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
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 on 21st March 2008 saying that this had never been applied to my account and she read the notes on the screen informing me that it was only one month free and nothing had been done about it!
Please feel free to check all the records on my account and see all the problems I have had with Virgin Media. I have been researching other offers available from various companies and, believe me; I can get a much better deal than £58 per month.
Therefore, in conclusion, I insist that you honour the original offer of £39 per month for my services, backdate this to my original conversation date of 7th March 2007 (to be refunded by a cheque payment, not discounted off the bill!) and also give me the 3 free months of Sky Sports otherwise you will leave me no alternative but to take further action.
I trust this matter can be resolved within the next 7 days to my satisfaction so that we can continue as before.
Also, I wish to claim back all late payment fees since this date as I feel they are unlawful and unfair. This is partly because I would have set up a direct debit for payments if Virgin Media had not caused all the problems in the first place.
I look forward to hearing from you within the next seven days otherwise, as previously stated; I will take this matter as far as is needed to be re-imbursed for your errors.
I am absolutely disgusted with the way I am being treated by you and I suggest that staff know what they are talking about before they are allowed to deal with the public as they are not giving Virgin Media a very good image in my opinion (and also in discussion with friends and family, who also have had problems with you too).
Please be assured that I will pursue this matter as far as it needs to go and am seeking further advice.
hi i only recieve virgin broadband. in jan this year i rang them up and changed my package from xl- l as i couldnt afford the bill.
all was fine for a month then i stoped gettin my bills (not sure why) and i have finally recived a bill after about 4 months they have changed my package bck to xl. WHY so i ring them up and they have told me they have put it bck on XL because i have fallen behind on payments how gay is this and has any1 else had this problem with them. is there anyway that i can say i dont owe this this is there mistake. im sure that in reality they cannot change my package without asking but need bit of advice
plz say sum1 else has recieved this problem and how did u sort it
Oh my God, the worst company I ever apply with!
I’ve been already one week without phone line and internet becuase someone moved in the flat below and the swap cable, basicly they unpluged me and plug the new guys downstairs. Now I need to wait to add all the cable again. Oh GOD
NEVER APPLY FOR VIRGIN
I have nothing good to say about virgin media. we ordered our package (phone,broadband and free tv), and was suppoed to have this all installed on the 20th of may 2008. the only thing that is working is the tv. Someone was supposed to to come out on the 30th may, to do the broadband and they did not turn up and our phone is supposed to be installed on the 7th june. How can they get away with advertising excellent customer service (which is not what myself and many many other have experienced) from someone reading a script down the phone to you. I intend to use my position as a marketing manager to deter anyone i know and meet from joining up with virgin media. I am also cancelling my contract to find another provider.
I can’t beleive still legal
I got crazy with them, as i could not upload anyvideo on my site because the server was going off all the time
dont recomend it, at all
FREE VIRGIN TV, BROADBAND AND PHONE £15 a month!
Well no, the TV is just the same as Freeview (+2 shite virgin channels), the broadband to get any decent speed/amount is £18 a month, the phone-you can’t keep your number unless you’re on BT before, and I’m paying a FORTUNE through bills which arrive randomly.
I WOULD NEVER FLY VIRGIN after this experience.
We had problems with NTL long before the name change to Virgin Media.
We had our account with them for tv/phone/internet for almost 2 1/2 years, and were happy enough with the service when it was all working properly.
Anytime we had to contact NTL / Virgin Media to report a fault or make changes to our account, we were disappointed with what passed for customer service. Virgin Media’s greatest weakness is their inability or unwillingness to treat their customers properly.
It almost seems that they WANT to make things worse for customers before they make them better.
There’s no way we’d ever go back to Virgin Media. Some lessons don’t need to be learned twice.
I am so happy to have found this site! I am so naffed off with VM. I am moving home soon and called the number. I spoke to a vey nice young man who gave me bad news twice. I am Team Leader for a government office so understand these guys are getting shit all day every day. The lad adised me my new property was in a BT area and VM could not provide the XL package I was used to. The XL package isn’t cheap on average £70 plus quid pcm. He offered me a freeview box (My TV has this already) a phonepackage and 8mb internet service allfor £19-99. The phone service he qouted was all inclusive….It bloody isn’t had this shit b4! The young man also told me the 8MB was not guaranteed, he also went on to tell me I wold have to get on the phone to BT to tell them I wa haing VM in my new huse. He calmly stated there probs be a charge…..I said I feel like I am being offered Smart Price goods when I have had Heinz for so ong so he said well you can disconnect….Popped me on hold n told me I wuld have to pay£270 to disconnect……..Early disconnection fees. I was mortified..VM can’t give
me what I want nstill want to rip my eye out…I have written a letter of complaint and got a call from some 17 year old jumped up git!! He made my blood BOIL…. He was reading from a scipt, parrott like fashion…..Still having to pay £200
hi i had virgin v+ box but couldnt get hi deff they said my tv was faulty it wasnt there boxes were it took them 6 months and 8 boxes before they figured out that it was there fault i asked for compo on my bill as i never watched the tv properly they didnt want to no very dissapointed with them wouldny recommend them to my worst enemy
Here is my 8am-6pm story with Virgin
30/May/2008
I paid the installation fee £30 for and made an appointment at 6th of July
06/July/2008
One of the Virgin man turned up he said he can not installed it because there is no outside cable connection to the building and made another appointment at 24/July/2008
24/July/2008
This time two man turned up and installed outside cable connection and went away. For inside installation I wait until 6pm no one turned up and went to work. At 7pm they came but I was not at home.
