Virgin Media House Move / General Support Misery

[No1VMHater]

Here's my tale of woe of the events surrounding my recent house move and Virgin's complete incompetence to seamlessly implement the switch. I'm sorry it's a long one but I need to vent it and perhaps warn others about a process that in my opinion should not be anything like as painful as it has been for me (so far!).

1) I called Virgin in advance of the house move to try and forewarn them to enable things to go smoothly.
2) I moved house on 26/09/2008 and initially thought "great" as my TV and internet were already working on day 1 as soon as I'd got everything connected.
3) On 29/09/2008 problems started to occur when an engineer turned up to connect my Virgin phone. Internet and TV were still on but email had ceased to work. I spoke to the engineer about the email problem but he couldn't help and told me to ring 150 which I did as soon as he left.
4) 1st Line tech support advise me that the switch has been somehow botched and that my account at the old address was still half enabled. They escalated to 2nd line tech support and told me my email could be off for up to 5 working days until they properly deactivate the account at the old address.
5) On 03/10/2008 they appeared to have sorted the problem and email was back on again. Everything seemed fine I thought and email continued to work for a couple of weeks...
6) On 13/10/2008 email stopped working again for no apparent reason. I call tech support again on 150 and they have a fiddle with the password on the account, have me verify the change using VM Webmail and they appear to have got it working again. They tell me I can change the password in self care after the phone call. Bye bye thanks hang up.
7) At this point my wife tells me that her email, an alias on the account, is now not working whatsoever.
8) I now try self care to check settings on the account and I'm unable to login. After 3 attempts using the email / password combo I know to be current I was locked out for 24hrs due to 3 invalid logon attempts.
9) I call 150 again and they tell me call back next day because there's nothing they can do on a locked account.
10) I call them back next day on 14/10/2008 and 1st line tech support try self care at their end at it appears completely screwed on my account. They also tell me my wife's email alias does not exist on the account and never has existed despite the fact it had been working fine 2 days ago and for the previous 5 years at my old address. They speak to 2nd line tech support and there's nothing any of them can do without raising to the IT team (an even higher level). I'm told it can take up to 5 working days for the IT team to turn a problem like this around. I'm now incredibly unhappy now with email having already been off for 1 week immediately after the house moved and it potentially now being off for a further week for reasons completely unexplainable by VM tech support.
11) On 17/10/2008 I get bored of waiting with nothing having improved on the email / self care front so I call 150 again. This time I'm told the job has been picked up by a member of the IT team so it's off the queue but it's not yet resolved (no sh*t!) and it can take 10 working days to resolve. I say "hang on - last time I called and spoke to you guys I was told at the outside it would be 5 working days to fix". They say "sorry it can take up to 10 working days". I say "so it could be any time up to 28/10/2008 before it's fixed now?". VM say "yes sorry". I say "can you guarrantee it will be fixed by 28/10/2008?". VM says "sorry we cannot guarantee that". I say "so what am I supposed to do..just wait?". VM says "I think it should be fixed by Monday or Tuesday next week (20th / 21st Oct) but feel free to call back and check if you want". I say "what's the point in calling you back next week if it's not fixed? You're just going to recite the fact that it can take up to 10 working days to fix". VM says "I take your point, sorry". I say "I just hope whoever it is in IT who has picked the job up knows what he/she is doing because whoever did the account switch for the house move obviously did not have a clue and if they do manage to fix it, I've no confidence in it staying fixed for long because your system seems to randomly break and delete parts of a user account for no explainable reason". VM obviously sounding a bit beaten by my verbal barrage by this point apologises again.

That's where it's up to. VM tech support muppets do not have a clue. I've learnt the IT team working on the problem is completely anonymous because when I asked to speak to them I found out that it's not possible for a meer mortal like me. 1st line technical support asked "why would you want to speak to them anyway?". I replied "because I know my way around IT infrastructure and a problem like this should take no longer than 15 minutes to fix, not 10 working days+".

What a shower of numpties.

[Russ]

If you want us to use our high-level contacts in VM to help you, send me a PM with your name, address and a contact number and someone with the ability to get things sorted will call you in the next few days.

[whydoIneedatech]

------------------------------------------------------------
This what is called a Failed Move and Transfer.

Each Address gets its own unique username for that property, which when you move is not taken with you, as at the new property you are given a new unique username and the old username is put into a Disabled state.

