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
I have had the the joy of being a virgin media customer for exactley five weeks, one would think that in such a short space of time and as a very new customer virgin would be pulling out all the stops to impress!!!
so far i have lodged 7 serious complaints regarding thier appaling, rude aggressive, obstructive and unhelpfull customer service and tech support staff, all of these complaints i have been informed are being dealt with internally, yeah right more like logged and filed away!!!
The conduct of thier staff ranges from being very rude and unhelpfull to todays chap who was downright abusive and thought it was aceptable to call me a “C.U.N.T” when i asked to be transfered to his manager because he was shouting at me because i did not understand what he wanted me to do.
I am not technically minded if i knew how to fix the repetd faults with thier e-mail service i would have done so, however i was of the understanding that if you pay for virgins tech support then that is what they are thre for, i understand they may find it frustrating that i am not the tech wizards that they are and may require a little assitence but to shout at me and call me C.U.N.T is taking things a bit far!!!
When i phoned customer services and finally got to speak to somone here in the ukl after being passed to 12 differant people i was told they would log my complaint and deal with it internally.
so i informed them that i will be dealing with my cancelation letter and my complaint to OTELO (telephone watchdog) internally as well!!
five weeks of hell and im glad to be closing my account
want to leave telus/rogers/fido without cancelation fee?? you want to have a cheaper rate plan?
want more detail email me at serge.purtell@bell.ca
I echo all the previous comments. VM are SHIT. I have been without a landline now for 4 weeks. Twice I have arranged to be home for an engineer – it will be of no surprise to hear that the engineer didn’t show up. I even got a text from VM on Friday confirming the the engineer will arrive between 8-12 yesterday Huh!
Its obvious from all the previous comments VM don’t give a damn.
I wouldn’t advocate breaking the law but if you want to get your money’s worth you may want to consider getting one of Eurovox set top boxes. I don’t have one myself, but I’ve heard good reports – you can also get BB access with it.
and so it goes on. Latest being tv reception from set top box continually freezing—having paid for Sky 1 for Ashes!!! Engineer replaces box and guess what? still freezing. India as you say is hopeless just say ‘youll have to wait till we call our faults department’ what are you then??? Also email connections constantly going down – now second day of latest issue and still no idea when will be fixed.
Just wanted to join the VM bashing. I made the mistake of changing from BT to VM, and after 2 weeks of basically the worst type of 56k connection (supposed to be upto 8mbs!) and customer sevice, I told them to shove it and switched back. Now their trying to destroy my credit report by chasing me for £196! Oh Virgin, do you not realise how many people have already received an email from me regarding your behaviour?
It used to be a customer told of a bad experience to 9 or so other people. Now with the internet, we can make that thousands.
I too think that Virgin media are “shite”, piss poor customer care, and will lie to you so that you pay more to resolve complaints, as they did with me, I am happy with my HD XL Tv/Phone, although my HD Tv box keeps freezing up, but the 20MB service I upgraded to because I was being throttled by 75%, “fair use”, traffic management, its just an excuse to provide less than a 100% shit service, and they still expect you to pay 100% of a 25% service, not any more, I will not be throttled any more, it will stop or I leave, by the way they also advised me to upgrade yet again to the 50MB service, that does’nt get throttled they said, I will not beleive a single word from Virgin Media ever again, and my advice to any unfortunate fool who is thinking of taking a service of any kind with Virgin Media is avoid it like the plague, and also avoid all of Richard Bransons other companies, Virgin Media is HIS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DO NOT CHOOSE VIRGIN MEDIA…
IT’S FUCKING CRAP….
ESPECIALLY THE BROADBAND BECAUSE IT JUST FUCKS UP AND THEY WILL CHARGE YOU A HUGE BIG AMOUT OF MONEY ON YOUR TELEPHONE BILL BECAUSE I AM SURE YOU WILL CALL THE HELPLINE NUMBER ABOUT 500000 TIMES….. WHICH COSTS A LOT OF MONEY….
