Virgin Media Community

[Steff1]

Dear XXXX

Thanks for using one of our self-help services. At Virgin Media, we want to give you great customer service so we'd really like to find out how things went for you whether this was using our website, our automated telephone system or the Virgin Media Community page so we can make improvements wherever we can.

Click Here to give us your feedback. It will take roughly 1 minute to complete. 

Virgin Media looks after the data collected and may use it together with information already held about you (e.g. the products you have) to make sure you're getting the products and services you want. This will be shared with the customer service team; however we will never share this information with anyone outside of Virgin Media without your consent. All the information collected is treated in accordance with the Virgin Media and Medallia privacy policies. 

Can we help you with anything else? If you need any help or support with your products or services simply visit virginmedia.com/help. Or to get in touch, visit virginmedia.com/contact.

Thanks very much in advance for your help. 

Yours sincerely, 

The whole team at Virgin Media 

** An important note** 

If the link above is not clickable, please copy and paste this entire web address into your internet browser: https://survey.medallia.eu/?etxccw79mm2wdph6z8nmht 

If you do not wish to receive further messages regarding research being conducted by Medallia on behalf of Virgin Media, please click here: https://survey.medallia.eu/?etxccw79mm2wdph6z8nmht&reject=yes 

And just so you know, this email is unique to you. So please don't pass this email to others as they won't be able to answer the questions, and we won't see their feedback. 

You have received this email because either you, or someone else using this email address, is a customer of Virgin Media. Medallia conduct surveys on behalf of Virgin Media. For Medallia's detailed security policy, please click here: http://www.medallia.com/privacy 

Medallia can be contacted here: http://www.medallia.com/contact-us/ 

You can write to the Virgin media team at: Virgin Media, 500 Brook Drive, Reading RG2 6UU.

[Aaron2]

It seems to be genuine, are you sure someone in your family or such isn't using your email without your knowledge?

[Graham_A]

It is impossible to tell which interaction with VM generated the feedback request.

I have raised this with them countless times without any positive outcome.

It would be so much more useful if they provided the context, that is, the specific enquiry that led to the feedback request.

Only then can the feedback results have any validity.

[Steff1]

Hi Thanks for reply.

definitely not anyone in my family.

they do not have any access to virgin media etc.

They have not used any virgin service other than our internet.

i deal with all of that stuff.

[Sololobo]

Even if it is legitimate it looks spammy BIG TIME and you are right to be suspicious.

How many times have we all been told "don't respond to unsolicited emails", yet Virgin Media persist in allowing the sending of emails from third parties such as this?

While Virgin Media state "we will never share this information with anyone outside of Virgin Media without your consent", how about medallia, who seem to be content to use shortened /concealed url's to conduct their business?

Example 1: If the link above is not clickable, please copy and paste this entire web address into your internet browser: https://survey.medallia.eu/?etxccw79mm2wdph6z8nmht  Really?

It then goes on,

Example 2: In an attempt to confirm an active email address, to say "If you do not wish to receive further messages regarding research being conducted by Medallia on behalf of Virgin Media, please click here: https://survey.medallia.eu/?etxccw79mm2wdph6z8nmht&reject=yes " as if you really want a third party company to have confirmation of your Virgin Media active email address. Again, really? An "opt out" instead of an "opt-in"?

You are then pointed to Medallia's security policy: - For Medallia's detailed security policy, please click here: http://www.medallia.com/privacy_  Why?

As a Virgin Media customer you have no contract with Medallia. Why should their security policy have anything to do with you? 

Virgin Media seem to be trying to abrogate (repeal or do away with) the security of their customers by allowing a third party to make direct contact, as if they were official representatives of Virgin Media themselves. They are not!

Reprehensible.

[ravenstar68]

@Sololobo - Can I recommend you have a read of this?

https://www.customersure.com/blog/customer-satisfaction-survey-gdpr/

It answers a lot of your points with regards to consent etc.  Although it is a bit long winded.  In short I think you'll find that Virgin Media does actually comply with the GDPR here.  Please have a read of the article and you'll understand why I've said this.

With regards to your comments on URL shortening.  I'm surprised at you - The link in question is not a shortened URL - rather it is a link to survey.medallia.com with the characters after the ? being a token that feeds back to a specific survey.  Remember Medallia conduct customer satisfaction surveys on behalf of numerous businesses.

@Steff1 - Based on what I can see, the email is genuine, I've had a few of these myself, although I've not bothered responding to them, I still have the last ones in my inbox so I double checked.  They are DKIM signed with a valid DKIM signature that goes back to the survey.virginmedia.co.uk subdomain.  As Graham has commented it is a bit ambiguous as to what particular interaction they are referring to - @Kev_B can you feed this back AGAIN?

With regards to @Sololobo comments with regards to the Opt Out link.  Medallia are required to provide this, it's one of those things where legitimate company's do this in order to meet their requirements under relevant legislation, BUT it is a mechanism that can be abused by bad actors in order to verify email addresses.

Sometimes it's a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't.

TLDR Version

Yes the survey is genuine.  If you want to opt out of receiving these requests it is safe to click the opt-out link in this instance.

Tim

[Sololobo]

I posted in the heat of the moment, without proper consideration of all the facts.

Once again I stand corrected, and rightly so.

[argiel]

Hi

Thanks for your help with this, as I am having the same problem.

If I may, I'd like to draw the focus back to the issue I share with the original poster:

• OK, the emails are genuine and trustworthy
• I understand that they are triggered, as they state, by some recent service request
• BUT, like the original poster, I have not accessed any services recently, and nor has any member of my family.

It is therefore worrying to receive these, as they indicate that, unless something spurious is triggering these inappropriately, someone else is accessing my account without my knowledge. Is there any way to find out what the service request was? If, as I've seen suggested, it's impossible to track back from the survey email to the triggering service request, is there a central record in Virgin Media of all my service requests that would allow me the peace of mind of finding out when and what the request was?

Could it be that the emails are being triggered by some inappropriate event, such as my Virgin Media box automatically reporting something or running a test?

Any insights would be much appreciated.

[coenoby]

---

@argiel wrote:

• I understand that they are triggered, as they state, by some recent service request

---

The email does not mention a 'service request'.

What it actually says is "Thanks for using one of our self-help services"'

That could be something as simple as signing in to your 'My Virgin Media' account to check your latest VM bill.

In fact even using this community forum counts as using a VM self help service - that is specifically named in the email.

As has been said many times it would be much better if VM stated exactly what had triggered the request for feedback.

For one thing, how can you give useful feedback if you do not know what service they are referring to? 

Sadly, there does not seem any prospect of that happening. 😕

Coenoby