When you move house and Customer Services are aware that you are taking you services to the new property, they are supposed to ask if you need to transfer your present username to your property, which as the case above does not always happen.

Then we get the customer calling in as they cannot access their emails, which is then classed as a Failed Move and Transfer, which can either be dealt with almost immediately by us if the old account is in DI or as in the case above which will be almost certainly be still in an Enabled state, up to 5/10 working days.

What has probably happened is that your previous account is still classed as Enabled which means it does take up to 5/10 days to transfer your old account details across to your new account.

They are not reactivating your account they are in essence grafting your old details onto your new account.

In all cases the caller should have the process explained and an apology given.

I am sorry that you will have to wait as many other customers often have to, but at least you will get your email address back.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

[No1VMHater]

------------------------------------------------------------
This what is called a Failed Move and Transfer...

You are clearly VM tech 1st line..this is exactly the kind of crap recited by VM 1st line technical support that anyone reading the original post can see for themselves. Quoting the internals of the failing VM business / customer services / support processes does not help me or anyone else and my suggestion is that you immediately leave VM and try and get a job elsewhere.

Nothing personal you understand but you sound like you've already been assimilated into the collection (resistance is futile and all that..) and it's for your own good that you jump ship asap.

[Russ]

I have made you genuine offer of help and whydoIneedatech has, in his own time offered an explanation (not an excuse) for what has happened.

Suggesting he leaves his job will do you no favours at all.

[No1VMHater]

I have made you genuine offer of help and whydoIneedatech has, in his own time offered an explanation (not an excuse) for what has happened.

Suggesting he leaves his job will do you no favours at all.

Thanks for your offer but identity theft considered, I'm not willing to hand personal contact details via PM on a forum.

It sounds to me like you suspect whydoIneedatech might now try and make the situation worse during his day job. Now that wouldn't be very professional would it?

[Russ]

Thanks for your offer but identity theft considered, I'm not willing to hand personal contact details via PM on a forum.

That's entirely up to you however if you look around the site you'll see we have a 100% success rate in helping people this way and not once has anyone complained about their details being misused.

It sounds to me like you suspect whydoIneedatech might now try and make the situation worse during his day job. Now that wouldn't be very professional would it?

I'm sorry but that's just rubbish and I've not implied anything of the sort. I've made you an offer of help, take it or leave it. People like whydoIneedatech offer their own assistance in their own time and I take exception to their help and expertise being disrespected.

If all you want to do is bitch about VM then fine however if you really want your issue sorted then there are ways we can arrange that.

[whydoIneedatech]

You are clearly VM tech 1st line..this is exactly the kind of crap recited by VM 1st line technical support that anyone reading the original post can see for themselves. Quoting the internals of the failing VM business / customer services / support processes does not help me or anyone else and my suggestion is that you immediately leave VM and try and get a job elsewhere.

Nothing personal you understand but you sound like you've already been assimilated into the collection (resistance is futile and all that..) and it's for your own good that you jump ship asap.

It is not me or my colleagues in Tech Support who have failed you, it is Customer Services that made this common error and it is then left to us to try and resolve the situation which as I explained above is not always a quick fix due to circumstances beyond our control, so please direct your anger towards the department that failed you.

[joglynne]

As you have only just joined our forum I can understand your reluctance to give out your details. However Both Russ (on behalf of Cable Forum) and whydoIneedatech have proved to countless members that they have far too much integrity to deserve your disrespectful atitude.

If you wish to ignore anything you are told, or refuse any help, that is your prerogative after all you are the one left with the problem.

[whydoIneedatech]

It sounds to me like you suspect whydoIneedatech might now try and make the situation worse during his day job. Now that wouldn't be very professional would it?

If I was in work and a call came in of this type then I would try to get some resolution of the problem, I never take comments said to me seriously because usually they are said in anger, and they tend to subside when they realise that I am actually doing my best to help them.

[No1VMHater]

Oops it appears I have upset the local clique.
That aside for anyone else interested in reading on about progress; Today I've negotiated a £25 credit with VM for BB services lost so far and the latest from 1st line tech is that self care is now generally completely broken and they have a massive backlog of customer faults to clear.

This is not related to my original email / self care problem...unless the person in VM IT working on my current issue has managed to entirely break the self care system in the process.