VIRGIN MEDIA IS FUCKING SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!
OMY, thanks a lot for sharing this. I am almost crying for my terrible experience with Virgin Media. This company is really a nightmare!!!!!
Yeah, they are billing me for two months after i moved out of my house, although while i was in it the connection was despicably slow …..
Really, really such a bad company with non-existent customer service …. I can’t believe they fuck over so many people yet still thrive!!? That’s marketing for you!
Fuck virgin media!
:-(
The interesting thing is that I can’t even get them to come and install what I need. Now after reading this I am seeing the light!
It has cost me over £50 pounds in calling credit being passed from person to person. They have not turned up to install what they promised. There is no other way to get hold… forget it, I won’t waste more of my precious time on this. Will choose another provider. The irony is that I work for a Virgin company!
I also have had the worst experiences of Virgin Media broadband, countless, and I mean COUNTLESS phonecalls- promises of a technician who never arrived, call backs which never happened. I am at my wits end as to how to resolve this and get back online- they have offered me a months ‘free’ internet which is laughable as I’ve been offline for almost a MONTH!
Awful customer service and technical service. They really need to sort themselves out.
WOW! I have had nothing but problems with this fucked up fucking cunt company!!! You can’t re-activate your phone from the phone, the online re-activate/top up doesn’t work either, if you call the 800 number or any number you get the passive aggressive fucked up Phillipines who play a “Who’s on 3rd?” game with you with no cultural ability to actually answer a question. All they do is keep saying yes, i understand or yes, thank you, ok.. It’s like that character on Mad TV played by what’s his name asian guy who imitates the crazy mechanic who refuses to answer a question with any coherent or relevant response. They once charged me twice and fucked up my bank account resulting in bank charges and it took me 2 HOURS on the phone, first with God know who before I had to INSIST on a Supervisor who finally acted like an American company representative and understood and credited me back one free month for damages. WHAT I HAD TO GO THROUGH TO GET THAT IS A MOVIE IN ITSELF!!!! I use their cell phones… 2!!!! We loyally fly their airline… You would think they would give a damn. I am about to go directly to their head corporate office on behalf of all of us and do a short film on it. Where is Heraldo Rivera when you need him? I HATE YOU VIRGIN MOBILE!!!!!
omg i tell u what if anyone knows of a way to sue them help me please ……… shit crap ballocks thats what virgin is
After 2 hours on the phone of getting re-directed they said “We will put you through to someone else” (bearing in mind this is like the 15th time) and when i am on hold they cut me off, so going to look now for a better ISP Virgin really are a no go.
I had to endure mmmmbop and 2 other songs for 2 hours when i went to get mine. Now they have the nerve to throttle my conneciton on their so called unlimited broadband….what a wank…. so yeah i feel your pain. Im still waiting for my phone to arrive and its been 2 months…..fuck sake
I have just left Virgin Media after several problems with them and having to take them to the Ombudsman with no success. They lie, harass and get away with it. I was with Virgin broadband and moved house and they still charged me for my old service even though they changed me to cable at my new house so I was effectively being charged for two services!!!!! They say a direct debit failed when it didn’t – I have the proof in my bank statement, they ignore letters unless they are recorded delivery – absolute nightmare. DON’T GO WITH VIRGIN MEDIA WHATEVER.
Virgin Media Fukin parasites, lost my job phoned and asked for a lower package,after been passed around like present at a kid’s pass the parcel game ,they told me it was’t possible ? , so i told them cancle my contract,send a final bill with there cancellation costs, they sent a bill ordering me to pay over 300 pounds in full within 7 days . i constantly phoned them saying that’s not possible and could i pay in installments, i thought 40 pound’s a month was reasonable amount due to my circumstance’s,they replied saying they wanted 50 pound aweek,considering JSA is only 65 aweek… Now 2months later of constent arguments they have handed it to debt collection servises . not sure where i stand , i thought if you offer a reasonable offer they normallay had to except. WHAT A BUNCH OF RIP-OFF UNFRIENDLY WANKERS VIRGIN ARE AND HOPE THEY DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH :p
Call Virgin on: 0161 296 2985 and ask for James Mitchell. It is priority CS number! I got number from Clare in Chief Executive Office. In my opinion the majority of them are f*****s however James, Penny Patchett, Tim Ward or CEO Neil Berkett neil.berkett@virginmedia.co.uk will resolve any issue within Virgin.