25/July/2008
I called Virgin Media about what happened yesterday. They try to book me for 25/July/2008. I don’t know what’s going to happen next
They don’t work properly.
They did not do proper survey in our building.
They waste my/their time and money.
No logical explanation what so ever…
Good luck anyone who is going to join them
,
When we were with VIrgin Media, we stumbled upon a site called Cable Forum (www.cableforum.co.uk) as we were looking for help with our VM services.
Although officially not affiliated with Virgin Media, the site admins seem to have some high-level contacts within VM who assist forum members cut through some of the red tape the company is so very fond of using.
Having received assistance from that site myself, I would recommend it to anyone else at their wit’s end with VM!
have read all comments re VM and its like holding ALL my letters against a mirror!
i am currently in dispute with them ( 15 Months) trying to not pay an outstanding bill with VM because of the damage they caused when installing their shitty package, the installation guy cut through my terrestrial TV cable that was feeding the whole house…have since had to go and buy more cable , rip up floorboards, re route cable etc the list goes on, still nobody from VM has been to see the results of their so called engineer, who left me me a load of cable and told me to set up broadband myself ??? another story!
I have been passed from pillar to post but cant get any sense from anybody cant get past sales, I WANT MANAGEMENT ! fat chance ! i have now been passed on to VM debt collection dept, I’ll fight them as well !
NTL were bad but not as bad as VM , who are the biggest bullshitters in the WORLD , Richard Branson should save all his hot air that comes out of his mouth for his balloon , he might fly a bit further this time ? preferably straight up!
Virgin Media are useless – how to summarise?
Having had numerous petty problems with them, since subscribing in 2006, I thought I was aware of the nature of the beast.
I was wrong.
Last weekend, saw 2 VM vans and 3 engineers in my street. Didn’t think much of it at the time (apart from bein annoyed that they were swearing like scum as I walked past them with my young sons).
Later the same day my partner called me on my mobile from home…at that point became apparent VM had switched out number.
Very, very long and depressing series of phone calls ensued to VM to try to sort this out. I’m sure VM customers willbe aware of exactly how bad their service is.
My main points: 1) call centre staff are not trained and follow a script, without ay room at all to diverge from this. 2) there is no means of properly escalating a call to anyone with the abillity to resolve an issue 3) they don’t seem to take call notes…so you have to explain problem very, very may times to the equally clueless people you are inevitably transferred to on each call. 4) call centre staff in India are so constrained by their script, you might as well hang up as soon as yr put through to them. 5) No accountability – VM do not give a flying f@ck for their customers. 6) I am desparate to leave their crap service….only 30 days to go.
Branson – you are a c@nt.
Please, please , please, anyone thinking of Virgin Media as a service provider , think twice before signing up to this appalling company. Like many on this forum, my household was signed up to NTL who we thought were pretty bad at times, but kept with them due to I admit “apathy.”
Since Virgin took over we not only have we lost the programs we enjoyed from Sky, we are constantly losing service due to “maintenance” of the system in our area for sometimes days on end while still paying for the service.
After the last complaint of many, and about to change provider, we were promised a better package at no extra cost to a faster broadband, larger t.v. package and one months free payment due to the loss of income a stress while waiting around for two separate incompetent engineers , until a visit from a senior engineer fixed the problem on the T.V. side of the package which was down for ten days.
The man from the Bellshill center in Scotland seemed concerned and apologetic and we thought that finally we had some sort of recompense for the trouble that we had been through.
This week we received our email bill which was more than double the amount that we had previously paid due to the addition of an “extra” Broadband package, no larger T.V. package as promised and no one month credit .
On re-contacting the person (with a bit of trouble) as whatever call center you get through the 150 number, will not give the surname of the person, he went over the bill and corrected it (wrongly) and again promised that the Internet broadband will be active the next day. One has to pray that you do not get the Asian centre which is full of women who listen to your problem and seem to read an apology off a company card and then fob you off.
Over the next few days we are going to look around for another provider, surely no other company can be as bad as Virgin Media (or can they).