer service you’ll have to click to read more…
After last week’s bad experience I still went through and got Virgin Media set up on Saturday. The two guys that came round and fitted it were great. Helpful, knowledgeable, polite, etc.
They left. The TV worked. The phone worked. But I needed to set up broadband myself. Which is fine. I’ve done that kind of thing a few times before. Or so I thought…
Logged on to the registration page, it asked for a serial number. I don’t have a serial number…
Call number 1 to support. Outsourced call centre. Lots of waiting. After 10 minutes: “Sorry sir, you’ll have to call back on Monday, I can’t get you a number”. At this point I’m a bit cross.
Monday afternoon: call number 2 to support. Outsourced call centre. Lots of waiting. “I can’t help you with that. I’ll put you through to customer support”. Line goes dead. So I have to call back.
Call number 3 to support. Same number as before. Outsourced call centre. Lots of waiting. This person can apparently sort me out with a number. Seems a bit odd that her colleague couldn’t, oh well…
After 2 minutes: “Sorry sir can you call back in 2 hours that machine isn’t working”. So I ask “are you sure it’ll be working in 2 hours? And are you sure you can sort out a number, two of your colleagues haven’t been able to”. She says: “Oh yes sir, just call back in 2 hours”.
Not believing this story for a second, I suspiciously try another number (call number 4). This time I get through to a UK call centre. It’s a bit quicker and the conversation (and telephone line) are a bit clearer. I quite like the chirpy Scottish chap, he’s almost polite. He tells me to stay on the line, I’m being transferred through to Sales, who can sort me out with my numbers. Or rather I’m dumped at the back of a massive huge long queue in order that one day I might be able to tell my story again to some other gimp in sales. So I spend 15 minutes in the queue. At this point the hold music merely offends me.
It’s at this point when I wonder if they really do ever record calls for training purposes. And even if they do they’d never manage to join up all of my bloody calls into one long documentary of grief. So I start to wonder about using Skype to make all of my customer service calls, and recording them for myself. So I can share my shitty experiences with the world in full 20-minutes-of-banal-ear-fucking-melodo-loop-glory. (Thinking about this helps to pass the time).
Person 5 (not strictly a separate call, but I’ve given them a new number because they’re a new person). Again a UK call centre. Turns out I’ve been put through to the wrong department. Apparently I need the home movers centre. Of course. Obviously really. Being slightly skeptical about this, and starting to feel like I’m being given the runaround, I query this call of action. But I’m assured that these are definitely the people who can deal with my call. Oddly I find myself at the back of another queue. At this point the hold music (or rather 15 second loop of happy jolly evil evil as it should be more accurately described) is starting to affect me.
After 10 minutes in the queue I reach person number 6 - guess what! It’s the wrong person! She’s in the disconnections centre! I’m tempted to say “yes I’ve come through to the exactly the right place, I’d like to be disconnected please, right now. No, don’t ask me any more questions. I told you, shut it. Just do it. Disconnect me now!”, but the other half of me is thinking “I’ve come too far, I’ve got to be nearing the end of my quest, the land of broadband and all it’s milky honeylike goodness awaits”. Anyway she says she’s very sorry. But then she goes and sticks me in another queue, just like all the others.
I hadn’t noticed the words in the hold music up until this point. I can’t quite make out what they’re saying, but its stuff about burning, pulling hair, killing, drilling teeth, that kind of thing. Quite an odd choice of lyrics given the cheery nature of the melody…
Finally I get through to someone who can help. I shall call her person 7.
Hooray!
But i have to register all over again. And set up a direct debit to pay for broadband separately. This sounds really really odd, as I’ve got a ‘3 for £30 package’, why on earth would broadband be paid for separately? Oh it’s to do with systems I’m told. I’m an understanding kind of guy, and you know what, sorting out tricky stuff like that definitely should absolutely take second place to Richard’s party with his celeb friends in the box in Covent Garden. And you know what, when I see Uma on the telly, I sort of forget the fact that Virgin Media just doesn’t work as an integrated offering. Her calming reassuring banter make me believe that it does.
So for my 3 for £30 deal I’m now agreeing to pay £20 for TV and phone and £10 for broadband. Both payments made to Virgin Media. Both from my same bank account. But they’re 2 separate direct debits. Now that’s what I call triple play integration! I can only imagine what would happen if I’d added mobile in there too 
But hey, it is strictly 3 for 30, so I can’t really complain can I.
Almost there, but she says she’s going to have to put me back on hold. By now I’d rather be locked in a cell with water dripping onto my forehead. MAKE THE MUSIC STOP! I’LL TELL YOU EVERYTHING. MY PARENTS ARE BOTH COMMUNISTS. WE’VE BEEN PLOTTING TO BLOW UP EVERYTHING. JUST MAKE IT STOP. PLEASE.
It stops. She’s back.
But guess what. It’s not over! She’s having a few problems with her system. But at least I don’t have to call her back in 2 hours, this time she’s going to call me in 30 minutes (or so), with the information I need. As you can imagine I was pretty excited by the thought! All I have to do is sit back and wait. All my problems will be solved.
Anyway 2 hours later and no call back. Fearing that everyone is about to go home for the day. I decided that maybe I should call Virgin Media back. The only thing stopping me was the twitch behind my left eyeball. A deep twitch deep in the tissue. Something connected to what I was about to do. A Pavlovian response to the thought of more hold music I guess. I dial 150. The cocky Lisa I’Anson soundalike bitch is chirping in my ear, for the whateverth time today. I want to kill her. But I know if I do I’ll never get to broadband nirvana.
Just 12 minutes on hold this time (made bearable by reciting the 27 times table aloud to drown out the bastard hold music) and I get through to someone. I shall call him number 8. I asked if I could please have my serial number and PIN. The guy on the phone gave them to me!!! I was a nanosecond away from urinating freely in my underpants, thankfullly I managed to clench before the excitement overwhelmed me.
I checked with him that these 2 precious numbers were all I could possibly need to register my account. Absolutely he assured me. Twice. For a brief moment I understood. I understood what it feels like to love another man. I didn’t tell him. I just felt it in my heart.
At this point I could practically smell broadband goodness squirting into my house.
Like a junkie with a freshly scored bag of brown rushing to his dirty bloody crusty spoon, I ran with my numbers to my lonely, sad, disconnected laptop. Bingo! The 8 digit number the guy gave me didn’t correspond with the 11 digit number I was asked for. At that point I swore. Just a little. Quietly and serenely to myself.
So back to the phone. This time singing heavy metal tracks backwards to drown out the noise (well I only know a bit of one, the start of Iron Man by Black Sabbath), so I looped it in reverse in my brain. It worked. But killing was still quite high on my agenda.
8 minutes later I get through to a very nice, but by her own admission quite junior, young lady. She’s lady number 9.
When I explained what’s been going on she brought up my details. After a short conversation, of which my favourite extract is “That’s a terrible problem that’ (which showed to me a great deal of empathy, which I liked) she tells me that my account is showing as ‘pending’ which means that someone needs to ‘close off’ my account before my serial and PIN numbers get generated. And the team that can do that have gone home.
I didn’t swear. I didn’t cry. I just felt a bit. Well. Disappointed.
I knew it wasn’t Paula’s fault, she was only obeying orders. It was the system that had driven her, and all the others, to this. But where does it end? Where does it stop? Who is just obeying orders? And who is really to blame? I start fantasising about the tribunal. Me vs the ginger-bearded Hitler. Unless he’d been smart and taken the cowards’ way out, blown up in his glass bunker in Covent Garden.
But then, back in the real world, she tells me that she’s personally going to sort this out for me. Of her own volition she gives me her name, and her team leader’s name, and promises to call me tomorrow morning. The only moment of good customer service I’ve had on the phone throughout the whole damned thing. And for a moment I realised that not everyone who works for Virgin Media is the a genocidal spawn of Satan. Most, but not all.
So here I am, still on borrowed broadband. Waiting until tomorrow. A new day. A new chapter.
—–
Apologies for the length and self-indulgence of this. I couldn’t really concentrate on doing anything else whilst I was on hold. So I spent the time writing up my thoughts and experiences. As you can see, the hold loop did perhaps drive me to a state of minor distraction.
But there’s a serious point here. A converged offering like Virgin Media shouldn’t be going out there and making all these overblown claims when its systems aren’t in the slightest bit converged. And what adds insult to injury is all the bollocks they’re putting out all over the place about customer service. This really is the worst phone customer service I’ve ever experienced in my life. No question.
I’d love it to be much better. I liked the way that Virgin do things, and I had really high hopes for this. Fingers crossed it really is just teething troubles, but at 9 different people, almost 3 hours on hold and 5 or 6 totally different and incongruous explanations I’m not really feeling it. As I said before: I’m a little disappointed. And it’s not over yet…
technorati tags:virgin, media, virginmedia, customer, service
comments
98 Responses to “Virgin Media Really Sucks”
Don’t get me started. You’ve probably heard this already, but if you haven’t…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp0HyxQv97Q
I can’t say I am terribly surprised if you are looking to change I can recommend http://f2s.net
I’m sure once it’s set up it’ll work just fine (fingers crossed) being as it’s based on the old Telewest / NTL system, which I’ve used for a few years with absolutely no problems at all…
Oh dear, that’s not pretty.