***NB: IF NUMBER ABOVE DOESN’T WORK, TIM WARDS DIRECT DIAL IS 0161 296 2644***
Emails:
james.mitchell@virginmedia.co.uk
penny.patchett@virginmedia.co.uk
tim.ward@virginmedia.co.uk
Hope that this helps. email me 2 get brief on lies from them.
my expirence with virgin media.
called them in oct 2009 as a new customer, was promised a great deal with 3 months free (tv broadband).
they sent me a letter asking for £100 deposit after already agreeing an instalation date. set up direct debit in with girlfriends bank account.
when they arrived to set up they had a v+ hd box which i didnt ask for. i was then sent a letter asking for an additional £50 for the box, i told them i didnt want it and i want it collected and a standard box installed. they said i already opened it so i cant do that, i said that there install guys opened the box, but that didnt matter. anyway, i paid.
first months bill arrived…..
£50 for a v+box (i already paid for)
£25 broadband (supposed to be free for 3 months)
£23 tv (supposed to be free for 3 months)
£11 line rental
£20 call charges
£30 instalation fee (was a free instalation offer)
-£13 for bundle
i called them and they said = they never heard of a 3 month 3 offer, i was being charged for a installation fee because its not the package with free installation because of the v+hd box (that i didnt ask for).
i argued it out and got the free instalation, free broadband free tv and didnt have to pay for the v+box AGAIN.
2 days later i recieved another bill. asking for cost of services and instalation fee
£25 tv
£23 broadband
£30 instalation fee
when i spoke to them they claimed the statment was incorrect and infact i needed to pay for 2 months worth of services in the first bill which i was apparently informed of. i was not and argued it out and they withdrew the bill.
2nd month bill =
£25 tv
£23 broadband
£11 line rental
£50 v+ hd box
£29 call charges
+
last monthe bill brought forward!!!
WTF!
anyway, sorted that.. again same issue, they never heard of 3 months free, then they did all of a sudden. they agreed i already paid last months bill and v+ box.
3 months bill.
£25 tv
£23 broadband
£11 line rental
£29 call (amazingly exactly the same amount as last month!)
+ last months bill brought forward
+ the preveous months bill brought forward!!
WTF again.
when i called, there only response was they had never recieved any payments off me!! ever! i was amazed.
it turned out they were trying to take the direct debit from my girlfriends account IN MY NAME!! the very kind lady understood there error and sain i had 10 days to bring account up to date before services were affected. cool.
2 days later….
no tv services, no broadband, no phone. (christmas eve)
… so i called .. again.
apparently it didnt mater what they said before, i couldnt have my services because i went over a certain amount.. then said this was because this months bill had been sent out and was added to my account bring the arears up to the limit. they did not give a crap that this was there fault. i simply paid at least £90 on christmas eve of i had no services.
oh, and apparently the bill im going to recieve if for £86 for the month of december (not including the brought forward amounts).
apparently im being charged for the free tv and broadband again and amazingly the call charges are (drum role) £29 again.
HAPPY BLOODY XMAS U SKANKING TWATS AT VIRGIN MEDIA, I HOPE YOUR TURKEY GIVES YOU THE SHITS TILL NEW YEAR.
virgin media are the biggest arse holes in the world
i had so much shit from them its unreal i hate them
lets start they use to cut me off had no broadband no phone over a day late payment and that was high i swear this company is robbing its customers what a shitty nasty scam
i never recomend this load of stinking shit company
when i phoned up the customer services the dick head i was speaking to was horrible he told me i am a security risk and should look else where for broadband and phone .
