swan1305
20-07-2007, 13:38
Hello everyone,
I've had a total nightmare of a time with Virgin Media lately and am just feeling lost and rather despondent over what to do next, especially reading that they don't listen to letters of complaint so I'd like to share with you my experiences of Virgin so far with this open letter of complaint to them....
Dear Sirs,
I am writing in reference to my Virgin media package account (account number xxxx) and the total lack of service I have received from your company over this.
My situation began when I finally found a rental house to move into after a very hard couple of years with my young Son including a not very amicable marriage break up. After ringing Virgin and agreeing an installation date for my phone/tv/cable package I finalised my house plans and arranged a date to move in based on your installation date ( I believe this was originally 28th June 2007).
The engineers came out on the agreed date and time but after a very quick look around, announced there was no 'T Box' to our house so the installation couldn't proceed. As the area they were looking at was a bit muddy they didn't look any further and left, telling us to ring back on the 5th of the month. This was a day off work wasted, and our entire house move had to be cancelled at great expense and stress to us, plus total disappointment to my Son.
During that week I spent day after day on the phone trying to contract someone about our situation, I spent most of the time being put through to various wrong departments, only to end up where I'd started in the first place with no one seeming to want to take on the responsibility of answering my questions. The latest news we were now given was that we now had to wait while Virgin installed a new system and no installations could be done now - they couldn't even give me a date. This was not a nice situation, I was now paying for a house I couldn't move into and had no idea when this could even be sorted out, it was a truly horrible week being passed around and hearing different versions of why no one was willing to help me.
A few days later I received an automated telephone call from a lady with a friendly voice, informing me that unless my Virgin bill was paid on time £10 would be added to it - I thought this was the final insult (not realising things were going to get even worse).
On the 5th July I rang Virgin (as instructed by the engineers) and got put through to various departments again, only to be told to ring back tomorrow.
The 6th of July finally came and of course I was on the phone the second the lines opened to try and sort this escalating mess out. I spent a while being directed through the automated phone line to find out that the options had all changed and was hung up on repeatedly. After trying this a few times I finally got through to a department, where the phone system informed me the lines were busy - and hung up on me once again. I had to go through this long and expensive process many times before I could get to speak to anyone. After finally getting through to someone and explaining - again - my situation, I was told that the paperwork for the work that needed doing at our house would take at least ten days and that to get the work done in the road, the work would have to go out to sub-contractors who would then bid on it, plus the council would have to be contacted, they had no idea how long any of this would take and said there was nothing we could do about it. I asked for a phone number that I could ring the Construction back on directly and was told I wasn't allowed this. This really was the final straw and by now was causing great distress to everyone concerned.
Finding this answer totally unacceptable I rang back, very upset, a short while later and this time spoke to someone different (Imran in the Construction Department, who gave me a direct dial number with no problem 0845 2450700). After spending a few minutes finding my correct account number (which I had never been given), he looked at my account, actually listened to me and said he would ring the sub-contractors then and there to see what he could find out for me (no mention of not knowing who they were and needing to bid for the job as previously told). He then came back on the line a short while later and told me no problem, the work had already been completed so he'd book an install date for me to have everything installed. At this point I just didn't know what to think having been told so many things by so many people - he offered me an appointment for Monday (today was Friday) and I asked if it could be done any sooner - he offered me an appointment the next day between 8am - 1pm with no problem at all.
After hanging up I started wondering about the details of that call so I rang Imran back and asked about the work that had been carried out by the sub-contractors on the road, there was no sign of the road having been dug up or worked on at all and when was this work carried out exactly considering we had been waiting for it all this time? After a few attempts at asking this question I was told the work was completed earlier that month. When I asked what work needed to be done as the road hadn't been touched, the subject was changed and avoided many times until I repeatedly asked 'did any work actually need doing?", eventually I got my answer - no, no work had actually needed doing, the mysterious 'T-Box' had been there all along, it was just covered by some dirt. All the upset, expense and delays could have been avoided if the engineers had just taken a few more minutes to actually look beneath the dirt that was there.
Our house move was re-arranged for Saturday based on the new appointment and another day off work was taken to be there on time. When no one had arrived at 12.45pm the feeling of dread started to creep over me and I started the long and expensive process of ringing Virgin once more. Yet again I was passed from one department to another and was eventually given a number to ring. I hung up, rang the number and was greeted by an automated message telling me that number was no longer active and I had to dial an internal speed dial number to get through to the new department, which obviously wasn't an option for me so that was another load of time totally wasted.