Personally I’d rather deal with a range of companies who know, and do, their narrowly defined jobs well rather than an aggregator. Overall I reckon it’s less hassle because when things go wrong you’re more likely to have your complaint dealt with by an expert.
I get my broadband through a UK specialist called Zen. In the 4 years I’ve had it there’s been one problem. I waited on hold for 2 minutes, got put through to a support rep who ran a line test their and then, took me through a whole sequence of sensible diagnostics and concluded the physical hardware in the telephone exchange was broken. Which it was. BT came out and fixed it, and I was up and running again. All sorted in one 15 minute call.
He knew his job really well & he wasn’t running through a script like some kind of meat-puppet. The quality of the experience meant I’m going to stick with them despite the fact they are by no means the cheapest supplier out there.
In the case I think you do get what you pay for.
I used to use Zen. Once I had a problem. The man said he’d call me back at 9am. He called back at 9am, on the dot, not one minute past, at 9am. He also helped me set up my router. A router that Zen don’t even officially support. I liked Zen. They were great.
But it’s the hassle of having to have a BT line installed that I resent paying for. But not as much as I resent Virgin Media and their overpromising of ‘amazing customer service’…
Hello Ian
just been reading your blog about your recent very poor experience at the hands of our call centres.
I’m very concerned, please can I give you some direct assistance?
I’m the complaint reduction manager at Virgin media and can fix this problem for you.
Please call me on 0161 *** *** [Iain: I thought I should edit that bit out], its my direct line. I’m here between 9 and 6 daily
I hope you will call
Best Regards
Richard
Hi Iain,
Sorry to hear that you’ve not had a good experience.
I’ve asked one of the customer care team to get in touch to see if they can help resolve the problems you’ve had - hopefully you have received this e-mail.
If you get any further problems feel free to drop me an e-mail (address included in this comment submission) and I’ll see if I can help.
Once again, apologies for the problems you’ve had.
Regards,
Alex Brown
Senior Product Manager
Product Management, Virgin Media
Oooh. Look at that, customer service have hunted down your issue and come to the rescue? Have they solved it for you? Or are they solving the entire problem?
I saw a worrying ad on Sky One last night that seemed to infer that Virgin are going to scrap the Sky elements of the basic package. If that’s the case, I see no other recourse than to rip the cable out of the wall and just get Freeview.
My IP is a pleasant little cottage industry lot called MacAce. I’m convinced there are just two of them working out of their nan’s back room in Cornwall. It may cost me the same as your triple play deal, but I get to speak to the nice chaps direct. And instantly. That is IF I have a problem. And I haven’t yet.
Interesting and impressive to see that Virgin have posted here. That’s a good sign, no?
Have to say, great that it’s all been sorted, but I don’t know what you thought you were doing signing up for Virgin. Maybe the package looked best on paper, but … Virgin? Virgin? No way. Perhaps you don’t have the same “everything that cheap, crap brand touches transforms swiftly into cheap, plasticky crap” feeling that I have. Perhaps I’m just cynical? Nah, that can’t be it.
Oh god, I totally sympathise. I had a similar customer service failure with my mobile.
I think it’s good to blog about it this and not that self indulgent - that’s one of the powerful things about all this after all (and it was an entertaining read). Previously this sort of stuff would have remained in your personal experience (and some friends in the pub). Now it’s out there in the world a even Virgin reps have read it and tried to do something. Plus points for them for actually scouring blogs for these experiences - at least they get that this is a good avenue to salvage their brand help their customers.
[…] then my colleague Glyn sent me a link to Iain’s blog. Iain is also an existing customer of Virgin Media, and he attempted to stay an existing customer […]
Today I discovered that none of my compters are covered by PC Guard any more because I have exceeded the number of licensed installs (three).
When it was Blueyonder there was no problem. If its free then what do they gain by stopping it… without warning? My kids had homework to do and I wouldn’t let them on their old refurbished P3 compaqs until this was resolved.
…allow unprotected internet access to minors? you may as well drink a bucket of Hepatitis infected blood.
Blueyonder.. I mean Virgin Media got a stiff email threatening to leave.
Try and get on to the self help pages now…. I dare you! If you like a long boring wait and a lot of “the connection has timed out” messages then you’ll love it.
Bring back Blueyonder. It was excellent and you could always get onto the website.
I wonder if Mr branson knows how appauling virgin media and the call centres are!!!!
i have experienced all the same problems from call centre staff . long waits shallow promises, return calls pc guard not being able to be accessed because i have not used my account in the past thirty days??? again used it 5 mins eairlier and having children using the net with no support.
Pune(india) call centre say good morning at 8pm here lol. i was threatened to be sued by a member of staff if i went to OFCOM watch dog .
Mr bransons company is supposed to be the leaders in the communication industry but in reality cant communicate with their so called valued consumers they cant communicate with their own departments.
virgin media just look what happend to itv digital. 13 replys to this guys problems = 1 member of staff could be made redundent as a result of 13 customers walking from VMedia with the valued cash that pays the wages.
hello, and i agree with the comments! also, my friend had blueyonder - no problems, he said it was PERFECT! - but now it’s vigin, oh no! He says it crawls, worse than dial-up, and he tried to contact virgin media, well uess what? yep, same problem. On hold for 20 mins, to find someone on the other end say “oh, we are sorry for any inconvenience, but it seems that you are having problems with your cable connection”, well yeah, likely lol! hes had blueyonder for 3 YEARS and he has cable tv (no problems), so why on earth would it be his cable line? tossers…
hi,well ian im sure your problem is just another trivial one for VIRGIN ,
i signed up with NTL/VIRGIN when out shopping one day,was mithered the living daylite out of me, so i thought well why not,RAJ promised me the world….same broardband speed,and free calls 24/7 as bt,plus this all new tv system,
so having asked what i payed with bt he matched it but with the tv large pack as well,
what a bargin i thought…all for just £38.99
so in goes the order….no mention of a £25.00 conection fee…but never mind its a bargin..even better when he tells me i will get £50 for each person i recormend.
so i tell my mate jo….great she signs up too same package,
my big day comes…great,all singing all dancing!
jo’s day comes ,hmmmm raj forget to tell her she carnt get digital…or broardband,so i dont get my £50 and shes pissed off!
anyway i was so impressed i rang to upgrade to the XL tv package…i ask how much will it be?
well your curently paying £41.50 for your tv and phone oh and £18.00 for internet…something really didnt add up there…i signed a 12 mth contract for £38.99 so whats going on i ask????/
well it took 4 ppl in a call center and finally 1 person who was fantastic in another to try to make sense of it all.i was on the phone for 51 mins,
i was asked to send a copy of my aggrement to them,which i did next day,only to be told today now my payments are £44.00 i really aint a clue what the guy on the phone today was chatting about,he said that virgin dont have sales ppl in shopping centers so what was he????and that all i could speak to was the canncelation team…due they want rid of customers?? or just the ones who decide to speak up?
im still waiting for an answer on the questions i asked and also a call back from a supervisor,sorry to have a rant but customer care???? dosnt don ot for me sorry!
Call centre staff take note upset customers mean job centres
iteresting read this, i am now an old telewest customer, have a 3 deal package for £46 a month. Have paid for 2 years. all i have had from virgin media is a letter saying my dd name will change to virgin media on my bank statement, and then some naff leaflet about the virgin channel? (which i think looks like a pile of shite)
Now is that all we get as loyal customers? no new deal? no expanation? anything?
i see the adverts evreywhere and i dont get it? what exactly are they trying to sell thats different to telewest? why are they advertising 3 for £30 when they quiet clearly are not? surely trading standards should be involved in all of this especially now they have lost sky.
i am a very very unhappy telewest rebranded as virgin media customer.
I WISH ID NEVER HEARD OF THIS FU@@ING COMPANY. Supposed to get my Virgin broadband activated on 13th Feb and still without internet at home. Gave Virg my MAC code, they said thank you and sent me a modem, activation date email, and welcome pack. 13th came and went, as did my Tiscali connection but no Virgin activation. Phoned dopey customer service person (number 1 out of 50 probably) the next day who said i never gave them a MAC code and had no details of my broadband order. Said why did you send me a modem, and activation date then? Why is my Tiscali not working? She tells me there must be fault with my computer / BT line. Go on like this for ages, I put down the phone and think of Kafka. Now i have discovered that they have put a marker on my telephone line even though my account is allegedly non-existent so I cant even go back to Tiscali or anyone else for that matter. Virgin deny having the marker on the line, BT Wholesale say they have. Must have spent about £50 quid on phone calls to their stupid 25p/min help line. Now Virgin admit having a marker on the line, but they cant give me a MAC code because my account was never ‘active’. I say who’s fault was that…grrrrrrrrrr Now i have to wait 18 days or something before my account is “properly cancelled” again before they will free up my phone line. I dont think that ever in my life have i met such a bunch of inept people or have had so much grief. NTL were bad, way, way bad…. but nothing like this.
Well look at you getting messages from Virgin customer ’service’ people, themselves. I have recently, like many VM customers, I’m sure, had reason to contact the customer ‘relations’ dept. They must all be busy scouring the internet for disgruntled customers because they are almost impossible to get hold of on the phone. A half hour wait is nothing then you get through to some who cares not a toss about you and says thing like ‘…well you could go to Sky, whatever.’ I am very disappointed in Virgin’s recent behaviour. We all know murdoch is one of Satan’s own but Branson is turning out to be not much better. What I don’t get is they keep banging on about how their customers are on their side but when you look about the web, find blogs like this, talk to real people etc there is very little support for them, the only ones who do seem to are anti-murdoch rather than pro-virgin.
