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Re: Bereavement account transfer - nightmare!

SA42
Tuning in

Hi, I have had this same horrid experience this afternoon. My darling husband died very recently. I am utterly bereft and trying hard to manage all the affairs. The Virgin Media experience has been hands down the worst.

 

I had always dealt with Virgin Media myself, with my husband's 'permission' (VM term) and my name was on the system but not on the account. The only thing needed was to change the actual name on the account - all payment details and email address etc were to continue. I had a difficult time reaching a human in the first place today. A decent guy called Faisal in the regular customer services team was to be the only one who demonstrated any humanity, but he was not able to help as I needed the bereavement team. On reaching the bereavement team I was treated extremely insensitively by three different insincere and ineffectively trained people, only one of whom gave me their name once they knew I was upset.

I was distraught and frustrated, but never rude; I did not shout or swear. At one point, whilst I was sobbing one of the bereavement team told me they would end the call because of how 'difficult' I was to deal with. (I was asking why I needed a new account number and our Internet had to be cut off and re-connected which didn't sound like the transfer of an existing contract to me).

So I asked to speak with a supervisor and was told that none was available, yet I could hear the supervisor telling the one I was already speaking to what to say!  He took over the call when I said I could hear him! The supervisor talked over me, gave excuses and tried to convince me that giving me a new account number and disconnecting and reconnecting the service really was a transfer of the same account into my name - honestly I felt I was being gas-lit!

Also in order to get a fair monthly price reinstated I was told I would have to become a 'new customer', despite over 20 years of our continued loyalty to VM. This makes no sense, given that they have effectively denied me any connection to my husband and made me a new customer already.

I will speak with the retentions team once I can get back only the account, but honestly I'm not sure I can take any more.

ADMIN - please have your training department listen to that call as a perfect example of how not to handle a bereaved and upset customer. 

 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Cardiffman282
Trouble shooter

I'm sorry to learn of your recent loss and of your subsequent treatment at the hands of VM. I wouldn't call in again for now. Rather see if the VM forum team offer a facilitated complaint. If so I would accept the offer. I also hope that Faisal gets the positive recognition internally that he is due. 

---------------
Cancel VM here
Complain to VM
here
Demand compensation from VM here
Demand your call recordings here
Monitor the state of your VM connection here

See where this Helpful Answer was posted

9 REPLIES 9

Cardiffman282
Trouble shooter

I'm sorry to learn of your recent loss and of your subsequent treatment at the hands of VM. I wouldn't call in again for now. Rather see if the VM forum team offer a facilitated complaint. If so I would accept the offer. I also hope that Faisal gets the positive recognition internally that he is due. 

---------------
Cancel VM here
Complain to VM
here
Demand compensation from VM here
Demand your call recordings here
Monitor the state of your VM connection here

Faisal was the only good one - he was in the regular customer services team

Three members of staff from the bereavement team today acted as though they had no bereavement training whatsoever.

It's too late - they know he has died so things cannot continue as they were. You are right, I don't need more hassle.

Good evening @SA42 

Condolences firstly from all at Virgin Media and I am so sorry to hear of this allegation against the colleagues you've spoke to today. This certainly isn't the level of service we offer, especially at such a distressing time. 

I can answer a few things publicly but I will send you a PM so this is raised. It would be a new account number, as it would be a new account in your name (if this is who would now be the account holder). It would only be a slight change, the end digit moving up. IE if the old account number ended 01 then the new one (yours) would be 02. 

Everything would be moved over from the old account to the new one, just no contract. We could then discuss monthly prices/products with you when the transfer is done.

I'll send you the PM now.

John_GS
Forum Team


Need a helpful hand to show you how to make a payment? Check out our guide - How to pay my Virgin Media bill

Good morning John. Today - my deceased husband's email account has received confirmation of my 'new' direct debit arrangement with you. 

Thank you for popping back to us @SA42 please do continue to chat with our agent John via the PM and we will do all we can to help resolve this for you.

robbyell
On our wavelength

Just to add our experience to this thread, we've just been through this, it's been an aboslute disaster from start to finish, we're leaving VM and I'll be strongly warning off anyone I meet against joining.  Shambles.

Hi robbyell, 

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 you've had a less than great experience contacting the team at such a sensitive time. I can see you're already in a private conversation with my colleague who was originally helping you to sort this out. We will leave this with them to avoid multiple people working on the same issue as that can confuse things. 

Once she has an update, she will reply back to you.

Many thanks, 

Kath_P
Forum Team

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morsecode
Tuning in

I am coming into this discussion at a late time. I am so sorry to hear about about your bereavement and your difficulties thereafter. I can relate to the poor communications from many accounts (not just VM) where chatbots become the norm.

I have been with VM for decades and it takes a circumstance such as this to shake us into changing direction.  While keeping my VM account because of deep archives I have opened a parallel Proton Mail account. I started with free account but soon upgraded. Gradually I will extract VM archives and at some stage wind down my VM account. Each of us, and I am an octogenarian, needs to have a mechanism for executors to take over affairs. This is not just a VM issue but all the accounts automatically taking subscriptions from credit cards and debits.

So to summarise. create a free and secure Proton account and begin to operate in parallel with VM. It is simply not keeping all your eggs in one basket.