At 1pm I rang back yet again, got transferred again to various people and ended up speaking to Brenda in Installations (at this point I asked for a direct line number I could call her on as this was costing me a fortune - I was told the public can't call this number direct so you'll have to go through it all again each time you ring). She tried to look up my account but couldn't even tell me what was happening with it and said she needed to speak to her supervisor who was now on a conference call and she had no idea how long that would take. I had no choice but give my number and details - yet again - and wait to hope someone actually called me back this time to confirm my appointment was still going ahead as planned.
At 1.10pm I was actually rung back by a man called Mike Povey and was informed that they knew they wouldn't fit in all the appointments today but were waiting until 1pm to ring round everyone and tell them this. He said that the installation probably wouldn't be happening today after all as they had other customers they were going to before us and we hadn't be noted down as any kind of priority so basically we had been shoved to the back of the queue. At this point I was very upset and explained to him that this would be the second time I'd have to cancel my entire house move, costing us more money, more upset and more stress to my family and everyone involved, especially my young Son who was by now convinced we weren't going to move house at all as every time I told him it was going ahead, it had to be cancelled because of Virgin's failures. He said there was a slight chance they may manage to get the installation done later that afternoon/evening, and despite the fact I was actually going out to a paid concert that evening he couldn't tell me anything else and wasn't prepared to do anything more to help me, I was completely in tears at this point and he said he would ring back at 2.30pm, then said he'd ring back in the next half hour.
Half an hour passed with no phone call. 2.30pm came and went with no phone call.
At 2.40pm I rang back and spoke to Mr, Povey again, he said he'd spoken to the manager of Surrey and Hampshire (Mike Medfords) who had said he would call me twenty minutes ago (which he obviously didn't), he then promised to chase him up for me and said they still had no one available to get our installation done that day. At this point I'd had enough of this unbelieveable behaviour from a company as large as Virgin and told Mr. Povey I would be contacting the local press about this as people needed to know just how bad this service was and how disgustingly Virgin treated their customers. I hung up and waited for the promised phone call from Mr. Medfords.
By 3.20pm no one had bothered calling me as usual so once again I rang Mr. Povey. i was now informed that Mr. Medfords couldn't be contacted and the excuse was offered that maybe he was in an area with bad mobile phone service (ironic as I'm sure he must have a Virgin mobile phone). I was told there was no way now that our installation would be carried out today unless someone decided to cancel last minute - he refused to make us a priority or help us any further. This was totally unacceptable and I asked to speak with someone else, told him I'd had enough of this and I would now contact the local press as previously stated (which I still intend to do if this situation cannot be resolved quickly and amicably), as this was way beyond a joke now, this was not acceptable behaviour and Virgin didn't seemed to give a damn about how much they actually hurt and upset people, this installation was so far overdue now and it was being cancelled yet again, it was, by now, a total nightmare. I was told someone would call me back in ten minutes.
After this I received a call from Lee Collins, who said he'd managed to pull an installation team from Epson and they would be with me in twenty five minutes to complete the work at our house. The engineers turned up as promised and took some time finally installing out phone, tv and cable services. By this time we had to rush to get the basic items into our house to be able to live there and the we missed half the concert we had paid, ruining yet another day.
Now, by this point it should have been a relief to have gotten the installations finally completed, only the problems just continued.
1) We were told the phone line could not be activated as there was a problem with the junction box giving out the wrong phone number - I was told this would be fixed on Monday and the engineers wouldn't need access to the house for this.
2) After the engineers left it was discovered that we had been given the basic tv package not the XL pack we were paying for - after ringing them about this, Virgin said they couldn't help and someone would ring us back (on my mobile phone as I still didn't have a land line installed), which of course they never did.
3) The broadband service was very slow and no where near the 90% of the full 20mb speed we had been previously promised by your sales representative.
4) The telephone package was totally wrong and wasn't the option we had chosen.
Monday morning came and the engineer required access to the house (I was told this wasn't necessary so it was just lucky I was actually there). This was because the internal phone point installed the previous Saturday by your engineer had been installed incorrectly and wasn't actually working at all. Eventually this was fixed and we finally had a phone line - just in time to ring Virgin and try to get the rest of our service fixed.
The next stage was to ring about the lack of tv channels available and I was put through to a lady with a very strong Indian accent that I couldn't understand at all - she finally transferred me to someone else after taking my details. They confirmed my television package was wrong and my phone package was wrong and they hadn't even added the international phone calls option I'd asked for, this was finally corrected and it was agreed I wouldn't start paying for any of my Virgin services until this date (Monday 9th July). It was recommended that I ring the broadband line to get someone to help me with the speed issues I was having. I really didn't have the energy for this and after some research it appeared that Virgin has a terrible record of slow broadband speeds with constant promises to upgrade them with it never actually happening, which isn't of any great surprise.