Ah well, hope it all comes right for you in the end, sorry to rant, but I am a bit fed up.
Ive come to the conclusion that I really am that person who is impressed by all the advertising hype. Having experience NTL before and move away from them rather swiftly why on earth did I not take notice of that voice in my head. DONT DO IT!!!! We changed to Virgin media three days ago. Having had broadband previously supplied by NTL and SKY tv and bt phone. Was offered the VIP package and was actually going to make a considerable saving on monthly costs. The TV picture is a pile of crap, I only have one phone working in the house and it should be four. I have tried and tried and tried to get through today and finally decided that was it - I would arrange to disconnect to be told that I had to give 30 days notice. This VIP package doesnt include free call divert which is essential for my husbands business. I was holding so long the battery went on my cordless. The guy swiftly agreed to ring back. Well the phone rang and then went dead and Im damned if Im going to sit in another hour long queue. The only saving grace is the broadband is considerably faster and Im actually quite happy with that. You just cant get through. One of the call centre (india) asgreed to send out an engineer on which would be at MY COST!!! Ah get real. Now Im looking for a quick fired way to get through to Branson. I always believed in the Virgin brand but this experience has just completely put me off the lot. Never again and if anyone is thinking of changing DONT DO IT. It will probably take me weeks to get back to BT and SKY.
VIRGIN MEDIA WHAT A JOKE
I gave 30 days notice to cancel as stated in thier terms & conditions and was told my services would end 02/04/07. They turned my tv services off straight away. I phoned and was told it had been put back on just reboot the box and it would be right. I did and nothing, so back on the phone i went only to be told that nothing could be done untill monday because the department closed at 5. (this was 5.10). so monday morning came i went on the phone again and was then told that they would send an email to the department and it could take upto 48 hrs to be resumed. It is now 5.30 tuesday and still no tv. I will be back on the phone again in the morning and they can turn the lot off and my direct debit will be cancelled no way are they going to have another penny from me.
Virgin Media are rubbish and way behind. I’ve been with HomeChoice for 2 years and with the annoying exception of needing to turn the box on and off once per week (don’t ask) I’ve been pretty happy with their service. Now that Tiscali has bought them I hope there’ll be no loss of service quality but we shall wait and see. Also Tiscali are coming out with a PVR in July while Virgin won’t get around to that ’til end of the year… maybe. I love Branson but he should stick with flying planes.
I wrote this very lovely and patiently worded email to Virgin’s complaints dept.
If anyone has the email address of someone that would actually be able to help me and rectify the situation then I would be very grateful.
Good blog by the way, funny yet informative about your experiences, also very good to see that the Virgin customer services people have made a point of getting in touch with you
To Whom it may concern,
Recently we decided to upgrade our cable package to include Broadband.
When we phoned up to do this the gentleman on the end of the line gave us a very reasonable quote for cable and broadband costing a total of £32 per month (£10 more than our monthly bill at the time). The man then went on to tell us that if we opted to have a land telephone line put in too then that would reduce the monthly bill to £30 a month! Now as good as this sounded we decided that the best course of action would be to stick to what we wanted - just the broadband and cable. (I won’t bore you with details but the reason for this is there are 4 of us sharing a house and it would be a nightmare sorting out yet another bill between us).
So we told the very helpful customer service/ sales person “thank you very much, but we’d just like the £32 a month option as we only want broadband wireless - we’ve already brought the router thanks”. We asked over and over again if there were any other costs or extras; “Are you sure that this is all it is going to cost? What about downloads and stuff - won’t it be extra?”. “No, that’s all it will cost” we were told.
So happily we agreed to the new 12 month contract at £32 a month for cable and broadband wireless.
The nice man came and installed our new boadband box and hey presto we were up and running.
We didn’t even complain when you guys changed over and our cable and wireless went off on a few different occasions for several hours each time (after all we thought the change was for the best).
Anyway, our first bill arrives after having the wireless broadband installed and low and behold it’s huge!!!! Not the £32 that we had been told to expect but £44.50.
So we phoned up the customer help people and were told that this was what we had agreed to. I can safely say it wasn’t.
Now as nice as the customer service people are they weren’t particularly helpful. They told us that yes this was an old deal and we couldn’t have been sold this. But if you listen back to the recording of us speaking on the phone and agreeing to this contract you will hear your sales person state clearly on more than one occasion that it would be a standard £32 a month for the duration of the 12 month contract.
We would very much like this matter to be resolved as soon as possible.
All that we ask is that the agreed contract of £32 a month be reinstated and the difference in money returned, or failing that, that the whole contract be cancelled.
We’re not particularly happy that we have lost some channels and now have found out that we have been completely mis-sold a new contract.
Please can you look into this for us and come back with some helpful and viable solution?
Many thanks!
I transferred my TV services over to cable in November of last year. Since then they have got my bill wrong every single month, wasting my time having to call to get it corrected. Every time I am told not to worry. it’ll be fixed this time. Needless to say, it never is, and no one seemed particularly bothered about solving it.
I finally reached my breaking point yesterday and cancelled completely. My services finish in 30 days and after this terrible experience I will never be going back. Morally I am with VirginMedia and back them completely in the recent dispute with Sky. But i’m going back to Sky, I don’t want to give my money to Murdoch (that’s why I left them for cable originally) but VirginMedia have forced me over to him due to their appalling customer service. Even now I am hoping I am contacted with a solution, but I don’t expect it and am resigned to going back to Sky.
I transferred my TV services over to cable in November of last year. Since then they have got my bill wrong every single month, wasting my time having to call to get it corrected. Every time I am told not to worry. it’ll be fixed this time. Needless to say, it never is, and no one seemed particularly bothered about solving it.
I finally reached my breaking point yesterday and cancelled completely. My services finish in 30 days and after this experience I will never be going back. VirginMedia have forced me over to Sky due to their appalling customer service. Even now I am hoping I am contacted with a solution, but I don’t expect it.
i thin i can speak for many customers of “Virgin Median” = a pile of shit that all we watched in our house was sky one and and other sky programs now the first thing i realised was that they are breaking there contract in not providing us with the chanels we are paying for. they have unritfully taken away 6 chanels and should b sued by evey customer this has caused a massive up roar in my family as we “were” all ntl customers and the first thing we all did was change staright to sky which we found out that the pakage we had was actually cheaper than ntl and it was sky plus what we had installed all i can say is sky 1 virin media 0
Virgin Media stole 250 quid out of my bank account without telling me, when I tried to change ‘bundle’. Their fault, they admitted. Can I get it back - can I hell. Was told ‘chances are, you might get it back next week’. Wish I could run my company on empty promises!
I’ve tried to transfer may broadband to Virgin from Tiscali, due to Tiscali’s poor customer services regarding over charging me after I downgraded my service. This was never repayed.
Anyway within minutes of ordering Adsl with Virgin I get a email & a text on my phone assuring me it would be done within 5-7 days & I would lose my Adsl connection for 1/2 hr. 8 days later & 2 days without internet I tried to contact them.
After many phones calls to Virgins Customer Service where I went through auto-menus only to be cut off & numerous emails all of which were ignored. I decided to ring their order line & order it again.
They took interest & did lots of checks until I finally stopped the women in her tracks telling her I actually already ordered it & after 8 days still not internet.
To cut a long story short they blamed BT.
So I contacted BT who rang me back saying I need to get my ISP to contact BT Wholesale….who don’t deal with the public.
So Here I am waiting for xmas!!!!!!!
BRANSON…YOU GOT THIS TOTALLY WRONG!!!
Custmer service is Hopeless!!!!!!!
i got virginmedia broadband it is absoultly rubbish all the adverts say there brilliant but they aint i cant even play a game on the internet for 15 minutes without lagging usually well 99% of the time i cant even connect to the internet and its takes 15 minutes for a site to load or my homepage so you know if they dont fix the damn problem there loose, and loose loads of profits and hopefully sky will win cause sky is a 100x better
yours sincerley Angry broadband user
Thanks to all the above people who have told their stories - I now feel much better, knowing that i am not the only one to have such bad experiences with the VM call center - also your sense of humour has made me laugh and has brightened my day.
I must add, that when it was NTL i was treated very well indeed with any broadband queries i had, when they merged with Telewest things started to go down hill for me but now with VM, twice this week. i had to ring them with queries re my broadband and found the person on the other end of the phone did not understand what i was asking of him, as he kept giving me the wrong info, maybe this could have been a language problem, but both times i had to just give up, one i eventually sorted out for myself and the other problem regarding frontpage was answered for me on a frontpage forum.
I do hope VM sort themselves out and soon or they won`t have a business left to sort out.
good luck to all VM customers
i never had any problems with blueyonder over my 7 year full package subscription with them. Since virgin took over it has been a whole different story, a horror story i should say. Virgin’s customer support is a disgrace, as i must have spent at least 6 hours this month over the phone with them while trying to resolve the sudden technical issues I have experienced both with my tv and telephone services and i’m really fed up with their incompetence. Why the hell do we have to put up with greedy companies swallowing up each other just for them to get their way on the expense of the customer? I am now ready to switch to sky and will definitely stay away from cable unless it becomes the decent company it used to be when it was still blueyonder.