The shit bags are the Most crappiest Rip of merchants I have ever joined !!!
You Have to pay for their cut offs Around £10.00 They fucking robbed me! Accusing me of using my services to much Cutting me off and putting me back on it caused so much trouble! I Highly DO NOT recommend this service!!! Dont join the robbers they are the biggest shit bags in the whole fucking world ! I hope people take a look at the number of complaints on here all mostly simular to mine and make Virgin Bloody Media Go down in history and drop dead! Fuck you shit bag Virgin Bloody media You Virgins Hense the name! You bunch of scammers. Im really glad now I have joined with a Much better company with more higher standards Virgin media is the reason why we were born with middle fingers. I swear one day I will get someone to investigate virgin media and their big scam And i bet you they will find something !
So Go Suck an arse you cunt of a company!
Dont you dare try and rob me ever again !
OMG THEY ARE THE WORST COMPANY IN THE WORLD DO NOT USE THEM IF YOU ARE THINKING OF IT! If you have any problem.. and i mean any problem you cannot go into one of their shops.. oh no! You have to phone them WHICH COSTS A FORTUNE .. wait on hold for no less than 30 minutes!! Talk to one of their staff who are all idiots who hung up on me again and again and again! MY PHONE BILL CAME TO £70! When i complained they said to me.. yeah we dont care!! DONT USE THEM DO NOT USE THEM IF YOU NOT STUPID YOU WILL GO SOMEWHERE ELSE! After this year contract with them is finished i wouldnt look at a brochure of them twice, not for t.v. not for makeup and not for flights or what ever else bull shit they scam you into using! THEY ARE SHIT!
John, I have read your post regarding “virgin media really sucks”
I was wondering if you enlighten me to the lies that have told you regarding you service, as I have also been in contact with them and am wondering if they are just feeding me lies to!
Many thanks
Emily
Virgin Media service is the most inept and non-customer facing I have ever come across. I have been without TV, Phone and Broadband for five weeks and was scheduled to get re-connected (“it needs a re-pull, sir”) this Thursday. This was the fourth re-schedule, due to every conceivable excuse in the book. I was then called today to say that the work will be completed by 16 Feb and that they could not guarantee an actual date. I called the magic 01256 752000 complaints department and after a short discussion with a lady called Jill, was informed that “hopefully” it would be done this Sunday, 31 January – more than six weeks after the service failiure. I said that enough was enough and that I was going to get TV, broadband and phone services elsewhere. She then stated that I would be liable for early contract termination charges – would you believe it? They're going to charge me for disconnecting a service that doesn't exist. Pah! If you read this, please please don't sign a Virgin Media contract – you'll live to regret it
I was once told by Virgin Media that the reason why I had no internet connection was that my account was 'pending disconnection'. It was true that I was trying to change ISP- but the girl from the call centre actually said that there would be a three-four week period when I could receive no internet from any provider- I was in a kind of limbo period between suppliers.
This turned out to be total bollocks; a Virgin tech support guy I eventually got through to sorted the original problem out there and then.
A month later I had disconnected from Virgin and joined O2 (pretty good). But- get this- Virgin were STILL charging me for broadband, since (they claimed) O2 hadn't used the MAC code yet. This was absolute crap: O2 had been supplying internet for over a month at this point. Virgin were trying to charge me for a service I was not receiving!
I don't think I need to tell readers of this forum how long I had to wait on the phone, or how many different agents I had to speak to to get these nuggets of info!
I honestly have never known such a bad service, if your thinking of joining Virgin, please heed this ……DONT DO IT!……..
Fool.
i think virgin media has the most annoying and usless customer service i have ever known they really really are frustratingly annoying
Who0peee' phuckin' doo!!!
finally got away from vermin,, errm, i mean virgin.