After all this I found I was receiving complaints from friends and family about not answering my phone for a few days or so - after testing the phones I now discover I don't even have a working phone line anymore. Not having any way of contacting you I tried ringing from my mobile and after £4 was wasted just sitting listening to automated messages before it hung up on me, I gave up in total despair. We have now had to go round a family members house to waste even more money on your phone system and were told we'd have to wait until Tuesday for an engineer to sort this out.
The amount of stress, loss of time, money and patience we have had to suffer over all this on top of trying to move into a new house has been unbelieveable. Your staff appear untrained, unable to communicate with each other and frankly half the time have no idea what they're doing, almost every step of the way I've had to spend most of the day on the phone which cost a small fortune and I really have had enough. There have been no apologies, no offers or help or any kind of compensation, I have been plagued with promises of people ringing me back - which they never did, passed through every department in your offices only to be hung up on or put through it all again, a number of rather rude replies and bad attitudes from your staff, not to mention the costs or paying rent and utility bills on a house I couldn't live in, constant phone calls - often from a mobile phone, the wasted price of an evening out with my family, house moving costs and so much more. To be flat out lied to on top of all this and hear stories about sub-contactors and bidding wars, paperwork and red tape that needed to be sorted out - when the problem was created initially by your engineers not actually bothering to take the time to look properly at the existing equipment in the roadside is something I never thought I'd have to put up with when I contacted Virgin. I'm also not convinced I'm being billed for the correct monthly amount which was offered at approx. £42 per month.
I await your urgent reply to see what substantial compensation you will be offering for this situation, the money and distress you have cost me and my family and repairs to my service, I have no intention for paying for a service I'm not receiving so I do not give my permission for you to take these finds from my account and if I don't hear back from someone I have no problem taking this matter higher and higher and making it very public indeed, reporting it to my local press office as well as OFCOM. You cannot contact me by phone as I don't have a phone line, my mobile phone number rarely gets reception here and my email (also provided by you) doesn't seem to work half the time. I would suggest you email me at xxx initially and follow it up by a letter in the post.
I await your urgent reply.
I've had a total nightmare of a time with Virgin Media lately and am just feeling lost and rather despondent over what to do next, especially reading that they don't listen to letters of complaint so I'd like to share with you my experiences of Virgin so far with this open letter of complaint to them....
Dear Sirs,
I am writing in reference to my Virgin media package account (account number xxxx) and the total lack of service I have received from your company over this.
My situation began when I finally found a rental house to move into after a very hard couple of years with my young Son including a not very amicable marriage break up. After ringing Virgin and agreeing an installation date for my phone/tv/cable package I finalised my house plans and arranged a date to move in based on your installation date ( I believe this was originally 28th June 2007).
The engineers came out on the agreed date and time but after a very quick look around, announced there was no 'T Box' to our house so the installation couldn't proceed. As the area they were looking at was a bit muddy they didn't look any further and left, telling us to ring back on the 5th of the month. This was a day off work wasted, and our entire house move had to be cancelled at great expense and stress to us, plus total disappointment to my Son.
During that week I spent day after day on the phone trying to contract someone about our situation, I spent most of the time being put through to various wrong departments, only to end up where I'd started in the first place with no one seeming to want to take on the responsibility of answering my questions. The latest news we were now given was that we now had to wait while Virgin installed a new system and no installations could be done now - they couldn't even give me a date. This was not a nice situation, I was now paying for a house I couldn't move into and had no idea when this could even be sorted out, it was a truly horrible week being passed around and hearing different versions of why no one was willing to help me.
A few days later I received an automated telephone call from a lady with a friendly voice, informing me that unless my Virgin bill was paid on time £10 would be added to it - I thought this was the final insult (not realising things were going to get even worse).
On the 5th July I rang Virgin (as instructed by the engineers) and got put through to various departments again, only to be told to ring back tomorrow.
The 6th of July finally came and of course I was on the phone the second the lines opened to try and sort this escalating mess out. I spent a while being directed through the automated phone line to find out that the options had all changed and was hung up on repeatedly. After trying this a few times I finally got through to a department, where the phone system informed me the lines were busy - and hung up on me once again. I had to go through this long and expensive process many times before I could get to speak to anyone. After finally getting through to someone and explaining - again - my situation, I was told that the paperwork for the work that needed doing at our house would take at least ten days and that to get the work done in the road, the work would have to go out to sub-contractors who would then bid on it, plus the council would have to be contacted, they had no idea how long any of this would take and said there was nothing we could do about it. I asked for a phone number that I could ring the Construction back on directly and was told I wasn't allowed this. This really was the final straw and by now was causing great distress to everyone concerned.
