Terrible customer service and second TV box deactivated

[KStevens99]

Apologies as this will be quite long.

For a couple of month there has been issues with my second TV box in my son's room (missing channels). I arranged for an engineer to come out on Thursday 15th December between 12-4. 

On Thursday 15th it gets to 4.20 and still no engineer. I ring up and told they are running late and will be there between 4:30-5. At 5.20 I ring again and am told they will be there between 6-6:30. At 6.50 i ring again and am told that all engineers appointment for that day in my area had been cancelled at the beginning of the day due to staff sickness. The agent made another engineer appointment for Wednesday 21st. I then asked why had i not been informed of the appointment being cancelled and why when i had rung up the two times previously had I been told that the engineer had been on there way. The agent said they would try and find out and I was put on hold only for the line to go dead a few seconds later (whether this was a genuine disconnection or the agent simply hung up I don't know).

Needless to say I was pretty angry with this level of customer service. The next morning I rung up to cancel as I've been fed up with VM's appalling customer service for a while. This is where the fun really starts.

The retention's agent I spoke to offered me a deal to stay for £12 a month less than what I am currently paying, I asked if the level of service would be the same and they said it would be exactly the same, but they would need to send a new contract through as I was on a rolling contract. I agreed and when the new contract comes through I could see that it was for a slower broadband speed than what I'm currently on.

I rung up retentions again to explain that this new contract was a slower speed than what I was currently on. The retentions agent said they were unable to offer a contract with the speed i was currently on (600mbs), but what they could do  was upgrade me to 1GB broadband at the original price I was paying, I agreed to this and was told a new Hub 5 would be delivered to me on Tuesday 20th Dec. On Tuesday a delivery driver delivers a 360 remote! I then phone up and am told that they have no more Hub 4's or 5's so i won't be able to have 1GB broadband. They also informed me that the previous agent should never have offered me the 1GB upgrade before checking the stock levels of the Hub 4's and 5. I asked why a 360 remote had been delivered earlier that day and they said they didn't know, but I should use it on the box that wasn't working and it might solve the issues I was having with that box.

The agent I am speaking to says they can put me back on the contract that was £12 cheaper, but had slower broadband. I agree to this. At this stage after the two previous agents making mistakes i went through everything I had on my package individually to ensure their would be no mistakes. Specifically I mention that I have two TV boxes and the agent was aware of this as I had mentioned how one box worked and the other had issues. The agent I spoke to assured me that the package I would be on would be the same as my current one apart from slightly slower broadband. They also confirmed that an engineer would be out the next day (Wednesday 21st).

After speaking to the agent I then use the 360 remote to upgrade the box in my son's bedroom, after the upgrade the issue with the missing channels is still happening. Also when I upgrade the TV box in my son's bedroom the TV box in my lounge goes off and all the channels say I need to upgrade my package to view them. With the engineer due to come out the next day I thought I would mention this to them then.

When the engineer came out they could see the box in my sons bedroom was missing channels, they exchanged the box for a new one and everything with that box seems fine. They then used a 360 remote they had brought with them to upgrade the downstairs box. As soon as the downstairs box upgrades the upstairs box goes off. They then upgrade the upstairs box and the downstairs box goes off. Then they upgrade the downstairs box and the upstairs box goes off!! At this stage the engineer has been here for nearly 2 hours and they ring their supervisor who tells them that my contract only has one active box on it and that is why when she upgrades one box the other turns off. I am told if I ring up they will be able to activate the second box.

Ring up yet again and speak to an offhsore agent. I explain to them that I was told if I phoned up they would be able to activate the second box, the ladies English isn't great and she keeps saying "what date do you want us to deliver the second box". I repeatedly say that I already have a second box and just need it to be activated. She finally understands that I already have a second box then says she will put me through to someone who will be able to do that. The next agent I speak to tells me that there is only one box on my contract and that he won't be able to activate my second box. He puts me through to someone who he say will be able to help me.

I go through to another offshore agent and I explain to her that the price I agreed the other day was supposed to be for two boxes. She says she understands, but then offers me a deal that is more expensive than my current contract! So in order to have the same level of service as what I have now (including two TV boxes) I'm being offered a contract that is more expensive than what I've been paying the last few years! Honestly at this stage I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I end the call and ring retentions hoping to get through to a UK agent.

I manage to get through to a UK retentions agent who is the first competent agent I have managed to speak to since this whole mess started. I explain the whole situation he is able to offer me a new contract that has what I currently have. I agree to it and he reads out the legal info. Then when he goes to put the contract through he is unable to. He says he will call me back at 1pm today and hopefully it will be sorted by then.

He rings at 1pm and says he still can't put the contract through. He puts me on hold to speak to his manager to see if he can sort it out. £0 minutes later he comes back saying he still can't put the contract through. He says there is a problem with the codes they use not generating and he thinks this may be due to another contract having been put through in the last 48 hours. I ask if he can ask a manager if they can authorise an activation signal being sent to my second TV box as a stop gap measure. He asks his manager and apparently that is something they aren't allowed to do. I'm told that there is nothing more he can do and I will have to wait for the external team to call me back. I ask when this call will be and he says he is unable to give me a definitive date for this.