12 months of torture, crappy customer service & an unstable broadband connection. all this for £20 p/m !!…NEVER AGAIN!
i will never sign up to anything from Virgin ever again, i would rather stick needles in my eye's.
All I have got to say is have a look at this forum:
http://virginmediacomplaints.co.uk/forum/viewto…
Or this facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6272083092
Nothing like jumping on a bandwagon when one is available. ;)
I have had nothing but trouble from Virginmedia and their broadband. I also was with them in a previous house when they were NTL and I'm thinking that 90% of their “Curtious” staff are the same.
I pay £27 a month for 10mb broadband and their telephone service.
The wireless bundle arrived and I had to set it up myself. No worries as I am fairly savvy with computers and networks. I did have to connect the cable outside though as someone had cut it off.
I also got their welcome package. So far so good all looked fairly good.
Then I moved into the house and tried using my 10mb package.
No matter how many ways i tested, re-cabled, moved router, computer or connected straight to the modem I never got more then 1mb speed.
That I can live with but when it was running at 4kb for 2 days I thought I would call them.
Ha, Ha, Ha!!!
I never bought a home phone for my house as Virgin never issued me with a phone number so I rang them on my mobile. :(
Same spiel as below comments. 20 mins wait, passed to half wit, all Virgin media customers are morons type call centre person.
Told to do all the stuff I had already done and go onto a broadband speed test. DOH!!!
4kb of broadband speed and this person wants me to go on a 1mb page. Well 10 mins of listening to her talk to her mates in the call centre she asked what it says.
My aswer was simple “The page hasn't loaded yet”
“Ok” was her reply.
Some key tapping later and she told me
“No fault has been reported in my area” re-boot the modem and she will ring me back in 20 mins.
No return call.
I went to work and tried again the next day. Speed being just as slow.
Same 20 min wait. Same, you virgin media customers are all Moron attitudinal call centre worker.
He ran me through all the same re-boot this, re-boot that routine. No fault in your area reported blah blah blah.
So out of curiosity when he said that I should leave the modem off for 20 mins and then try. I asked if I could have my Virgin phone number so I could save my mobile bill mounting up.
He dropped me into a 15 minute queue.
I got another equally as useful person who said
“We can't give you your number Sir. I will put you through to someone who can”.
Another 20 mins…
“Sorry Sir we can't issue you your phone number. Just dial this number blah blah blah”
So I hung up.
Dissapointed that although I pay for Virgin phone service they won't give me my own number that is already connected.
Yes I know I could plug a phone in and find out but I'm stubborn and won't buy a new phone to find out my own number so I can give it to other people so they can ring me. They know my mobile number so I left it at that.
Never did find out what my number was.
So anyway I tried my internet again and find I have now upped my speed to 100kb so now I am twice as fast as dial up on my 10mb connection. :( and :) at the same time.
I phoned Virgin again the next day and get told there has been a fault recorded in my area and an engineer has already been sent out to rectify the fault.
This is 3 days later and 3 phone calls from me.
What if no-one else rang virgin to tell them their connection was slow?
Would I have EVER got my problem addressed?
Well this has happened several times more and I haven't even bothered complaining as it's too much trouble.
Instead I have cancelled my broadband and phone from them but this could be the start of another problem as they were supposed to have sent out a final bill and as yet I have had nothing.
So in summary of my waffle.
If you think your service is going to be 100% “ALL” of the time and you are 100% sure that you will “NOT” need to change your package, upgrade your broadband speed, add HD or anthing at all then go ahead and use Virgin media
If how-ever you live in the UK and are well aware we like to change our minds. And services occasionally “DO” go wrong.
S-T-A-Y A-W-A-Y F-R-O-M V-I-R-G-I-N M-E-D-I-A!!!!!!!
Their Help-Centres, Call centres and customer relations are not to put to finer point on it….CRAP!!!