Finding this answer totally unacceptable I rang back, very upset, a short while later and this time spoke to someone different (Imran in the Construction Department, who gave me a direct dial number with no problem 0845 2450700). After spending a few minutes finding my correct account number (which I had never been given), he looked at my account, actually listened to me and said he would ring the sub-contractors then and there to see what he could find out for me (no mention of not knowing who they were and needing to bid for the job as previously told). He then came back on the line a short while later and told me no problem, the work had already been completed so he'd book an install date for me to have everything installed. At this point I just didn't know what to think having been told so many things by so many people - he offered me an appointment for Monday (today was Friday) and I asked if it could be done any sooner - he offered me an appointment the next day between 8am - 1pm with no problem at all.
After hanging up I started wondering about the details of that call so I rang Imran back and asked about the work that had been carried out by the sub-contractors on the road, there was no sign of the road having been dug up or worked on at all and when was this work carried out exactly considering we had been waiting for it all this time? After a few attempts at asking this question I was told the work was completed earlier that month. When I asked what work needed to be done as the road hadn't been touched, the subject was changed and avoided many times until I repeatedly asked 'did any work actually need doing?", eventually I got my answer - no, no work had actually needed doing, the mysterious 'T-Box' had been there all along, it was just covered by some dirt. All the upset, expense and delays could have been avoided if the engineers had just taken a few more minutes to actually look beneath the dirt that was there.
Our house move was re-arranged for Saturday based on the new appointment and another day off work was taken to be there on time. When no one had arrived at 12.45pm the feeling of dread started to creep over me and I started the long and expensive process of ringing Virgin once more. Yet again I was passed from one department to another and was eventually given a number to ring. I hung up, rang the number and was greeted by an automated message telling me that number was no longer active and I had to dial an internal speed dial number to get through to the new department, which obviously wasn't an option for me so that was another load of time totally wasted.
At 1pm I rang back yet again, got transferred again to various people and ended up speaking to Brenda in Installations (at this point I asked for a direct line number I could call her on as this was costing me a fortune - I was told the public can't call this number direct so you'll have to go through it all again each time you ring). She tried to look up my account but couldn't even tell me what was happening with it and said she needed to speak to her supervisor who was now on a conference call and she had no idea how long that would take. I had no choice but give my number and details - yet again - and wait to hope someone actually called me back this time to confirm my appointment was still going ahead as planned.
At 1.10pm I was actually rung back by a man called Mike Povey and was informed that they knew they wouldn't fit in all the appointments today but were waiting until 1pm to ring round everyone and tell them this. He said that the installation probably wouldn't be happening today after all as they had other customers they were going to before us and we hadn't be noted down as any kind of priority so basically we had been shoved to the back of the queue. At this point I was very upset and explained to him that this would be the second time I'd have to cancel my entire house move, costing us more money, more upset and more stress to my family and everyone involved, especially my young Son who was by now convinced we weren't going to move house at all as every time I told him it was going ahead, it had to be cancelled because of Virgin's failures. He said there was a slight chance they may manage to get the installation done later that afternoon/evening, and despite the fact I was actually going out to a paid concert that evening he couldn't tell me anything else and wasn't prepared to do anything more to help me, I was completely in tears at this point and he said he would ring back at 2.30pm, then said he'd ring back in the next half hour.
Half an hour passed with no phone call. 2.30pm came and went with no phone call.
At 2.40pm I rang back and spoke to Mr, Povey again, he said he'd spoken to the manager of Surrey and Hampshire (Mike Medfords) who had said he would call me twenty minutes ago (which he obviously didn't), he then promised to chase him up for me and said they still had no one available to get our installation done that day. At this point I'd had enough of this unbelieveable behaviour from a company as large as Virgin and told Mr. Povey I would be contacting the local press about this as people needed to know just how bad this service was and how disgustingly Virgin treated their customers. I hung up and waited for the promised phone call from Mr. Medfords.
