My grandparents have been with virgin for many many years, with the contract originally due up in August, this is the first bit of context to this rant. 130mb Broadband +home phone with anytime for a whopping £61 a month
This is going to be the full story of just how diabolical the service and situation is.
About 2 months ago, they started having occasional issues making and receiving phonecalls on the house phone, presumably as the switchover was being phased in, until around the mid-end of June I believe where they were completely unable to make calls out from their house phone- no warning, just stopped.
an engineer was booked by my grandparents who had to call up to say it was not working, which as you can imagine, with an elderly lady who doesn't turn on let alone use her mobile phone for anything more than a call to be picked up from the shops, her pay as you go credit was completely wiped, over £30 trying to just speak to virgin across multiple days
From what I have been told, the engineer who came to fit an adapter for phone into the virgin broadband router let them know they would need to call up virgin to activate the phone if it did not start working automatically, which of course it didn't end up working so more credit needed on the mobile phone, which is where I stepped in.
At the start of July, I made several phone calls on their behalf from my own mobile phone, and despite the contract and recent bill for July stating they had a phone with anytime calls, the customer service rep told me that they would need to pay £35 to get the phone back, as you can imagine I did not agree with this at all, letting them know about the bill I held in my hands as speaking to them and the agro this is causing for an elderly couple that rely on the house phone entirely, I said specifically to LEAVE IT ALONE as I will be looking elsewhere and will not be paying the £35.
So, imagine my surprise when my nan called me up a few days later from what is obviously a house phone...only...... This isn't their home phone number that they've had since 1974, they DID NOT KNOW this and presumed it was fixed.
Worse still, they can only make calls out and could not actually receive calls even to this new number.
So with their home phone being able to make calls, I called 150 from it, to save my own charges I'd be getting from my mobile and spoke to support, first about the ridiculous situation and bill for service not received, then discuss packages to change to as £61 is ridiculous when it's much less for a much better package on the website.
Now, I didn't get anything useful from this discussion, so instead focused on getting the phone number situation sorted, after being told that they could see the number was available I was put on hold for quite some time, where upon return, I was told the number is actually not available and it's gone, sorry, can't help you.
This is absolutely disgusting service.
So with that, off I go shopping online for a better deal for them, as not only are they being charged alot but have now been left with absolutely no contact coming in from doctors, family and friends and I refuse to let them be treated like this.
That conversation to virgin was the 3rd of July, imagine my surprise AGAIN when a letter confirming a NEW contract had been created on the 6th July, for the same package they were already on and STILL not having a functional house phone.
This gets worse, not only was a new contract absolutely not discussed or requested, but the £35 charge to get phone working I didn't want to pay.... Yeah, that was charged too.
So more phonecalls back and forth with virgin throughout the week.
trying again to discuss a deal as now they have created a situation of cooling off period, so I could by all accounts just leave, but then they would have nothing at all while a transfer to sky or whatever happens, more undue stress.
I could not get a deal at all, no money taken off, only more crap piled on they don't need for the same price, with another customer relations rep saying they would call me back on the Friday (14th July)
He did, was very helpful in the sense of discussing deals and understanding situation but could not match the website or what the web chat team could offer.
he also seen that there should not have been a charge to get the phone back and arranged for a credit.
Just one more long phonecall to make and get this number situation corrected, after explaining again for what feels like the 15th time, I was asked who the previous supplier was of the number (this is 1974 they received this number, even before my time) and trying to explain for as long as I can remember they have been with virgin and possibly even blueyonder before that, so it should not matter and I should not have to know this, virgin lost it, apparently it's BT and apparently available, despite what I was told prior.
nd he has put in the request for it and it should be sorted with a few days, muggins here thinking that was that.
So now comes the part no elderly couple could possibly do, trying to use web chat, with is beyond useless and directs you to use WhatsApp, which doesn't exist on my nans Nokia 3310.
with login issues straight away requiring a phone call to rep to actually even get logged in to start and then massively delayed responses, absolutely horrific experience of being able to actually chat to someone.
This web chat, experience my first message was on 14th July, no response at all after doing all the required info.
All day Saturday after doing the exact questions, no response at all.
10am Sunday started, finally, 1pm response then when it seemed like it was understood what I was saying, another wait of 2 hours 'while something was checked'
the last message after everything said and done was 6.30pm
The entire weekend gone, thanks virgin.
Now, this WhatsApp communication clearly is a saving grace legally for me,
I have this in writing regarding the package they offered, I have a specific questions and answers in writing regarding if a new sim card is included in the package that specially gets talked about as adding the volt250 that includes the O2 sim, and will a sim card be sent, all answers yes, yes, yes.
So then 17th July when the email copy of the contract comes through, there is NO SIM CARD in this plan, this is not what I agreed too, is paying more for less + what looks like a £35 charge for new package, you can't make this up.
On 18th July I called virgin and told of this situation and was told that a supervisor or higher up will be in touch over the next 4 days to investigate this, via email of course as WHO KNOWS what number the house phone will be..
Today is 24th July.
THE HOME PHONE NUMBER STILL HASN'T BEEN CHANGED BACK
I do not have any commination from said supervisor, I have not received email or phonecall to their house or my mobile,
the house phone number has still not been reverted back and of course, no sim card will be arriving like expected, so I'm having to make YET ANOTHER phone call this evening to try do something...anything at this point!
Now clearly having several loss of days to this yet again new 'cooling off'' period, as absolutely nothing has been resolved and contract clearly mis sold and strung out for days to even discuss it.
This is just too much, my grandparents do not need this stress, I certainly don't need this stress, it's absolutely unacceptable that it's been over a month of back and forth and the whole reason this started being the phone line cut off from virgin, was absolutely virgins fault.
If this contract does not get resolved I will be passing everything documented to the media and ofcom as this has been absolutely horrible treatment.
They were paying for a service, virgin media messed everything up and continue to mess everything up.
My grandparents need that house phone, the phone number is synonymous with them, it's the only point of contact and with health issues right now they certainly didn't need me to tell them that the doctors would not have called because they couldn't, they wouldn't obviously know the new number, it doesn't redirect the old, the old is just by all accounts, gone.
There's no apology a team member here can make, it needs results and the home phone number needs to be returned.