I was told by the cancellation bloke that 8 million people are very happy with their Virgin Media services. Yeah well I don't believe they have had the pleasure of dealing with Virgins call centres….YET!!!
it's 2010 and virgin media have shot rapidly down into the gutter of customer service. i'm still drowning in tears of virgin-induced fury after this afternoon's ordeal (virgin suddenly cut off my phone/broadband because allegedly someone ELSE is apparently hacking into it — THEIR solution is to simply cut the service. it's therefore up to ME to sort out the problem. WHAT!?!?!?), so I am unable to elaborate any further on the past 9 months of virtually uninterrupted and absolutely unrivalled CS hell on earth. worse even than BT & royal mail combined. is there any means through which these bastards can be reported??
910pm on July 19th 2010:
No Broadband connection
First after a 10 minute queue I had to wait a further 5 minutes before the first agent in india I was connected to realised he had a call in
progress and endeavoured to pick up his heasdset.
I screamed & whistled down the phone get his attention but to no avail
this was now around 925pm.
his understanding of the english language was poor, and couldnt even understand english-spoken numbers of my telephone number. I resisted the temptation to tap the phone 1 click for 1; 5 clicks for ‘5’; 10 clicks for 0, but actually that’d
have worked, reflecting back.
After 5 failed attempts to understand me (I work in a call centre myself so my speach is not a problem, people can understand me, including French and Russian native speakers) He actually gave up and terminated the call. Doing this
will get his Calls Per Hour up to 12, but does nothing in terms of his employment contract.
I called a second time, and spoke to an Indian female advisor, I cannot recall her name, but after several minutes diagnosis and a very significant language barrier, which added to the complication, she even tried to talk me through the control panel
setting as the menu follows on windows XP… except my system is VISTA as she confirmed at the start of the call.
Eventually she decided software on my machine must be missing, or disappeared randomly and told to call Digital home support in Glasgow.
This was despite my BSc Hons in Computing knowledge and explaining to her that I felt it was the Ethernet connection hardware fault on the modem. It was insulting, as she spoke down to me like I was thick or something, and I would
compare her mentallity to an infant telling an Olympic Champion runner how to take his first steps.
On calling DHS Glasgow, I was setup on one-off fault repair or no charge service support Sale by Fiona, and Billy went thru extensive troubleshooting including resetting internet settings. This didnt work, and we tried a new etherlink network cable. Eventually we both realised I was correct all along and the ethernet socket on the modem was faulty. It is now 1104pm and I’ve wasted 2
hours of my time. He put me throught to India again so they’d do their job this time..
Surprisingly, the same female indian woman I spoke to earlier (OMfG..I thought) was allocated to book my new modem, but at the very start of the call she asked me to wait one moment.
5 further minutes of silence, and she briefly came on to
say she was doing something (I wondered if she might be making her dinner during this time as by this point I realised I’d yet to have mine)
a further 2 minutes and she then said she was sending a new modem by post. I exclaimed that I had now been over two hours on the phone to get what I knew all along, a hardware fault.
She responded that she can put £7 credit on my account She then upped this offer to £10 for ‘loss of service’. 1 weeks
service interuption isn’t unreasonable for £10, but I dont have any other forms of access.
This shoestring budget policy of outsourcing to 3rd world countries to save a Ruppee / Baht or two is not working for virgin media or its customers.
The Staff are more interested in targets and their calls per hour than the issues underlying. I would further explain that the
2nd language non-native English speakers are Haughty, big headed, and not willing to listen to your customers, and it certainly is inappropriate the way the talk right over you, and wont listen whilst reading at you from their scripts.
Two hours on the phone to deal with someone that clearly had no customer service or technical skills whatsoever, that cant understand a basic understanding of the English language and needs 5 minute breaks before the start of each call, and on top just wont listen, and you have to shout over them to make them stop and allow you to finish saying what you’ve started saying.
