Forum Discussion

aceiashen's avatar
aceiashen
Tuning in
12 months ago

Symmetric speed saga

I was really excited to see symmetric speed available in my area (a XGSPON area) when it was first launched by VM. I requested it 5 different attempts via online chat with lots of different answers ranging from 'It's not available' to 'it will cost an extra £26/month'. After the 4th attempt I opened a complaint.

The complaint responded saying I could have 1Gb + symmetric for a total of £45/month and asked me to reply - I did. Then today I get a phone call from a customer service person who rescinded the £45/month offer and said "It's not available, it's only available to 2k customers as a trial"... even though I told him if i go on the site and attempt to sign up as a new customer I have the option to select it, and none of the statements from VM or on ISP Review state it's a trial. He couldn't answer and just seemed keen to close my complaint. I said I was not happy with the non-explanation given, and then 5 mins later I get an email saying he's closed my complaint - even though I said i wasn't satisfied that the complaint had been dealt with. I've since reopened the complaint and am hoping it can get sorted by someone who knows what they're doing.

My original install of VM was abysmal and resulted in a hefty charge to VM - I thought it'd be much easier than this to try and pay VM more money by getting an upgrade. The fact I've had to open a complaint to try and pay VM more money is ludicrous.

  • You have experienced first hand, a classic issue with VM. Although you might think of them as an ISP, in actual fact they are better thought of as a marketing company, pushing their own wares, with a service provider arm grafted on as a sort of after-thought!

    Their marketing and advertising people will often launch 'campaigns' and 'special deals' and 'new fastest broadband', type offers to try to garner interest and sign-ups. Fair enough, but what they fail to do is to make sure that the underlying infrastructure is in place to support this or that their customer support people are aware of any of this, have been trained on it, or have the ability to implement it.

    In a way VM are now a victim of their own failures, for years their offshore CS provision has been an industry joke. Despite what is sometimes claimed, they are all untrained, generic call-centre workers, who can do nothing more than read off from a script in front of them - and when your particular issue isn't covered by said script, they simply make something up which might sound vaguely plausible.

    And it really isn't going to get any better......!

    • asim18's avatar
      asim18
      Rising star

      Hahaha well said.

      The funniest thing is, when VM recently won the award for worst customer service ever, why didn't the CEO immediately fire the Customer Services Director??? I believe her name is Rachel.

      If my company won an award from Ofcom for worst customer service I'd have immediately started writing an apology to the whole United Kingdom, detailing exactly what I will do to improve my customer services! The CEO at VM seems to be asleep???

      She clearly isn't doing her job of directing the customer services department. How can VM release a new product and the customer service team has had absolutely no direction from the customer service director???

      According to this thread the customer services director has been sending letters to customers offering packages which her OWN customer service team don't have the ability to activate!! hahahahahahaha.

      VM's leadership is just baffling and absolutely bizarre. I have offered my professional services to VM to help reduce the complaints by 95% within 3 weeks, however they just aren't bothered!

      • Martyn's avatar
        Martyn
        Superfast

        always has been a shamble, and always has been due to zero communication between departments.

  • I've still got my fingers crossed if anyone from the VM forum team could help as I saw on another thread they were able to get symmetrical through one of the forum people?

    • Kath_P's avatar
      Kath_P
      Forum Team

      Hi aceiashen, 

      Thanks for taking the time to contact us via the Community. It's lovely having you on board with us in the Forums.

      We're sorry to hear that you've had some issues with getting the symmetric upload speed add on. Taking a look at things here, it looks like you have a hub and connection that we're unable to support in the Community. You'll need to contact our specialist team so they can help further. Please call the team on 150 / 0345 454 1111. As long as you're calling from the number we have as a contact number for you, this will pop you directly through to the team you need. 

      Many thanks, 

      • aceiashen's avatar
        aceiashen
        Tuning in

        I've contacted the support team loads and made 2 complaints and am not being helped. The forum was my final port of call. My connection is in a nextfibre area, I have a 5x router, it should just be a click of a button to trigger symmetric and charge me £6/month more for the add-on?

  • my trail ran out 15th, got my 500mb installed 16th, and its 500/500 just waiting for my volt upgrade now to 1000/1000

    • FlockWallpaper's avatar
      FlockWallpaper
      Up to speed

      Martyn wrote:

      my trail ran out 15th, got my 500mb installed 16th, and its 500/500 just waiting for my volt upgrade now to 1000/1000


      Actually that’s a point which I don’t think has been properly addressed, ‘does the Volt speed doubling apply to both the upload and the download’? In your case, even if you get the Volt double speed, will this be 1000/1000 or 1000/500?

      • carl_pearce's avatar
        carl_pearce
        Community elder

        I don't think Martyn has had much luck as they were 'Volted' to 1000/100 from 500/500...

    • newapollo's avatar
      newapollo
      Very Insightful Person

      Martyn wrote:

      my trail ran out 15th, got my 500mb installed 16th, and its 500/500 just waiting for my volt upgrade now to 1000/1000


      Hi Martyn,

      Sorry to be a party pooper but you can upgrade to Gig1 from M500 for free if it's your first Volt speed boost, however the upload speed is restricted to 200 unless you pay extra to increase the upload speed to Gig1. 

      The info below is from the Offers > Volt Benefits sub-section on the

      https://www.virginmedia.com/broadband/virgin-media-broadband  page

      Volt benefits: Volt benefits available if you have or sign up to both an eligible Virgin Media broadband service and an eligible O2 Pay Monthly tariff. Excludes Essential broadband customers from 10 November 2022. Volt benefits include (1) Virgin Media broadband speed boost to the next available level (up to a max of 1Gbps download speed) available to you in at the point you place your order to become supercharged with Volt. Doesn’t include Upload speed add-on

  • Tudor's avatar
    Tudor
    Very Insightful Person

    I know this was announced, but I believe it’s not available in all areas and you will be advised by email when it is available in your area. These announcements seem to be made without any information being passed to the support teams.