VM is the perfect example of all future blood sucking ‘make as much profit on the expence of everyone else’ corporations and it can only get worst i’m afraid! Tesco is another great example…
That ad is bogus. Installing people with cable modems that are 5 years old, won’t even lock onto the starting frequency, poorly trained agents to call and get passed all around, billing mistakes and where is all this High Definition material we have been PROMISED? Some companies will say anything to get your money. Best thing to do is to check out the company thoroughly before signing a contract or using their services. One more thing, your still dealing with NTL……they’re just the Virginmedia name to disguise themselves.
[…] Iain wrote a detailed ‘brant’ [blog-rant] regarding the service he received from Virgin Media and was immediately contacted by […]
Been with BY since they started and was very happy with the full package they provided. Once the merger with NTL came along, so did the problems, lousy customer service, poor service etc. A shining light on the horizon, Sir Richard and the Virgin Brand are going to sort things out, Hooray!
Result, loss of sky channels, (even on the premiere movies, 9 and 10 now gone, and whats left many not starting until late afternoon)
Double billing problems - oops sorry sir, an oversight, hmm, call me cynical, seems like a good way to earn a bit of ectra interest,
Internet keeps dropping off, 10Mb connection, are you downloading a lot sir? “No i am trying to connect” - Oh someone must be downloading lots of information! “Well do something about it” I will contact our support team. Result, nothing, had to wait for whoever to finish their downloading.
TV Package etc - told to stick with Virgin as they will be bringing out some great new channels (2 Virgin Centrals showing the same porgrammes) - Branson announced anyone who wants to leave will have until 30th March to cancel their contracts, phoned up, and told stay with us, great things are going tohappen. They did, i phoned up tonight saying how fed up i am paying for the full package, movies, sports, BB etc. TV Drive continuously breaking down, so i want to cancel. Oh sir, you still have 10 months to run on your contract, and to default will mean you will have to pay the out standing amount. BO!!0cks says i to the operator and slam down the phone in anger.
Virgin, i doubt it, as i feel well and truly screwed.
Mr G
Vigin customer service sucks. Watch your phone billing carefully they wont believe you if you say you didn’t make the calls even though you can prove you didn’t.
What a great rant. I truly felt your pain, joy, and exasperation — not only because I’ve suffered a near similar sort of affliction with the God-forsaken Vigin-Media, but fundamentally because it was so fantastically detailed.
I soak myself in the wonderful drug that is nostalgia, when I recall the days of Telewest/Blueyonder serving their duty as my ISP. What trouble free days they were.
I, like yourself, had great hopes for Virgin-Media.
Then it quickly became apparent what Virgin really was; truly THE Abomination of Hell’s work is what! The ugliest sin to of ever been ejaculated from Satan Himself. A sin that took joy in feeding on the misery it was making my life into. The thefts, lies, dirty cheating deals and that disastrous and miserable excuse of a department that they dare to call “Customer Services.”
And I’m now at peace again - because I’ve canceled. Yes indeed. After many years of virtual connection to the world, I will soon be untangled from the Web, and I shall now enjoy the more gratifying things in life — like perusing over the massive Gigabytes of media I’ve downloaded before losing my connection, and snickering about the 160 quid I’ve managed to run my bill up to, so far.
Tee hee, Chorkle!
Iain,
Lol…youve had it easy:) Ive had this fruckass going on for 5 WEEKS !!! Yes 5 Weeks!!
Let me explain the frustrations.
I was a NTL cable BB user for over 10 years…no problems with a few minor hiccups, of about 4 days outages per year on average. CustomerSupport or BB Support was actually VERY good technically competent & alike. Ive stayed with NTL thru its 10mb srvice & when the announce ment that VM was taking over & merging all of the groups & would give me for free the 20mb XL service….well I jumped at the chance.
I found out that my region would receive the necessary upgrades on 23rd June from 10mb to 20mb. My 10mb srvice was sweet, stable & reliable.
The 24th June my problems started.
Web pages wouldnt load, ping tests were giving me 200kb to 300kb/s on the download but the upload was stable.
BNow I know whats in the NTL / VM network as I work for their supplier for their CORE network & I tried as ethically as possible what the problem was….here begins the fun.
First Im passed to someone that hardly speaks english & asks me for my MAC address, Postcode, username & password 3 times! When I try to explain the issue to him, I am told that 2253kb/s is 20mb download speed…o….starting to lose my patience now…this guy is not tech savvy & Im wasting my time talkin to this guy. I manage after 1 hour to get hold of a tech savvy guy who spends 12 mins with me & then realises what Im saying. He calls me back at home. Remember VM now charges 10p connection & 25p per min when talking to their tech support.
2 hours we are on the phone trying to get things running, he re-configs the modem remotely by firmware etc etc etc all to no avail. He` lll get an engineer out…but its going to be 10 days!
10 days later, the engineer arrives…1 spotty 18yr old that probably learnt his networking skills playing quake than in a telecomms company. “Yep, its not working, I`ll report it back at the office!” No cable modem test, no street side testing nor UBR port checks. I should hear back from VM in 3 days.
Now Im not going to wait 3 days so the following evening, I explain & complain that no checks were even done at my residence. “we`ll resend another engineer to you, buty tht wont be for 4 days”…”Unnacceptable”..I request to sp[eak to a senior manager of which I am told she is & finally get a “we will have an engineer with you in 2 days, that will resolve the problem there & then!”
2 days pass….no engineer shows up! Now im fuming!!
Onto complaints dept…”im not paying for this month & i want compensation for being messed around & I also want to drop from your porr XL service to your M 4 mb service!”. A Very polite woman helps me through the ordel makes credit adjustments to my account , apologises profoundly for the whole affir & promises to raise an official complaint & get a new engineer to me in 5 days.
OK! So now I`m on the 4mb pacakage! wooho…all seems stable & great a constant 4mb doen stream….great!
The following day the 4mb link starts playing up & again im getting 200kb to 300kb/s. Absolutely pi$$ed off I contacted the same woman as I spoke to & explained the situation.
===========================================
NOTE: Once you get a good customer Service tell them they are & ask if you could return back to them but would they give you their FULLNAME or extension number etc. That way you can save a ton of cr&p.
===========================================
She then gets Tech support to ring me in 10mins at home.
20 mins later I have another offshore gent call me that hardly speaks english & says the 300kb download is sufficient for 4mb downloads. I think this guy went to the same school as the others..or was there a school?!
After arguing & proving my point after the guy tries to start reading to me from his “auto-cue” card, he goes off & talks to a techy. “Ah, tere is a problem we will call you back in 1 hour!” Ok, cool.
Eventually he got back to me & explained that my modfem was NOT properly set up on the network…remember the same modem that I had for my 10mb that worked seamlessly. OK, reboot the modem & all should be fine.
Reboot, Retest & WOW! the 4mb now works, seamlessly.
“Ah” I think to myself “if theyve reset up the modem correctly on the core I should now get 20mb no problems”, so I call up explain the whole scenario..remeber that I told them all of this 2 weeks ago & re-apply for 20mb XL service.
^^^—-THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE—^^^
The engineer finally arroives to resolve my 4 mb connection (as it says on his ticket), realises its a 20MB XL issue & then explains “Its the UBR is under capacity, your streetbox, modem & house to UBR line is perfect. I`m fed up with having to come out to 20MB XL customers cos there is nothing we engineers can do. The management knows wghat the problem but they are just stalling & seeing how much they will lose. I dont even know if its going to be fixed or when!”
Extremely pi$$ed off as VM are clearly playing games but sympathietic to the guy that called we actually start talking tech & we both now what the problem is….mis-management & poorly managed n/w structure at the regional UBR/ HUBs. The engineer & I had a cuppa had a laff…before I blew my top & when I was showing him out of the door I noticed he had no van..you know the glitzy VM logo`ed vans. Confused I yelled out….”You ok mate?!” thinking petrhaps hed parked on the main road away from our cul-de-sac. “Yes he replies…Mrs has tea on the table, gotta shoot!”….”what you live locally?”…..”Yes next road down!”
……….3 fucking weeks for a guy to walk 200 yards!!
Now I am angry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The issue however still goes on.
I am now considering ditching VM in whole & going over to BT or a BT leased ISP.
Note to VM: - If it aint broke dont fix it!
Note to potential VM subscribers - Buyer beware!
—peace.
I should add that when I refer to 300kb/s download thats the pipe…less than 0.5MB line connection & not download ing at 300kb/s which is approx 3MB line connection.
Sorry its late im tired & frustrated with VM!
Hi,
I too had a terrible customer service experience at the hands of Virgin Media. Like many, I am a loyal Blueyonder customer of many years and remember when you could ring up with a problem and speak to somebody who understood you and your problem and most importantly was able to get an engineer sent straight out to investigate.
The other week my connection became shaky for three or four days for no reason. Sometimes when I turned the cable modem on it wouldn’t establish a connection. Sometimes it would be just fine. I rang their “customer service” to wait on hold for 20 odd minutes and then speak to someone who was unable to deviate from his script. Despite the fact that I’m technical and already knew where the problem was he insisted on reading me out the IP address of my cable modem even while I repeatedly told him I was looking at it’s configuration page and reported exactly what it was saying.