[whydoIneedatech]

Oops it appears I have upset the local clique.
That aside for anyone else interested in reading on about progress; Today I've negotiated a £25 credit with VM for BB services lost so far and the latest from 1st line tech is that self care is now generally completely broken and they have a massive backlog of customer faults to clear.

This is not related to my original email / self care problem...unless the person in VM IT working on my current issue has managed to entirely break the self care system in the process.
Good to see you got some compensation out of it.

Have you tried this link as it works for me https://selfcare.virginmedia.com/IIPSCVM/

[Russ]

Oops it appears I have upset the local clique.
That aside for anyone else interested in reading on about progress; Today I've negotiated a £25 credit with VM for BB services lost so far and the latest from 1st line tech is that self care is now generally completely broken and they have a massive backlog of customer faults to clear.

This is not related to my original email / self care problem...unless the person in VM IT working on my current issue has managed to entirely break the self care system in the process.

You'll find that with your attitude you won't just upset "the local clique". On CF we have a good community running and we help each other where possible. It makes no difference to me whether you want your issue sorted, I've made the offer, you've chosen (for whatever reason, right or wrong) to not take it, fine, you're on your own.

Having a go at people who freely offer their knowledge to you will adhere you to no-one on CF, never mind a 'clique'. As joglynne says, you're the one stuck with the issue.

I'm unsubscribing from this thread as my offer of assistance is clear not required however should you change youe mind you don't even have to give your address or full name. Or even a real name. A contact number (an old PAYG that is no longer used much?) is all that's required for our contact to help you. If that sounds acceptable, PM me. If not, fair enough.

Unsubscribing.

[homealone]

/updates ignore list - why people join help forums & refuse help offered is a mystery to me, but when that includes derogatory remarks towards those trying to assist it is downright rude, in my opinion ...

[No1VMHater]

The purpose of the OP was to simply highlight how wrong the house move / account transfer process can go with VM and how slow the turnaround can be to fix the problems. It was never my intention to seek help or assistance from anyone here.

Good luck to anyone who attempts to move and transfer their VM services. If it all goes wrong (I would expect it to) and it seems a fairly regular occurrence reading whydoIneedatech's (a VM insider) comments in this thread, you can always choose to accept any help offered.. ;)

[whydoIneedatech]

The purpose of the OP was to simply highlight how wrong the house move / account transfer process can go with VM and how slow the turnaround can be to fix the problems. It was never my intention to seek help or assistance from anyone here.

Good luck to anyone who attempts to move and transfer their VM services. If it all goes wrong (I would expect it to) and it seems a fairly regular occurrence reading whydoIneedatech's (a VM insider) comments in this thread, you can always choose to accept any help offered.. ;)
Failed Move and Transfers are a regular occurrence for the reasons stated above, but cases like yours are fairly rare and because your original account still shows as enabled it then means that a process has to be followed to ensure that you get your old services back.

[No1VMHater]

Fair enough point taken although it should be noted as detailed in the OP, that when the move and transfer was first performed it was the case that the original account had not been disabled so email was off for 5 working days before being fixed. Then after 2 weeks of working fine it went off again for no explainable reason this time with the addition issues of my wife's email alias being deleted and complete self care death on the account, with an estimated fixed of 5-10 working days.

Once might be fairly rare..twice within a one month interval..I wonder what the odds are there. Perhaps I've been very unlucky but I'm still in the dark as to the cause of the 2nd failure because no-one I've spoken to at VM can tell me what's happened. Also I'm told there has never been an alias for my wife's email on the account and this is just an incorrect statement; it was there and working fine the day before the 2nd failure.

[xpod]

Here's my tale of woe of the events surrounding my recent house move and Virgin's complete incompetence to seamlessly implement the switch. I'm sorry it's a long one but I need to vent it and perhaps warn others about a process that in my opinion should not be anything like as painful as it has been for me (so far!).