Basically I've exhausted all avenues available to me to sort this out - Retentions can't help, customer service can't help, faults/technical can't help. I'm now at the mercy of the external team calling me back. Through no fault of my own I am now on a contract with only one TV box and Vrigin despite admitting this was done in error are point blank refusing to send an activation signal to my second TV box as a stop gap measure. This is an absolutely shocking way to treat a loyal customer of over 20 years. I'm posting this as I know VM staff read these forums and occasional help. 

Also as an added bonus today I'm now getting automated texts saying that I need to arrange collection of my equipment (by this I presume they mean the second box). Needless to say I'm absolutely fed up with how this situation has played out.

TLDR: Vm staff put me onto the incorrect contract numerous times and as a result of this I only have access to one of my two TV boxes, my son not being able to watch his TV box. I have agreed a new contract with two boxes, but the agent is unable to put this new contract through due to the system not allowing it due to another contract being put through recently. Despite this being 100% due to VM staff error they are refusing to send an activation signal to my second TV box until the contract mess they caused has been sorted out.

Thank you for reading.

[KStevens99]

Hi Jem you said that VM are supposed to pay compensation for no-showing an appointment? I phoned up to complain about this and wasn't offered £25.

[frazbrown]

Looks like you had the exact same experience I had last week when they failed to show - informed that technicians were off sick so someone couldn’t be allocated to the job and subsequently passed around offshore agents and getting cut off several times. There’s no real way to feed back to VM the negative impression this has on customers, I guess they assume that not many people need a technician to visit and even fewer will leave due to a bad experience and it saves them money overall using offshore agents who aren’t always helpful.

At least my problem was resolved with a new box although he had to phone his office to confirm if a green screen with an error meant a new box would be required, I get the impression that this fault is so common (with the number of older boxes around now) that all technicians should be trained to know how to deal with it straight away.

Hopefully you get your issues resolved before Christmas !

[KStevens99]

Thanks for the reply. Not sure this will get resolved. Not sure I posted this in the right section of the forum so tried to post it in the V360 section as well and the thread was deleted!

[japitts]

You only need to post once about a particular issue, you'd posted the same message in the V6, TV360 & account sections.

Those have been condensed into a single post, VM staff should respond here in a day or so.

[KStevens99]

Didn't think I'd posted it in the V6 section. If so that was definitely by mistake.

[Alex_RM]

Hi KStevens99,

Thanks for posting and welcome to our community 🙂

I'm sorry to hear of the experience you've had.

So I can take a closer look at this for you I've popped you over a private message (purple envelope, top right hand corner)

Alex_Rm

[KStevens99]

This keeps getting better. After receiving three texts yesterday asking me to arrange for the collection of my second TV box (that would still be on my contract if not for VM messing up my contract repeatedly). When I opened my front door this morning I found a box from VM that I could put my second TV box in and return it to them!

How incompetent can one company be? They changed me to an incorrect contract three separate times and are now basically stalking me to try to get me to return my second TV box (that I still very much want and need). All this despite being reassured by the agent I spoke to yesterday that he would stop the requests for the second TV box to be returned!

[KStevens99]

One of the forum staff DM'd me at 9am yesterday asking for my account details and since then I've herd absolutely nothing back. Is anyone looking into this or have they decided that my query looks too complicated and decided not to bother?

[KStevens99]

Phoned retentions up a further three times today trying to get this sorted out and had the misfortune to get through to offshore agents each time.

The first agent I spoke to had good English, but claimed they could not see the quote for £89.74 which is the correct quote that I want put through. Despite me having the quote in front of me on my PC screen she kept insisting that there was no quote on the system for that amount and I had never been sent a quote for that amount!

The second agent I spoke to their English was so bad I had to end the call. Surely a prerequisite for working in an offshore call centre is fluency in the language for the calls you are taking?

The third agent I spoke to was able to find the quote for £89.74 but unable to put it through which is the issue I had a couple of days ago. He then said he had good news he had found an alternative package that had everything I had now and was £88.80 That sounds promising I thought - more fool me. He then explained it had a £90 one off fee. When I asked what that was for he said it was for installation of Hub 5 - yes the same Hub 5 that VM told me the other day they have no stock of! I explained to the agent that they had no Hub 5's in stock and also that due to the £90 one off charge over the course of an 18 month contract this would make this quote £4 a month more expensive than the quote I had two days ago!

So after wasting nearly an hour on the phone talking to three offshore agents I am no closer to getting this mess (that was caused by VM's call centre staff in the first place) sorted out. What is the point in employing staff who clearly haven't been trained to deal with anything that veers from their narrow ranging script? Also what do I have to do in order to speak to a UK based agent?