After getting nowhere for 10 minutes or so I asked to speak to his boss. He said OK and put me on hold. So I waited. And waited. And waited… 10 minutes later he comes back on the phone and starts again from the beginning of his script. I reminded him he told me he would put me through to his supervisor and he suddenly apologised and said he would (again). 10 minutes later I’m speaking to someone who claims to be his supervisor (although I felt it was more likely to be the guy in the cubical next door) who again couldn’t do anything to help.
Basically after wasting an hour of my time they told me that there seemed to be a problem in my area and it should be better in the next few days sometime. Yay! I also asked how and where I could complain. They told me there was an email address on the virgin media website. So I wasted a further half hour of my time writing an email to that address telling my story and complaining about the u-turn customer service had taken since Virgin took over. A waste of time because apparently no-one reads the emails sent to that address anyway…
Anyway - did you ever resolve this? I’m going to resolve my issue in the only way that I can, which is by cancelling my account and moving to someone else. Can anyone suggest someone reliable and most important someone who will try and fix a problem when it occurs rather than ignoring it?
Cheers,
Kelvin
Mine is a somewhat different tale, but it still all comes down to VMs lack of customer care.
I wanted to see the Rikki Hatton fight. Normally I would have expected to see it on Sky Box office. This time however I discovered at the last minute that it was to be shown on Setanta Sport 1.
I rang the 150 number to find myself talking almost immediately ( there is a God after all I thought) He said that I would be connected, but might have to wait for 24 hours, that was a blow since the fight was only about 16 hours away. I didn’t get connected in 24, but thought that I would be fine for the repeat later on in the day. Wrong. I phoned and was told that I would have to call the 151 crowd. This time I am wound up 25 minutes of nausiating repeated crap that gets in your head and drives you crazy ( nobody else complains about this I was told after being connected ) I was of course this time talking to someone in Bombay I beleive who couldn’t believe that I couldn’t understand him most of the time because the line was breaking up. Anyway, he said it was not a support type problem and that I should call the 150 number and inform them that they had attemped to connect me to the wrong box. I changed to a V+ some time back, and was persuaded to keep the old box to avoid £76 installation charge on the V+. Can’t believe they didn’t have a record of which box I was using. I was told that I would be in receipt of the new channel within a couple of hours. I wasn’t of course and was referred back to India! After 48 hours of this I told them what they could do with their Setanta Sports. I didn’t want it any more. No problem they said, I wouldn’t be billed. I was of course (£15.00) and now I am waiting to see if I get a refund on the next bill.
Well Ive has Techies calling me up that actually know what they are talking about & the bottom line is….”they know the network is under-capacity & they are stalling for time to get around & resolve the issues” This is why you get fobbed off with some crap half the time. The callcentre guys arent technically qualified & are referring to cue cards & problem solving solutions….all of which are common & dont address the actual issue.
My VM techie told me…”We`ll call you back at the end of August!”..thats 3months since the issue started!
I’ve got Virgin Media for TV, Phone and Broadband. If it wasnt for the fact that i would have to take on a BT phone, i would have cancelled after the couple of phonecalls i have had with VirginMedia over the weekend. I cannot access my Movie channels now that they all require a PIN code. I press the red button and it just locks the V+ box without getting to the point where i can enter my pin. So i called the Customer Services. All i got was a man i could not understand and who could not understand me. When i told him i could not understand him he had a sound of aghast in his voice and just said it again in exactly the same tone and speed! And if i worded my complaint a little bit differently to how he had got it in a manual in front of him, then he really had not got a clue. He just read a list of issues from his book and said, is this it, when they obviously were nothing like….!!!! He just said someone would call me back in 72 hours!! Are they going to refund me for the time when i cannot watch any movies - will they heck as like!! I bet you i dont get a phone call back. And on top of this, everything i record on V+ has that much interference that they are totally unwatchable. In fact the more i think about it, a BT phone and Sky+ does not sound half bad!!! Even in the old NTL world, customer service was much better and english customer service operators that i could understand. VM i’m afraid you are going a long way to lose custom!!!!
I’ve been trying to get this horrible internet connected since Monday (it’s now Saturday).
They charge 25p a minute for their broadband which is horrific enough (claiming they have to charge this to give a better service - isn’t the 30 quid a month basic not enough), but the fact I have rang over 20 times (including the 0845 customer services) in one day. This is not including the previous days - I know both numbers off the top of my head, and cannot understand the accents of the Indian people in the call centre and they can’t understand mine (which is surely a way of saving money to give us a better service anyway).
I have not experienced such shitty and totally incompetent customer services in my life. I am currently being told my account has a huge unpaid bill which is uncanny seeing as I have just ‘registered’ (or tried to), and my newly generated pin number (which I didn’t receive with my welcome pack, along with serial number, installation CD, or any other details I am told I need to activate my account) is in fact incorrect - a pin number i was just given 10 minutes prior to being bounced back and forth between Customer Services and Broadband technical department is wrong.
This is coupled to the newly connected phone line not being connected, so I have to drive 4 miles each way to my mother’s house to use the phone so I can reveal the MAC address on the bottom of the modem (which leads to more problems).
Like Virgin Trains, Virgin Cola, and the numerous other half-baked products Richard Branson turns his hand to; you should resist any temptation to sign up with Virgin Media. It may be plain sailing for you, but if it isn’t, expect a long, expensive and stressful time trying to get it sorted.
I can’t take messing around with this, so I’m cancelling as I write (which I am on hold for 30 minutes for so far), and I can’t believe people actually wait around for months to get something resolved that would take a couple of minutes over the phone.
They have now told me they really can’t activate my broadband (they cannot activate it, it can’t be activated - do you understand this?)… and they can’t cancel it either (as in, they can’t/won’t cancel it).
This is the 52.16 minute call I have just completed.
Please, Mr Virginmedia, what the fuck am I supposed to do here?
I have had internet problems every day now for over a month, usually it only lasts a few minutes so I don’t call….when I do call they eventually fix it after half an hour of my life wasted but its every f*ckin day. The only reason I haven’t switched to someone else is I am moving in 6 months and thought it would be difficult to get a 6 month contract.
Don’t sign up with Virgin, whatever you do! I miss Telewest…2 years…not even an outage!
Can someone advise? In my household I pay the phone bill and my boyfriend pays the broadband, with Virgin( once NTL),using different direct debits from our respective bank accounts .In April 06′ he made the switch from dial up to the broadband and from then on has been billed for BOTH.
We have really only just discovered this double billing.First call to Virgin, no sign of his record as the system as “down”. Today it re-appeared and the doubled charging was detected. Problem is - they say that it was our responsibility to end the dial up. they say that when my boyfriend put the modum in and put a disc in that he must have answered questions incorrectly and thus did not get rid of dial up charge. We don’t know what they are talking about!We are not techi people but Boyfriend switched from dial up to Broadband via telephone and spoke with a human being. Where they not supposed to make the billing changes accordingly?
Virgin are now recognising the screw up by offering one year credit on Broadband but that still leaves us out of pocket. Should we pay even a pence for a service that we did not receive? How can they justify a year’s credit and not a refund of the exact amount for the dial up charges? Why would we have dial up if we had switched to broadband? It’s very Kafkaesque. no?
Has anyone had a problem like this? Will I have to involve a third party? If I go down this route will my determination pay off in the end? Also with a year’s credit I can’t really change a provider ,can I? Thanks for any adivice.
Having very terrible luck with their call centre. I have called them 5 days in a row trying to get my PC guard activated. They are stumped! Today when I called I spoke with a woman with pretty poor English and she told me that I was not entitled to PCguard being on the “L” package and I was going to be billed for this call.
I called customer service and they said that I am entitled to have PCguard and they will reimburse me for my last call to the 0906 number. As far as help for getting my PCguard to work, they had no answer.
Does any one know how to fix this fault or to get a hold of someone in customer realitions?
Cheers,
Frank
Hi There,
I read through all the postings above and decided that I would try to make contact with Richard Bourne, the Virgin Media Complaint reduction manager.
So I called 150 and asked for his number, the customer service lady said that he would call me tomorrow. Tomorrow is today and the day is over.
I called 150 again today and this time I was told that I am a “M” level customer and I would need to upgrade to “XL” on the TV to get my PCguard to work. The broadband guide says if you are a L or XL customer, you can have PCguard. The lady said also said that I am a “M” broadband customer but a “L” TV customer.
Perhaps I will call again tomorrow and get a different answer. Clearly there is no standardization in their customer service training. I have been with Virgin Media 5 days now and have waisted 8 hours of my time and who knows how much on calling the 0906 number.
Can someone please post the telephone numbers and emails of Virgin Media management.
More worthless than BT.
Just moved to the country, joined Virgin Media last month as TV, broadband and phone for £20 was a good deal. but:
1: Technician disconnected neighbour while setting up. Neighbour (already a virgin media customer) lands on my doorstep pretty pissed, took him two weeks to get re-connected.
2: Technician couldn’t install phone line, said bt had cut it, but team would be around to connect me soon.
3: Week late I rang, got left on hold, ran out of credit. Rang again, same thing. Sent email via website, no reply. rang again, got cut off. For three weeks i’ve been ringing no answers, no sign of coompetence.
4. Today after third call (cut off twice) I dialled through to disconnect, raging. Where I talked to a nice man who said I could disconnect on Tuesday and they’d be around to pick up boxes.