1) I called Virgin in advance of the house move to try and forewarn them to enable things to go smoothly.
2) I moved house on 26/09/2008 and initially thought "great" as my TV and internet were already working on day 1 as soon as I'd got everything connected.
3) On 29/09/2008 problems started to occur when an engineer turned up to connect my Virgin phone. Internet and TV were still on but email had ceased to work. I spoke to the engineer about the email problem but he couldn't help and told me to ring 150 which I did as soon as he left.
4) 1st Line tech support advise me that the switch has been somehow botched and that my account at the old address was still half enabled. They escalated to 2nd line tech support and told me my email could be off for up to 5 working days until they properly deactivate the account at the old address.
5) On 03/10/2008 they appeared to have sorted the problem and email was back on again. Everything seemed fine I thought and email continued to work for a couple of weeks...
6) On 13/10/2008 email stopped working again for no apparent reason. I call tech support again on 150 and they have a fiddle with the password on the account, have me verify the change using VM Webmail and they appear to have got it working again. They tell me I can change the password in self care after the phone call. Bye bye thanks hang up.
7) At this point my wife tells me that her email, an alias on the account, is now not working whatsoever.
8) I now try self care to check settings on the account and I'm unable to login. After 3 attempts using the email / password combo I know to be current I was locked out for 24hrs due to 3 invalid logon attempts.
9) I call 150 again and they tell me call back next day because there's nothing they can do on a locked account.
10) I call them back next day on 14/10/2008 and 1st line tech support try self care at their end at it appears completely screwed on my account. They also tell me my wife's email alias does not exist on the account and never has existed despite the fact it had been working fine 2 days ago and for the previous 5 years at my old address. They speak to 2nd line tech support and there's nothing any of them can do without raising to the IT team (an even higher level). I'm told it can take up to 5 working days for the IT team to turn a problem like this around. I'm now incredibly unhappy now with email having already been off for 1 week immediately after the house moved and it potentially now being off for a further week for reasons completely unexplainable by VM tech support.
11) On 17/10/2008 I get bored of waiting with nothing having improved on the email / self care front so I call 150 again. This time I'm told the job has been picked up by a member of the IT team so it's off the queue but it's not yet resolved (no sh*t!) and it can take 10 working days to resolve. I say "hang on - last time I called and spoke to you guys I was told at the outside it would be 5 working days to fix". They say "sorry it can take up to 10 working days". I say "so it could be any time up to 28/10/2008 before it's fixed now?". VM say "yes sorry". I say "can you guarrantee it will be fixed by 28/10/2008?". VM says "sorry we cannot guarantee that". I say "so what am I supposed to do..just wait?". VM says "I think it should be fixed by Monday or Tuesday next week (20th / 21st Oct) but feel free to call back and check if you want". I say "what's the point in calling you back next week if it's not fixed? You're just going to recite the fact that it can take up to 10 working days to fix". VM says "I take your point, sorry". I say "I just hope whoever it is in IT who has picked the job up knows what he/she is doing because whoever did the account switch for the house move obviously did not have a clue and if they do manage to fix it, I've no confidence in it staying fixed for long because your system seems to randomly break and delete parts of a user account for no explainable reason". VM obviously sounding a bit beaten by my verbal barrage by this point apologises again.

That's where it's up to. VM tech support muppets do not have a clue. I've learnt the IT team working on the problem is completely anonymous because when I asked to speak to them I found out that it's not possible for a meer mortal like me. 1st line technical support asked "why would you want to speak to them anyway?". I replied "because I know my way around IT infrastructure and a problem like this should take no longer than 15 minutes to fix, not 10 working days+".

What a shower of numpties.

You should thank yourself lucky.
We also moved house not so long ago but we had to wait two weeks just to have our services turned on at the new place.When he did eventually come he managed the TV & BB ok but he made a right old mess of the phone,leaving both us and the new neighbour without any phone line at all.

The phones were fixed the following week but even now some 7 weeks later our own e-mail still is`nt working,not the one concerned anyway.Strangely though i can still access a long dead STB accounts email addresses from the previous house.:rolleyes:
I just aint had the time or inclination to get on that phone about it and i also have better things to do than whine at these guys on here about it.

[whydoIneedatech]

You should thank yourself lucky.
We also moved house not so long ago but we had to wait two weeks just to have our services turned on at the new place.When he did eventually come he managed the TV & BB ok but he made a right old mess of the phone,leaving both us and the new neighbour without any phone line at all.

The phones were fixed the following week but even now some 7 weeks later our own e-mail still is`nt working,not the one concerned anyway.Strangely though i can still access a long dead STB accounts email addresses from the previous house.:rolleyes:
I just aint had the time or inclination to get on that phone about it and i also have better things to do than whine at these guys on here about it.
Ir will not work again unless a Move and Transfer is done and should in normal circumstances be done while you are on the phone.