I cannot say that over 2 hours of my time dealing with this is reasonable, VM staff in India need to take responsibility, as this is going to be given very harsh media coverage, and I will be reporting this to the regulators.
check out the number of complaints on
user complaints about virgin media broadband
complaints on virgin services
Virginia Media Sucks I have just left them after being told taht they wouldnt be able to install the tv and phone line for 4 weeks after I have moved, so I cancelled and then they ahve the cheek to send me a bill for £60 and says its an early cancellation fee because I hadnt given the correct 30 day notice.
I have refused to pay it as the reason I cancelled was they couldnt provide me with any service. I shall wait and see what happens from here but there is noway they are getting anymore money from me!!!
Virgin Media is the worst internet service provider EVER Virgin Media Complaints Phone Numbers
I had similar problems with Virgin Media too. Useless communications and incorrect information followed by unfair disconnection fees. I’m even now paying £11 per month for a phone service I don’t use as they couldn’t transfer my number |(they didn’t tell me until I was signed up!) and I had to keep my old supplier. Don’t go there I’d say! P
i also was promised a £30 a month offer which turned out to be £45 a month, called a few times and got it down to £41 a month, only £11 more expensive than i was promised. Now after the long crap year puuting up with virgin medias terrible service I hvave went to cancel it and havent given 30 days notice, so I have to pay a further £41 for this month. I have requested call backs from supervisers but of course no call backs. So 1 year on I will only have to pay £173 more for my 12month service than I had expected, and thats not including all the call credit I have wasted calling the thiefs. The company is a robbery and something needs to be done, this company needs to be taken down our it will continue to rob people of there hard earned cash!!!
This company are a bunch of thieves… we were customers for 12years or more, you would think they’d treat us well but we realised we were getting ripped off. When we threatened to leave they gave us a better deal. Now we have moved house and they can’t give us TV with have canceled but they have hit us with a £172 charge!!! They say we are breaking their 12month contract (news to us). The one they say we took out when we got the better deal!!! Rang customer service (so called!) and got shrill sounding lady who basically said see you in court if you don’t pay. Be warned, go somewhere else!
We changed suppliers to Virgin Media when we moved house 2 weeks ago, Virgin Media ported our telephone number of 22 years to use in the new service. We waited for installation without internet, TV or landline only to be told a day before the installation date booked of 6th October that Virgin Media could not provide us with the service because of technical issues. Virgin Media also advised us that our telephone number had been cancelled by the engineer. We have been given no satisfactory explanation as to what these technical issues are but it appears from what we have been told that there is a problem in some junction point on our road that they cannot be bothered to fix. I am furious that a) their customer services people are hopeless and hostile, b) we have been put through the ordeal of switching from reliable suppliers to a supplier whose service never materialised with no good explanation and c) that Virgin has just ‘lost’ our telephone number and we cannot get it back. To add insult to injury, this morning Virgin Media did a junk mail door drop to our entire street, including our house, with a letter claiming that ‘Your V + HD Box has been paid for and is ready for delivery’ – and it says (I quote) “switching’s simple, as your street’s already connected to our fibre optic network all you have to do is give us a call. We’ll arrange a time for an engineer to pop round and install everything and show you how it all works. And yes, you can usually keep th same phone number, we’ll even call BT and sort it out for you.” This letter was quite clearly full of out and out lies, our street is NOT connected (or at least not in such a way that Virgin Media’s service works) and they do not sort out retention of people’s phone numbers, they just ensure you lose your phone number!. I am disgusted and have been badly inconvenienced by the terrible service and the lack of comms facilities my family are presently having to deal with because of Virgin Media. The family who bought our house also went with Virgin Media – their experience has been near identical! Virgin are vexatious, junk mailing time-wasters.