Finally someone who knows what they’re doing.
I have been trying to cancel a connection at my old address for 9 months.
Status: I received another bill today!!!!!!
Called Virgin and was told it would be cancelled AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!
Worse service I have every used. I would complain but there doesnt appear to be contact details for complaints (even when we asked on the phone) and they dont ever answer email complaints anyway.
I will look forwards to the bill arriving AGAIN next month.
have a look at this i have branson’s home address email me for it follow the link on the web site i’m trying to sort out virgin as paying for 20 mbs and getting about 750kbs http://www.freewebs.com/crapspeeds/
If you get through to somebody in one of the Indian call centres, hang up. All they do is lie and feed you a bunch of crap, knowing full well they’re going to get away with it, especially now as Mr. Branson see’s it fit to charge us premium rate calls to get through to somebody in a call centre who has absolutely NO chance of helping you should you have a problem connecting.
My year is up soon, and I cannot wait to tell Virgin EXACTLY what I think of them, if they’ve got any sense they’ll scrap the extortionate call charges before they lose even more customers.
virgin media’s “connect a mate and pocket £30 each!
i have not herd so much crap. first they tell me that you get the £30 in the bank as soon as you get installed. yippy, its like the first month free, NOT!!! after spending 5 hours on a mobile phone over one week been told that there havent got my details i get told that the £30 goes into my bank in the 3rd month
virgin media, don`t bother i haven`t got a day to write the countless problems i`ve had, you get what you pay for go with sky.
If you don`t want to speak to a useless foreigner who doesn`t give a shit about your bill being grossly inrorrect (3 x the price) even though it could feed their family for about 6 months+ and promises to call back knowing that is complete bullshit and that the useless bastard will get away with it!
RICHARD BRANSON YOUR A FUCKIN WANKER AND YOUR MEDIA COMPANY SUCKS COCK
Its all becoming a joke now Virgin Media has got to be one of the worst company’s to deal with.
Most people want a easy life but if you ever join Virgin Media then do not expect this easy life to continue.
Expect to be on the phone to Virgin 1/2/3 times a month expect not to get any customer service Expect to get put on hold Expect for them to say its all been sorted only to find out that nothing has been sorted.
expect to phone back up put on hold again expect to have to explain your situation again and again expect for nothing still to be done about it and welcome to your life with Virgin they are just as bad if not worse than what NTL use to be and they was Bad.
I am really disappointed with Virgin, I really wanted to give them a chance wanted was looking for a new easy experience for all the problems I had with NTL to be sorted but instead have got worse.
They seem to think that they can just do what they want but I really hope that people start walking with there feet and start leaving.
Yeah some others might be a bit more expensive but for a easy life I am willing to pay that little bit extra.
I will be walking away from Virgin with a very bad taste in my mouth and its put me off the Whole V Brand.
Trouble is now they are trying to get Northern Rock who my mortgage is with noooooooooo please help me god.
Well will do my 1 year I got left on my fixed rate and will be gone I really do not want to give Virgin 1p more than I have to.
So please if you are reading this and you are considering Virgin Please step away before its to late Pay a little more and go with a different company as its really really not worth going with Virgin.
Virgin really do suck.
Paul
What hassle I have had with Virgin mediocre with my broadband(they had cancelled my account by mistake),An hour trying get to customer support trying to understand some bombay based halfwit who I could not understand (she wanted my MAC address of my modem but call it a “Mark settings”!)
25p per minute to speak to some witless moron is a rip off,now wonder Branson is a billionaire.
Also my on demand tv pin number did not work said “Incorrect pin”,but if you just press 0 0 0 0, then it works.
Virgin what a farce!!
Reading all these reports makes me feel sick. Why did I go with Virgin? Because virgin would not give change over number to go with Pipex, so I was forced to stay with Virgin, but even then I could not get my account up and running as I was told that I had to be still connected to BT. I have a letter which says that from 3rd of October I will be with Virgin and so all my charges will be paid to Virgin, I phone up both companies, they say that I am still with BT. era uoy gnidnatsrednu lla siht, ( Excuse me words are backwards) but I will not have to pay the two companies for calls,”So they say”, I do not know what to say next, if you are reading this, “If any one is reading this” help, help, help———————————-help————————–help——————–help, please stop the torchure.
Virgin..thats a joke they’ve been FUCKING us for since they took over!!
promised call backs after problems arisen, yeah fucking right more chance of growing 3 fucking heads!!
english based company, english based customers, INDIAN call advisors that cant speak or read english properly..WHAT THE FUCK!!!
BRANSON PUT YER SHIRLEY TEMPLE DOWN AND GIVE US THE SERVICE YOU PROMISE YA FUCKING WANKER!!
yup trying for 2 days to get thru to virgin media to upgrade my package. Spoke to 4 different people each of whom gave me a different number and put me to the back of the queue. Today couldnt speak to anyone!
Only people you can get thru to is sales. its just like talktalk, the only staff they employ are sales.
have sent emails. no reply.
Thinking of going to sky…
I’ve been reading this thread with great interest as the problems we have been having with Virgin Media since it took over Telewest are exactly the same as many of those described here. I could write a book on the subject. And as for those Indian callcentres - don’t get me started ….. Suffice to say that I know more about computers than those people and I bitterly resent paying premium rates to get useless advice from people who can’t speak or understand English, let alone advise on a fault.
I see that Iain Tait’s blog re VM was first posted in February 2007 and here we are at the end of the year and the problems are still there and, if anything, getting worse.
We were with Telewest’s Blueyonder from the beginning and never once felt that we wanted to leave. If there was an outage (which was seldom), I would ring a freephone line and usually it was reported there. If not, I would ring Technical Support and always got an intelligent and knowledgeable person to speak to.
It cannot be a coincidence that, as soon as VM took over, both the service and the Technical Support service have become a total joke - an absolute disgrace - and anyone working in that company ought to be thoroughly ashamed and embarrassed.
The ONLY reason we are still with VM is that we should have to change our email address and that’s a real hassle. Otherwise, I’d go to Sky for television, ZEN for the Internet and get our own domain for an email address.
Sky may have its own problems but nothing could be worse than VM. How can it possibly survive as a company when it cares so little for its customers?
I now have a number at VM’s head office to ring. OK, so now I should be able to get answers if anything else should go wrong - but why should this be necessary? What about VM’s other customers who don’t have this phone number? I suspect that, rather than complain, they are just voting with their feet and leaving VM in droves.
Virgin Media are a pile of the steaming stuff have had 5 months of hassle so im there and ive got the t-shirt on -cant wait to dump them,if i see R BRANSON in the street i would kill him with my bare hands-apart from that im chilled about the whole thing
Virgin Media why roll out broadband when it is worse than dailup tonight im 16kbps thats 1.6kbs aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
remember when r branson absailed of the building in Las Vagas it made the news,what will happen when i throw him of the building after i have killed him with my bare hands !!!like i said its having no affect on me im chilled -i am—–Gary Branson-joking
think i want to make a blog
Virgin are a nightmare. Thought all things camne from one place, until I foun out they had been sending me emails (which I never recieved) for my broadband and was in arrears of £38 to get bb restored. That was back in march 07 and I was so annoyed I cancelled all direct debits because the broadband one was being taken out of my account with no warning letter, usually making me go overdrawn because I had no idea when it was coming out. Now I am moving to sky they can’t be any worse since june 07 I have had Virgin taking money out of my account and storing my card details to take payments without my consent and when I have told them not to keep my card details unitl now. The only reason they didn’t take my bill for january was because I have had to call my bank and raise a dispute with Virgin to stop them taking money of me. Add to that the £60 bank charges I had from going overdrawn and one helpful advisor at a call centre informing me, “well if you know when the moneys coming out you should make sure theres funds in the account.” Thanks Virgin, I didn’t think of that. Maybe I would do if they sent me a letter before hand telling me when it will be claimed, instead of one 7 days after the transaction telling me they have taken it! Regardless of that, every month I have been telling them not to take any money and to remove my card details from the system, which they haven’t been doing, because I want to ring up and pay the bill myself. Virgin = bad customer service.
This is interesting reading. I have just joined VM as my previous ISP Tiscali, drove me to despair. i was consistantly have my telephone and broadband dropping out, and just like your self (when calling the 0845 number which they get a nice cut,) I was sent around the world to solve problems, which were not sorted. I decided to return to BT, but because Tiscali had carried out a Local Loop to their system, I, yes me, would have to pay BT £125.00 to put the exchange right, well you can imagine, i was prepared to pay this, “NOT”. so after Tiscali leaving me with no telephone and no broadband because Tiscali had disconnected me, i had no option to sign up the VM for £30.00. And by the way as BT had taken my order and set up my D/D of £15.00, they started to take it from my account without even providing me with a service, they (BT) had cancelled my order, because i had not agreed to pay the “connection Fee” can anyone explain why I would have to pay for sorting out BT exchange when I did not screw it up?? and by the way Tiscali have continued to take my monthly D/D. So after reading the your problems, I can only come to the conclusion, of get a high voltage power supply and conect it to their cables and turn it on.. They are all rubbish!!!!!
What happened to improved service, i think we are back in the 1st century.
