Avoid this company at all cost, SERIOUSLY AVOID

[overlander15]

(from my trust pilot review)

Where do i start with this farce, I have never dealt with such a poor customer services in my life.

We have been with Virgin Media for 27 years and for many years they were great. You could phone up a UK call centre and talk to people who you could understand and were just not reading off a script.

VM phoned us last week and asked for the account holder (my wife) as she was not in they spoke to me about a deal but said they would confirm it with my wife later which was fair enough as my wife knows nothing about our current deal. They offered us a reasonable Virgin package for the Phone TV and broadband even though we really just needed the broadband.

Then it all went down hill they said we needed to take an o2 sim as it was part of the deal. I explained we did not need a sim and we would just throw it out. The harassment to take this sim was relentless, it was like an obsessed man frantically trying to get us to take this sim. Eventually just to shut him up we agreed to take the sim as he made it clear no sim no deal they offered us a £5 sim with 3Gb data so not the end of the world.

They must be the same company as no company in their right mind would push another companies product so aggressively.

As agreed VM phoned next week for my wife to confirm the deal, after thinking about it she said she did not want the sim. But again this was aggressively pushed on her so she also relented.

LUCKILY I can hear some of the conversation and I heard him saying £25. At this point I told my wife to hand the phone over to me and I asked him to go over the deal on offer. The VM package was as we agreed but to my astonishment the Sim deal they tried to push on my wife had jumped up to £25. I was fuming this was a classic case of bait and switch. I lost my cool and was told that we accept the sim or no deal. He did go away and came back with the original £5 deal.

After this I want nothing to do with this bunch of charlatans. I think VM would do well to remember 5G is rolling out and Wi-Fi sim routers are getting cheaper. This is the road we are going down, unlimited data sim with a router and just stream everything we need. What a way to end after 23 years.

All they had to do was give us a new deal with no sim but that was just not possible.

AND they had the cheek to phone again today to offer us a deal !!!! Same introduction same old crap script, what is wrong with this company ?

**** UPDATE ****

We phoned "Customer services" to inform them of our cancellation and to be fair on them the cancellation guy had slightly better English than normal. It all went smoothly and we were informed that as we had phoned up between 30 and 60 days we would not have to pay any cancellation fees. So far so good but I pressed him on a disconnection date confirmation and procedure for equipment pick up. Now could have been again lack of understanding but no answer.

We left it for a while but we had zero follow up and no e-mail to confirm this so my suspicions were on alert. To be on the safe side we sent in a recorded letter (How old school !!) exactly on 30 days notice. Surprise surprise we then get a call from the retention team who spoke perfect English as it HAD NEVER BEEN CANCELLED BEFORE. I explained what had happened (above) and pointed out that had we got someone with good English like hers this would have been sorted out in minutes instead of an almost 1 hour nightmare. Also pointed out that 5G is rolling out and virgin media should up their game as routers are getting cheaper.

But once again they showed their true colours after she realised we were not renewing she hung up on us. I was in mid sentence asking about the return procedure.

So glad to be rid of this company turns out we were with them for 27 years, what away to end this. Do they not realise that they would save so much time and higher retention rate using a call centre that spoke good English.

TAKE HEED send in a recorded delivery letter or you might not be cancelled. Seriously if you rid of them you need to do this, they are currently under investigation by Ofcom regarding how hard it is to cancel your rolling contract.

Update 08/05/2024

3 days until we are free and they have shafted us once again with the final bill. They assured us that we would only be charged for the 3 days from bill payment 08/05/23 till disconection 11/05/23 but you've guessed the full amount was taken. They also give you a guide about your last bill and it clearly states they will adjust the DD to take only the 3 days.

It gets worse, just when you think this company cannot get any lower it pulls a rabbit out the hat. So we go onto the app and it states bill overdue even though payment by DD came off today. Went onto the computer and no sign of the so assume its just a mistake but with this shambolic company NEVER assume anything. So I went onto the app and unbelievably the live chat has disappeared they have killed all ways of contacting them, seriously. So we have no choice but to slug this out the old fashioned way, once again I will write to them recorded delivery asking for the refund. 

What a shambles of a company after 27 years counting the hours to get rid of them. I see this playing out given their past behaviour having to claim back via the small claims court. Was not going to bother but going to complain to the Ofcom. Plus side 5G router with smarty sim 6 times faster than virgin media (between 450-750 mb/s) for £14 for a year and going up to £16 after a year with true unlimited data.  

[Stephen_Bubbles]

Be careful, posts with negative opinion towards VM tend to be deleted. I'm speaking from experience. 

[Cardiffman282]

To put the "deleted" claim in context see https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Community-Natter/Re-Deleted-post/m-p/5519796#M77207

[carl_pearce]

Talk about stirring the pot 🙄.

[roy247]

You did admit in your initial post that you didn't do any research on switching from TiVo V6 to 360 to see what the difference's were so if you hated 360 that much why didn't you just take up your option to leave and go to Sky or BT/EE to see how their systems work and then come back with a comparison feature chart to help everyone

[Stephen_Bubbles]

I have complied lots of information about the features of 360 to try to help people who might find themselves in the same situation but that post keeps being deleted 

[Cardiffman282]

This post? https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Virgin-TV-360/Not-impressed/td-p/5506156 

[Stephen_Bubbles]

😅 Afraid not as that one is clearly not deleted 

[japitts]

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@overlander15 wrote:

Then it all went down hill they said we needed to take an o2 sim as it was part of the deal. I explained we did not need a sim and we would just throw it out

---

VM operate a multi-bundle discounting system where the more you buy, the less per-unit you pay. Some elements attract generous discounts, such that a "with" bundle is cheaper than "without".

What would the problem be, with accepting the offer of a free SIM and not using it?

[overlander15]

We did, they offered us the £5 sim as I refused the £25 one but that was not the reason for leaving. They then phoned the next day as my wife was the main account holder and they switched the sim back to £25 luckily I overheard them, classic bait and switch. I should add I am joint account holder and has never been a problem before if I set the deal up, as in reality my wife's takes nothing to do with it as it stresses her out.

Even the £5 sim I did not want as unbelievably I find O2 even more incompetent than virgin media. Plus they continually put the price up and the wife has got one from the previous deal and its constant bombardment phone calls from o2 to upgrade. We get it for £9.00 started at £7.50 so actually a good deal but with the relentless calls they obviously don't like this. We just don't answer anymore but these two companies VM and O2 are a perfect marriage made in heaven 🙂