---------- Post added at 19:43 ---------- Previous post was at 19:41 ----------

Fair enough point taken although it should be noted as detailed in the OP, that when the move and transfer was first performed it was the case that the original account had not been disabled so email was off for 5 working days before being fixed. Then after 2 weeks of working fine it went off again for no explainable reason this time with the addition issues of my wife's email alias being deleted and complete self care death on the account, with an estimated fixed of 5-10 working days.

Once might be fairly rare..twice within a one month interval..I wonder what the odds are there. Perhaps I've been very unlucky but I'm still in the dark as to the cause of the 2nd failure because no-one I've spoken to at VM can tell me what's happened. Also I'm told there has never been an alias for my wife's email on the account and this is just an incorrect statement; it was there and working fine the day before the 2nd failure.
I bet you are a @ntlworld.com email address holder as the has been many problems with email accounts on your side since the billing migration in April/May.

[xpod]

Ir will not work again unless a Move and Transfer is done and should in normal circumstances be done while you are on the phone.


The "move & transfer" was supposedly all sorted out on the phone when we first called up and requested the services be transfered.I made a point of asking that we have the same phone number & email address.
I generally dont use my main VM email for very much anyway(not this time) so it`s neither here nor there but i will get round to sorting it out.
I`m still waiting on them coming and burying a few inches of the cable out on the pavement too now that i think about so i`ll wait till i`ve got a spare half a day and get on that phone.

[whydoIneedatech]

The "move & transfer" was supposedly all sorted out on the phone when we first called up and requested the services be transfered.I made a point of asking that we have the same phone number & email address.
I generally dont use my main VM email for very much anyway(not this time) so it`s neither here nor there but i will get round to sorting it out.
I`m still waiting on them coming and burying a few inches of the cable out on the pavement too now that i think about so i`ll wait till i`ve got a spare half a day and get on that phone.
Be careful not to leave it to long as they can be terminated anytime between 3 and 12 months after your house move, once that happens they are gone forever, all you need to do is call the number below.

Tech Support is open 24/7 on the numbers below.

For help with your TV or Phone and for Broadband Technical Support:

Call Product Support/Faults on 151 option 3 from your Virgin Media Phone. It's absolutely free.

Or call 0845 454 1111 from any other phone line.

[xpod]

Be careful not to leave it to long as they can be terminated anytime between 3 and 12 months after your house move, once that happens they are gone forever, all you need to do is call the number below.

Cheers for the heads up.

Tech Support is open 24/7 on the numbers below.

For help with your TV or Phone and for Broadband Technical Support:

Call Product Support/Faults on 151 option 3 from your Virgin Media Phone. It's absolutely free.

Or call 0845 454 1111 from any other phone line.

Oh i know that much so so well.
Why d`you think i`m in no hurry to call up now-a-days if it`s all avoidable;)

[whydoIneedatech]

Cheers for the heads up.



Oh i know that much so so well.
Why d`you think i`m in no hurry to call up now-a-days if it`s all avoidable;)
Its free on a Virgin phone and should be relatively painless as it is not a fault.

[No1VMHater]

I bet you are a @ntlworld.com email address holder as the has been many problems with email accounts on your side since the billing migration in April/May.

Nope this is @blueyonder.co.uk email from the old telewest domain. I was thinking a while back that at some point fairly soon after launch VM would be offering @virginmedia.com addresses, but this lame page has been up since 02/07 without change or progress : http://www.virginmedia.com/help/virginemail.php so there doesn't seem to be any urgency from VM or perhaps just no user requirement there to pursue.

Nowadays I'm not really bothered about that because I have my own domains that I redirect to my blueyonder email inboxes..er when my VM services are working that is. If this current problem persists for any longer than the stated 5-10 working days I think I'll be dropping VM email entirely and running with GMail. The only problem doing this is everything under the sun that's registered for the @blueyonder.co.uk addresses that will require re-registration.

In my experience Telewest's BB and following on VM's BB after the takeover has always been good. It could be because I'm in a low subscribed area but I've never had a problem with internet speed / ping even when heavily VPN teleworking. However the email service has always been a different story for me which is unfortunate and that lets it down. I could be reaching the point of finally cutting that loose now..I guess I'll see what happens next week when VM IT are hopefully back on the case.