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cf.member
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 2
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Mis-selling and general appalling service
I've only been a customer of Virgin Media since 1st Feb. This is frankly the worst organisation I have ever had to deal with. Below is a cut & paste of the body of a complaint letter I sent to them..... it speaks for itself.
I'm not a technical person or pc "guru" but I hope someone could give me some advice as what to do or who to kick up the **** to get something done.
Whether my final "demands" at the end of the letter will be met is another story - however I felt it was worth "pushing my luck" due to the appauling service and awful CSRs I've had to deal with over the last 28 days.
Installation.
On 1st February the engineers arrived to undertake an installation of my telephone line and broadband internet. At face value everything “seemed” to go according to plan, with the broadband being activated with no problems. However on completion of my telephone installation, the engineer allegedly tested the line, confirmed it was working, thanked me and proceeded to leave.
As an afterthought, whilst leaving, he said “Oh, you’ll need your new number for the phone” – at which point he scrawled it illegibly on the cardboard box once holding the hub and left. I then plugged my telephone into the socket (as he had not done it previously), and discovered there was no dial-tone.
Calling Virgin Media revealed that there was some kind of fault and that another engineer would have to be called out to rectify it. On 5th February the 2nd engineer arrived, examined the socket, went outside and came back – telling me that everything was now working. I queried what the issue had been, to which he replied, “the other engineers hadn’t connected it up”. This leads me to ask why the first team of engineers said it was working and connected when it CLEARLY wasn’t.
As an aside, during the installation both of the engineers asked to use my bathroom. However when going to use it some time after they had left, I discovered that one of them had urinated all over my bathroom floor.
Needless to say, I demanded a refund of my £40 installation charge which was credited to my bill. From what I can see, botched installations and a lack of urination control seem to be expected behaviour from your engineers, as the customer services representative I spoke to didn’t even bother to apologise, but instead refunded the charge without question.
Broadband.
As stated previously, the broadband installation proceeded with no issues. However when using it that evening, I began to experience problems.
The first of these issues was the appauling speed when playing either World of Warcraft or the beta test of Rift. To put it simply, the latencies were dire – making both games completely unplayable during peak times/evenings. I later discovered that this was due to your traffic shaping policy with the 20Mb service, and that the data traffic of these games was seen as being P2P traffic and downgraded to a very low speed. Upon checking the internet I discovered seemingly hundreds of your customers who are experiencing the same issues, and a seeming lack of action from anyoneec to rectify the problem. Additionally, when not playing these games, my speeds were dropping to approximately 1-2Mb during peak time (which again was put down to traffic shaping).
After SEVERAL lengthy calls, bouncing between your Indian call centre and various departments, I was eventually put through to your 2nd line support department in Liverpool. During this call it was ascertained that my PC was set up correctly (as was my SuperHub), and that the “fault” lay at the fact I only had a 20Mb service which was “not fit for purpose” due to the fact I play online games. Essentially to obtain any kind of reasonable speed from Virgin Media, it was (strongly) advised that I upgrade to a 50Mb service – which I have now done. The gentleman in 2nd line support advocated your 50Mb service as the “cure all” to my problems and that the extra revenue spent would wow me with blistering speeds and uninterrupted gaming etc.
Unfortunately, I am STILL experiencing very slow speeds at times with your 50Mb service, although less frequently than with the 20Mb one. Last night for example (27th February) between 6.30pm and 10pm the speed of my connection dropped between 1 to 6Mb. Upon calling your technical support department I was told that there were “utilization issues” and was put through to the “50Mb team”. The 50Mb team seemed to comprise of a single Indian gentleman walking around with his cordless telephone with the noise of screaming children in the background. After endlessly repeating over and over that there were “utilization issues” but not explaining what they were, I gave up.
Whilst I appreciate that a PARTIALLY usable service is an upgrade to an unusable one, it is certainly not what I am paying for. I expect to have a consistent advertised speed (within reason) and to be able to use the internet for what I want to use it for i.e. online gaming etc. without being traffic shaped, downgraded or suffer such slow speeds that at times dial-up would probably be faster!
Telephone service.
On my initial contact with the Virgin Media sales team, we discussed the telephone package that would best suit my needs. I made it VERY clear that I would not be a heavy user, although I would be contacting my girlfriend (who is currently working in Denmark) on a daily basis. Whilst the initial “Denmark, that’s in Europe isn’t it?” threw me a little, I confirmed that it was and explained that I would mainly be calling a mobile telephone number with area code 0045.
Your sales colleague instantly jumped to point out that your Talk International service was what I needed and began extolling its virtues. However, I was quick to point out that I had done a little research and that it was in fact much cheaper for me to use my regular 0871 calling card number which only cost a few pence per minute. I asked the sales representative to check the cost of calling this number (which I gave in full – 0871 771 7777) and was put on hold for some time whilst they checked. Upon their return I was told it would be 10p per minute. Based on that fact I opted for the Evening/Weekends service and said I would use my 0871 number to make my calls.
On the 21st February I awoke to find both my phone and broadband had been disconnected as I had exceeded my £120 credit limit set up on the account. It was at that point that I discovered that my 0871 number was actually costing me 19p per minute (nearly double what was quoted). My call usage amount was very high as I had been blissfully unaware that I was paying through the nose and had been given the completely wrong information by your sales team.
Speaking to Credit Control was a frankly unpleasant experience with an abrupt, inflexible and frankly uncaring member of staff who was unwilling to listen to my plight nor complaint. Unwilling to budge an inch I was made to pay my bill there and then (plus an extra amount to prevent this happening on my next bill) to have my services reconnected. To add insult to injury I was also told that my credit limit could and would not be increased for 6 months as I was a “defaulter”.
I decided to go back to the sales team to find an alternative solution and was told Talk800 would be the best choice. After looking at some figures and getting absolute clarity from your member of staff I opted for this package. I was also told that I would have 200 minutes of free calls pro-rated for the month of February (just over 3 hours) and that everything would be fine. Yesterday I checked my phone usage online and to my horror I have been billed for 2 hours of calls. There was no way that in the space of a couple of days I made over the 3 hours of calls I was told I would be receiving for February. Again, yet MORE mis-information.
I am awaiting my March bill with dread, as your internet statement makes no sense whatsoever. I have a feeling that on 4th March I will yet again be disconnected due to exceeding my credit limit due to the ineptitude of your sales team in advising me correctly, and costing me a small fortune. It has got to the point where I am now frightened to use my telephone for fear of what I will be charged.
In summary.
At present I cannot find ONE positive thing to say about Virgin Media. From your sales team with poor product knowledge, your incompetent and incontinent engineers, your slow broadband, unintelligible technical support department, rude billing department and extortionate phone charges, EVERYTHING has been a complete disaster.
Despite expecting a “cut and paste” response filled with platitudes and excuses, I would be pleasantly surprised if someone could look into this catalogue of disasters and provide adequate recompense and workable solutions. If I am to remain a customer of Virgin Media, I expect the following.
1) My broadband issue to be looked into by 2nd line support (at least) and to be contacted by someone from the UK who is suitably qualified to deal with these problems.
2) Substantial compensation/refund in respect of my call charges. (As your phone service announces you monitor and record calls, I am sure you will have no issue in hearing that I was mis-sold the original package and was provided with incorrect information)
3) Some kind of refund or zero-rating of my service charges for a set period (as a gesture of good faith), as Virgin Media have provided me with nothing but inconvenience and trouble since my initial dealings with you.
I look forward to your response.
Last edited by GilmoreI; 28-02-2011 at 12:18.
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