Well im back love to let of steam here ,lets see posted letter above on 5th jan but i am no further forward ,you see there is no TRUTH with VM i have spent £50 in tech calls [now i call cancellations cheap] just to find out a simple question that is never answered,today nice guy from virgin tech called today as promised to announce he has found out my answer to the golden question ,that virgin medias peak time is 4pm till 10pm——————————-wait its fuckin bullshit——virgin media is UNLIMITED but do you know that on there web page you cant DOWNLOAD ANYTHING between 4pm-1am mon-fri and 10am-1am weekend-and if you use p2p software you cant use it at peak times and all weekend-whats the fuckin point in the internet cant use BBC iplayer as you will go over the limit that no one knows about or you cant use xbox etc play on line games in fact you are not allowed to use your connection for anything, virgin media i love them not £20 for phone and broadband fuck the car, fuck the house im selling all for real internet and service there was 5 virgin media products in this house now its one and it will go soon .but guess what all virgin staff no nothing of this or are paid to lie,i downloaded 4gb last week and now im traffic managed my connection on friday night after hard week at work is wait for it ——-drum roll 24kbps-note the kbps.you will get no answers from virgin media ,sorry for the rant but i have to tell someone or kill RB,i am not an isolated case if you have 20 spare years of time on your hands type in google VIRGIN MEDIA IS SHITE and read on.i used to be with Blueyonder many years ago [flat] and remember phoning tech who would amaze me with there tech support,now its crap like phoning AOL they where taking me to court to do this and that ,collection agency [first time in my life] phoning very aggresive,one visit to a lawyers have not heard from them for 3 months ,dont be bullied by these arsehole ISPs remind me of goverment we would love to have something new but there is no alternative , 99% of isps are just here to screw us and take our money,but provide no service if we cancel we have to pay the whole year up front if it was someone on the street we would slap them but you cant slap someone who is faceless-rant or what lol christ and you all think Britneys got problems join virgin media and you to will be fucked–lol
Before i start excuse my typing and if there is any spelling mistakes the tablets the doctor gives me for my well how do i put it condition sounds great that but they don’t help alot so excuse any mistakes and lack of punctuation marks Well here goes my story , ive been with Virgin.Net for well as longtime and its getting worse though id rather be with anyone else but them .Ive 2 major problems on going, firstly my Virgin.Mobile for some very strange reason has all of a sudden stopped being able to send emails via my mobiles on there network in the last 3 days ive been unable to email out on my Sony w950i and my Nokia 6233 all the settings have been checked over and over again even my old Sony W300i has stopped being able to send emails ,i can receive but not send ive been everywhere Sonys Website virgins website you name it ive nearly done it ,but the settings have not changed over night or anything like that ,so this is where it starts . I have not forgotten Virgin Media i’ll get there ! So Virgin Mobile Uk told me to go to Sonys website and of coarse download the settings for my mobile i told them the settings were fine ,but no they said just in case anyway i go and do as i was told reluctantly i did this 3 times and my Nokia that is put away has always been able to email and send and receive so i thought id check that too and guess what that has stopped being able to send emails ive checked all the settings over and over i even did the ultimate and did a complete reinstall for my Sony w950i software did it help ? mmmmmm No so im still without my emailing on my mobiles and its driving me crazy i use my mobiles alot for this use so the next part Virgin.Mobile told me to go to VIRGIN MEDIA i thought no please not them i sent them a email along time ago and did i get a reply NO so ive sent them 10 emails in the last 3 to 4 days and you have guessed it not one reply ,my emailing from my Broadband is working fine so this is not the problem with that and its not a case of oh we have not received your emails ,thats no excuse i’m guessing its not my mobiles they cant all suddenly decide to mmm go faulty at the very same moment .But you have guessed it will they help no its a case of mmm not really our department try Virgin.Media if and when i ever get a reply i will let you know ive been promised a man will call from Virgin.Mobile technician’s department within the next 24 to 48 hours well its nearly 48 hours now and any phone call Nope ! Im reg disabled and my mobile is my lifeline i use it more than my computer and emailing well is like txting to some other to me ,that is why i got the Sony W950i and because it has a stylus that im able to use im not to ggof with keys on phones anyway ,ive had emailing services on my mobiles from well day one or two and all has been well ,so why has it suddenly come to a grinning halt ? The reason ive told you im disabled is not for pity its just because im trying to point out my mobile and emailing is well like my right foot ,i had a back operation over 4 years ago and it didn’t go as planned but i get on with life and after the shock and normal thoughts i got on with life i know my settings on my mobile like there back of my hand ive spent over £20.00 downloading settings from the advise of Virgin.Mobile but i moaned and moaned and i have had the £20.00 credited to my account it was mine anyway but i politely said thank you because thats the way ive been brought up and its polite i try sometimes ,but my letter ends on the note that VIRGIN .MEDIA have still not replied to one of my emails and im not going to phone 0906 ——– and waste my money when they should have clearly replied by now i knew this would happen and i was right ,what they do with peoples emails is well beyond me ,ive even threaten to contact BBC Watchdog to see if they can assist me in my case and if i get no where i will ive no choice ,ive never contacted BBC before but its a case of will they help i really hope so when i explain all ,ive no idea why its stopped and ive checked everything ten times over but at least i got some money back but the problem has not gone away still all of my mobiles cannot send out emails is this a trick of Virgin.Media to get me to change plans because im still on the £17.99 a month for the 8 meg Broadband speed the best ive ever got at 4am was just over 5 meg and its normally 256k to 512k like the bad old days if i could move and be able to do so with the littlest amount of trouble i would ,before i forget ive 5 email addresses and not one of then will send out a email via my Virgin.Mobiles ,my last resort was to delete a email address that i didnt use alot and replaced it with a new one to see if that would work Nope ! So its a long long wait for me if i ever get any reply or if the miracle happens and Virgin.Media reply will let you know .I hope ive not waffled on to much ive not meant too but its like a big weight of my shoulders knowing someone might be listening to me ,if ive bored you im sorry its me with a bee under my hat ,notice i dint say bonnet ,im not into mmm dressing up like that . If by any chance anyone else has Virgin.net and use there mobiles on Virgin Mobile network to email and have had problems sending them recently please can you contact me or let other people at Virgin.Mobile and Virgin.Media to get it sorted asap .Thank you for letting me express my views even though i did wander a little but its still to do with Virgin Media and there so called sister group they all in the same boat full of customer service personal that either cannot read or just bin all emails from Virgin.Media customers .Regards Pete
Virgin Media do suck
And when companies say they may record your call for training purposes, they ALWAYS record your call, its for legal reasons
You are so right. See http://watervole.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/virgin-sucks/
Branson has even bought his own URL - virginsucks.com belongs to him.
Virgin Media is without doubt the worst customer experience I’ve had in my life.
They are completely useless. They have taken money from me they shouldn’t have, then promised to refund it and haven’t.
Their phone line won’t work properly (they’ve cut me off twice), and they don’t answer letters of complaint - if you write to the address on their website, the letters ‘probably won’t go to who they’re supposed to.’ (Their words, not mine.)
I am so angry and frustrated, but feel better knowing I’m not alone. I hope you sort everything out with this useless bunch of cretins. I’m sorry BT, I’m coming back to you just as soon as Virgin pay me the money they owe me!!!
hey yes tv - problem and broadband bigger problem thinking of switching to sky better service better deals these lots teething problems lasting too long for my likin so thr you are my view hope it helpz xxxxxxxx shamas ans stacye 4 eva xxxxxxxx
Just going through a nightmare myself will come back withdetails when I can get back a few more things first then will let the whole story out about the lazy arseholes…..
Virgin now round up to the nearest minute.
Virgin started charging more in February.
The TV service keeps freezing
The broadband service was NOT increased in speed despite claims it was in my area.
I call customer service and the guy answering (in India) cannot understand me unless I speak really slowly which only adds to the frustration.
To make a complaint I’m giving a number to call, one with high call charges… screw that!!!
My internet cuts out intermittently EVERY DAMN DAY and basically…
Virgin have turned NTL into an extortionate and under-performing pile of SHIT.
To say I’m disgusted at Virgin Media is an understatement.
I can’t wait to find another provider. One that at least slightly cares about it’s customers rather than charging more for a severely degraded service and has the audacity to push people into paying a premium just to lodge a complaint.
NTL was awesome - was with them since they were ComCast… but Virgin… ugh… they effing SUCK!!!
Please give me the number for Iain or Alex
My business has been ground to a halt for 2 weeks because of Virgin and I have been unable to get past the call centre script people even if I ring every 30mins - no-one can work out the problem and I am loosing the will to live.
Nina
I agree. Virgin are fuckwits. I didnt set up a direct debit straight away,so owe them 60quid. I rang them over 38 times,askin for someone english,who understood wtf i was talkin about,regardin other ways to pay this 67 quid,and then to set up dir debit 4 future bills. They want debit or credit card,which i dont have,but wouldnt give me any other option. Theyve taken it to a debt agency. Like fuck am i paying it now,they can whistle.
GOING ROUND IN CIRCLES TRYING TO GET SOME SENSE FROM YOU.
WHY CAN`T A D/D FAILURE BE RE SUBMITTED FOR PAYMENT WITH OUT ALL THE PLAVER OF SENDING PAYMENT BY PAYMENT POINT OR OTHER MEANS ? NEARLY EVERY OTHER FIRM CAN DO THIS WITHOUT ALL THE STUPID METHOD YOU HOLD TO.