By 3.20pm no one had bothered calling me as usual so once again I rang Mr. Povey. i was now informed that Mr. Medfords couldn't be contacted and the excuse was offered that maybe he was in an area with bad mobile phone service (ironic as I'm sure he must have a Virgin mobile phone). I was told there was no way now that our installation would be carried out today unless someone decided to cancel last minute - he refused to make us a priority or help us any further. This was totally unacceptable and I asked to speak with someone else, told him I'd had enough of this and I would now contact the local press as previously stated (which I still intend to do if this situation cannot be resolved quickly and amicably), as this was way beyond a joke now, this was not acceptable behaviour and Virgin didn't seemed to give a damn about how much they actually hurt and upset people, this installation was so far overdue now and it was being cancelled yet again, it was, by now, a total nightmare. I was told someone would call me back in ten minutes.
After this I received a call from Lee Collins, who said he'd managed to pull an installation team from Epson and they would be with me in twenty five minutes to complete the work at our house. The engineers turned up as promised and took some time finally installing out phone, tv and cable services. By this time we had to rush to get the basic items into our house to be able to live there and the we missed half the concert we had paid, ruining yet another day.
Now, by this point it should have been a relief to have gotten the installations finally completed, only the problems just continued.
1) We were told the phone line could not be activated as there was a problem with the junction box giving out the wrong phone number - I was told this would be fixed on Monday and the engineers wouldn't need access to the house for this.
2) After the engineers left it was discovered that we had been given the basic tv package not the XL pack we were paying for - after ringing them about this, Virgin said they couldn't help and someone would ring us back (on my mobile phone as I still didn't have a land line installed), which of course they never did.
3) The broadband service was very slow and no where near the 90% of the full 20mb speed we had been previously promised by your sales representative.
4) The telephone package was totally wrong and wasn't the option we had chosen.
Monday morning came and the engineer required access to the house (I was told this wasn't necessary so it was just lucky I was actually there). This was because the internal phone point installed the previous Saturday by your engineer had been installed incorrectly and wasn't actually working at all. Eventually this was fixed and we finally had a phone line - just in time to ring Virgin and try to get the rest of our service fixed.
The next stage was to ring about the lack of tv channels available and I was put through to a lady with a very strong Indian accent that I couldn't understand at all - she finally transferred me to someone else after taking my details. They confirmed my television package was wrong and my phone package was wrong and they hadn't even added the international phone calls option I'd asked for, this was finally corrected and it was agreed I wouldn't start paying for any of my Virgin services until this date (Monday 9th July). It was recommended that I ring the broadband line to get someone to help me with the speed issues I was having. I really didn't have the energy for this and after some research it appeared that Virgin has a terrible record of slow broadband speeds with constant promises to upgrade them with it never actually happening, which isn't of any great surprise.
After all this I found I was receiving complaints from friends and family about not answering my phone for a few days or so - after testing the phones I now discover I don't even have a working phone line anymore. Not having any way of contacting you I tried ringing from my mobile and after £4 was wasted just sitting listening to automated messages before it hung up on me, I gave up in total despair. We have now had to go round a family members house to waste even more money on your phone system and were told we'd have to wait until Tuesday for an engineer to sort this out.
The amount of stress, loss of time, money and patience we have had to suffer over all this on top of trying to move into a new house has been unbelieveable. Your staff appear untrained, unable to communicate with each other and frankly half the time have no idea what they're doing, almost every step of the way I've had to spend most of the day on the phone which cost a small fortune and I really have had enough. There have been no apologies, no offers or help or any kind of compensation, I have been plagued with promises of people ringing me back - which they never did, passed through every department in your offices only to be hung up on or put through it all again, a number of rather rude replies and bad attitudes from your staff, not to mention the costs or paying rent and utility bills on a house I couldn't live in, constant phone calls - often from a mobile phone, the wasted price of an evening out with my family, house moving costs and so much more. To be flat out lied to on top of all this and hear stories about sub-contactors and bidding wars, paperwork and red tape that needed to be sorted out - when the problem was created initially by your engineers not actually bothering to take the time to look properly at the existing equipment in the roadside is something I never thought I'd have to put up with when I contacted Virgin. I'm also not convinced I'm being billed for the correct monthly amount which was offered at approx. £42 per month.
I await your urgent reply to see what substantial compensation you will be offering for this situation, the money and distress you have cost me and my family and repairs to my service, I have no intention for paying for a service I'm not receiving so I do not give my permission for you to take these finds from my account and if I don't hear back from someone I have no problem taking this matter higher and higher and making it very public indeed, reporting it to my local press office as well as OFCOM. You cannot contact me by phone as I don't have a phone line, my mobile phone number rarely gets reception here and my email (also provided by you) doesn't seem to work half the time. I would suggest you email me at xxx initially and follow it up by a letter in the post.
I await your urgent reply.