I recently left virgin media and was told my services would be cancelled on the 27th october 2010 the phonecall was made on the 9th sepetember and they sent me a bin bag! to send there equipment back my phone and broadband were then disconnected on the 12th september and they still sending me bills for unused services and also two letters one telling me i was 110 pound in credit in october and miracuously and recently telling me i was 22pound in credit considering i didnt have any services i would like to know where the balance went they are the worst company there phone staf are idiots and I JUST GLAD TO BE RID OF THE MONEY GRABBING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! POLTE VERSION
Interesting stuff! Have to say, every time I’ve had to phone up Virgin, I’ve got straight through and they’ve always been courteous and polite – maybe they’ve had some ‘one-to-one customer interface scenario’ training – or perhaps their monkeys are just better trained now. Needless to say my problem – utterly dire picture on my V+ box (Fibre Optics? Fibre Bollocks more like!) – has yet to be rectified after 4 months and at least 4 engineers (sterling fellows who have gallantly tried to sort the problem out). As much as I hate the idea – I think I’m going to have to give my money to Rupert Murdoch and get Sky (which, on principal, I didn’t want). Have got their head teccy weccy guy for the area coming round to look at my box and see what he thinks. I’m not holding my breath.
We were due to switch to a VM Broadband/Phone/TV package yesterday but there is a technical issue which prevented it happening and thanks to reading all of these comments we have hopefully terminated the whole process.
It started well enough with a very helpful salesman at the Manchester Call Center who steered my wife through the whole process. There were 2 issues that we were concerned about, firstly the point of access to the site for the cable which we wanted at the rear of the house rather than the front and secondly because we are able to feed the existing system through the house to 6 TVs we wanted to be certain this would be possible with VM . No problem said the salesman and he set up a pre-installation visit on Nov 23rd to ensure that our 2 concerns could be addressed.
Half an hour before the end of the window that the visit was scheduled for we rang to check the position as I had taken the day off work for the appontment. I was held on the phone for 18 minutes befor eventually getting through and was told that the engineer would be coming and that the supervisor would ring in the next half hour to confirm the time that they would be here- Unsurprisingly there was no call and after 3 hours I rang the number I had been given in order to find out what was happening and found that they were closed.
I rang customer services, was placed in a queue and after nine minutes got through and was told that they had kept the on the computer it was recorded that the survey had been undertaken, and that everything was ok! I told them that it wasn’t because the whole point of the pre-inspection was so that we could be satisfied on the 2 issues before proceeding. I was surprised and told them It wasn’t satisfactory and that I wasn’t happy proceeding the result was that he then recorded a complaint by me and gave me a reference number, then after further comments he gave me a further complaint reference and told me I should be contacted by there complaints team within 24 hours!!
24 hours later there was no contact so my wife got in touch to see what the plans were in respect of the proposed installation date of the 30th November. The person agreed that a visit was necessary, didn’t understand why we hadn’t been contacted and re-scheduled the pre installation visit for 26th November. A charming guy arrived, discussed my concerns and resolved them both. He didn’t understand why the previous meeting hadn’t been kept , agreed my access point and confirmed that the right box would be provided to enable the signal to reach all rooms.
Installation day -1 !! we noticed two people working in the front garden. They hadn’t spoken to us but when I went out they confirmed they were from VM. I told them they were in the wrong pace and that the access was to be 30 yards from where they were putting the access point. I took them to the agreed point and left them whilst I tried to phone VM. was kept waiting again for 15 minutes and by then the installation team had left but had ignored the request to put the connector in the agreed place. We spoke to VM and they said the best thing to do was go ahead with the installation but to make sure access was in the correct place.
Installation day and the engineer who did the successful survey arrived and could not understand why the access was in the wrong position as all the notes confirmed where it should be. He had called his supervisor and after about 30 minutes he came to the door and told me he had been onto the sub-contractors who said that they had provided the access in the correct place for the property and would nopt move it . I told him that this was totally unacceptable, that all of their notes showed that the installation had to be at the back of the property and it needed to be put right. He told me he had my number and would srt it out for me and let me know what was happening. We are now 36 hours on and I have had n contact from anybody so can only assume that the downright incompetence of the VM team has meant that we will not have to endure the frustrations so many of you have experienced. Its a shame really because a couple of the team really seemed good . But the vast majority of the people I have spoken to are just unhelpful and disinterested.