IT`S OBVIOUS WHO EVER SET UP YOUR SYSTEM WEREN`T VERY GOOD PROGRAMERS WHO HAD NOT THOUGHT THIS ONE OUT PROPERLY.
ALSO.SEND COMPUTERISED LETTERS 5 DAY “PAY OR ELSE ”
NOT EVEN SIGNED IS TO SAY THE LEAST INSULTING,AND TOTALTY UNACCEPTABLE,
BEFORE YOUR FIRM TOOK OVER TELEWEST THEY COULD RE SUBMIT WITH OUT THE WEIRD ROUTINE YOU USE. WITH NO NASTY LETTERS.
I also hate virgin media and will defo be leaving once my contract is up! the customer service team does not care and just fob you off by transferring you to other people who cant help! the 0906 is a massive rip off and the customer service team there is very bad and slow in helping you. i am 110% leaving virgin media.
Glad I’m not alone, just moved into a house with a few mates and suggested we get Virgin Media as after all they took over from Blueyonder who were a proper ISP. A month into the contract and I’m regretting it.
My speed constantly changes from 1mbps up to 6mbps (I’m on ADSL so a change is to be expected, but constantly?) I cannot play online games because of latency issues, it works fine for the first 5 minutes then constant lag.
1 out of every 10 pages just times out, my house mate is a web designer and he cannot even upload a full website without the FTP client timing out and refusing to let him upload anymore.
I sent Virgin an e-mail including trace routes and pings of some local game servers and an explanation of my problems. Making sure to tell them that it is nothing to do with my computer, it is virus free and no other programs were running at the time. So guess what reply I get..
Well it starts with an explanation of what latency is, cheers Virgin really needed you to explain to me what it is I am complaining about. Then a list of things I should do to increase my internet speed, like making sure my computer is virus free and that no other programs are running. Good to know they actually read your e-mails isn’t it?
Sent them another e-mail yesterday still waiting on a reply, not holding my breath to be fair but they can f**k off if they think I am going to ring their helpline to a tune of £1/per min for them to fob me off with excuses.
A formal letter of complaint will be written and sent tomorrow requesting that our service be cancelled at no cost to us what-so-ever for selling us an internet connection that is clearly not fit for purpose.
Will let everyone know how it goes. I just wish I would have found this website before ordering my internet connection.
Just thought I would add this to the mix.
They really have gone too far now.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/262172735.png
Well came by again just to look around ,again only one month till i tell virgin media to go fuck themselves,i have never known a bigger set of liars in my life they will say anything to fob you off,live chat cuts off,phone calls cut of,all when asked the simple question.why,and what are the times not to download,last week watched programs on bbc IPLAYER,i have gone over VM limit on my UNLIMITED broadband so have service cut for a week between 4pm-12 midnight-cleggys pic brought me to write again as he/she has the same blistering super fast speed as me 78kbps-no use phoning as they know that i know they are all wankers every fucking one of them-good guys NO wankers YES-fuck them and fuck RB -well have to go just finnished downloading a 21mb file it only took 46minutes-Richard you are a wanker let me know next company you plan to fuck up ,me and all will bale out as soon as we hear!
Hi again, this is the SECOND time i have complained via email, as the last time i recieved no response and that was over 4 weeks ago. Thats bad for such a large company. Its regarding my VERY SLOW BB SPEEDS DURING THE EVENINGS. Its so slow i cant even open up a web page. Im waiting for hours and reset the router etc 60,000 times every evening. Its slower than dial up. I pay virgin media £20 a month for a so-called fast BB speeds! Im one of many who apparantly is not happy about this, and Im NOT going to waste my money and time ringing the helpline again as i have done many times before with no realistic results. So dont ask me to. This IS a breach of the contract and i can prove it. PLEASE give me a REASON as to why my BB is so slow during the evenings especially. I cant even open a web page, especially in the evenings. Their is a reason for this, And its not my phone line or Laptop, as ive had them tested and they work fine. I dont want to take this matter further cos ive got better things to do. Im a loyal customer who’s treated like dirt by Virgin. And dont threaten me with extra costs and all of that sort of stuff cos i’ll go to the law otherwise. Thanks … sim0b@msn.com
my virgin media experience summarised:
- took 2 months to setup, because first they said we didn’t need an engineer, our cable was already in place - which it wasn’t.
- all phonecalls to customer service or anyone at virgin media take hours and then they just say “we can’t help you, phone this other number” which takes me back to the same options i had before and i end up in a vicious circle of death
- after getting setup with 20mb maximum broadband package (apparently it’s fibre opitc! woo!) my connection speed has varied between a maximum of 7mb (at about 3am weekday nights) and the more usual speed of 50kb (yes! about the same as dialup!) at all other times.
- So thanks to virgin media for the last 6 months i;ve been using internet that is slower than when i had dialup AOL about a decade ago.. And my contract has another 6 months to go.
- Thanks RichardB you complete SOB
@Gary - I’m a he!
My connection has been up and down since I last posted here, but just come back from watching a film in the living room and I now have the amazing speed of 65kbps, even slower than last time.
I have sent 3 e-mails to virgin now and spent god knows how long on the phone being passed from call centre to call centre. It really is beyond a joke. I read somewhere on a forum where people were also bitching about the service from Virgin Media that it is possible to get the home addresses of the Directors of Virgin Media from companies house for a small fee. Think it might be worth doing and them posting here. I know I wouldn’t like complaints arriving on my doorstep because of the company I work for.
Hi, this is a copy of my letter to Virgin MEdia detailing my problems! Disgusting eh?!!!
I write again with regard to my account with Virgin Media. I wrote to you a while ago regarding being charged £58 per month for my services. I had been disputing this amount for a considerable amount of time as last March 7th (2007) I was paying you £78 per month and rang to cancel the contract as I could get the same services cheaper elsewhere. The lady I spoke to at the time told me that if I decided to stay with you then she would reduce the package to £39 per month. I was extremely pleased with this and decided to stay with you after all.
Every bill I had after that was charging me £58 for the services, not £39 as discussed. Every time I had spoken to one of your telephone representatives no-one could tell me anything about the conversation, leading me to believe that no record had ever been logged onto your computer system by this person. Eventually I was told by a helpful operator that the discussion had taken place on the 7th March 2007, she took a long time to read back through all the notes on her system…something no-one else had seemed able to do. The lady I spoke on that date had inputted a code onto your system which was a discount for staff members only apparently and only came to £4.00! I never even saw a discount of £4.00 on any bill I have received, even though it was the wrong amount anyway.
After you received this letter, a lady called Amanda rang me on 21st March 2008 to discuss the complaint. I told her that I was extremely unhappy about the way I had been misled by this person and asked her to resolve the matter immediately. She said that she couldn’t do anything about it as Virgin Media have to ‘buy-in’ the sports services so they couldn’t be discounted. She also informed me that I should have been told that the £39 per month did not include the Sky Sports! I was not told this otherwise I would have cancelled immediately My response was ‘so you’re telling me that because one of your operatives doesn’t know what she’s doing and inputs the wrong information that I have been penalized for 12 months of over payments? She replied ‘yes, I’m afraid so’.
I told her that I had been given an offer and that this wasn’t acceptable. I also said that Virgin Media should honour that offer but she said there was nothing at all she could do regarding lowering the monthly cost. I said ‘so I’m stuck with the £58 per month then?’ She replied ‘yes’. She then offered me the Sky Sports free for 3 months as a gesture of goodwill even though I don’t even watch it, it was for my partner. This hasn’t even been applied to my bill!
I then asked her who I needed to write to regarding taking the matter further and she said that if I write to the same address then maybe someone could do something to help me. I asked her which dept she was from and she said ‘the department you have to write to’. I then asked to speak to someone else in a senior position, assuming I could get the matter resolved quicker by speaking to someone in the dept instead of writing in again and she told me that there was no-one else there; she was only covering the department.
Can you please explain to me how one of your representatives can tell me that it’s not possible at all to reduce a monthly payment but then in the next breathe tell me that if I write to the same department again someone might be able to do this? I don’t understand – the department that can’t ever reduce the amount might be able to??? I’m extremely confused.
I wrote to you again immediately but have never received a response, I can only assume that the correspondence became mislaid in the postal system or I am being ignored.
A little while after this I received a call from Petunia (it was a Wednesday) chasing payment for my bill. I explained at that time that I couldn’t afford the full amount and she said that if I paid a token payment of £20 and then £53.50 on the Friday she would note it on the system and that would stop me being cut off from the services. The day after this, the Thursday, my services were cut off. I was so annoyed that I rang the retentions department to cancel all services permanently and spoke to a really helpful man who apologized profusely when I said that I wanted to cancel all services permanently because £58 per month was not what I had been promised. He said the most he could do would be to, at that time, reduce the monthly payment to £51.75 but as services had been suspended he couldn’t do it there and then.
Even £51.75 is less than Amanda told me on 21st March 2008!
On 10th May 2008 a lady called Danielle rang from Late Collections and I paid £73.01 to keep services running until this dispute has been resolved. I found her quite helpful. I asked her a couple of questions regarding this matter and she was helpful, there were a couple of questions asked that she didn’t know the answer to but that was fine because I prefer this honest response to being told things that you can’t honour.
I queried the Sky Sports free for 3 months that Amanda offered to me