Upgrade issue

[danger_mouse78]

Good morning.

I have been with virgin for a long time (20 years) and have never had an issue with upgrades.  In the past week I've spent around 16 hours online and the phone, as it seems virgins customer service has vanished all together!

My original request was a simple 1, could I have a 2nd tivo box added to my account please.  On negotiation I was offered a free upgrade too 500mb broadband, while keeping the rest of my package (all for the same monthly price I've paid the past few years)  I had a self install kit sent out for the 2nd box, even though I told the operator multiple times I needed a socket installing. 

I called, arranged an engineer (45 minutes and 4 different teams) who attended promptly the next day and fitted my new socket.  I mentioned the broadband hadn't changed, he offered reassurances and left.

I started a webchat moved to WhatsApp (where you can wait for hours I've discovered) only to be told my contract that I agreed had been cancelled and I couldn't have the same offer for that price.  I obviously complained and demanded the same price!  I've been on "hold" on WhatsApp since Midday yesterday!!

I called last night to try to resolve with retentions, they apologised and offered me the same package I had already agreed with the generous offer of a further £1 a month reduction, I accepted and went through the required package multiple times with the operator.

You can imagine my deep joy when I get a contract emailed to me this morning starting 23rd April (!!!?!?!) Missing my 2nd tv box and I've now had my home phone removed!

Has anyone else had the enriching experience of trying to resolve a problem like this.  It seems that "customer care" will do and say anything to get you off the phone and the digital element of customer support, whilst it can remove some of the language barriers just isn't fit for purpose.

What do I do next? Leave??? 😒 

[Andrew-G · Accepted solution]

Whatever you do next needs to be mindful of the 14 day cooling off rights (and whether before the attempted upgrade you were outside a fixed term), and whether you'd actually be prepared to take your business to for example Sky or BT. 

If you're not really prepared/able to move, then you're hoping the forum staff grab this and sort it out promptly and amicably; they're used to sorting out the messes caused by VM's persistent failings elsewhere.  If in this case they are ineffective, then you need to hunker down for a likely protracted battle using VM's unfit-for-purpose complaints process, and probably escalation to the industry complaints scheme CISAS.  Ultimately you would win against VM, because the law is very clear that information provided by a company verbally or written is binding if the consumer relies upon it when entering a contract (Consumer Rights Act 2015), so VM have to honour whatever was promised, whether they like it or not.   But going down the formal routes takes quite a lot of effort and months of delays to force the company to honour the original deal and pay compensation for wasted time and stress. 

[danger_mouse78]

Thanks for your reply.

I've been out of contract for 18 months+, the 1st contract they sent (19th March) had a start and end date, the 2nd "service change" from last night has no contract end date.

I will try once more to resolve this, but if I cannot I don't have any reservations about moving supplier. 

As far as complaining and taking legal action against VM, they seemed to have breached the 1st contract we agreed, so let's wait and see.

I'm not expecting the Forum team to fix this mess, I just wanted to share how, in my opinion, shockingly poor this company have become, an upgrade should be simple!

[Steven_L]

Welcome back to the community @danger_mouse78 and thanks for taking the time to post here on our forums.

I'm sorry to hear of your experience, this is far from the service that we should be supplying. I have looked at our system and can see that you have spoken to the team this morning. 

What have they advised so far about this today? 

Regards,

Steven_L

[danger_mouse78]

Hi Steven,

Thank you for the welcome and reply.

I'm afraid today's call has been another waste of my time. 

He was able to cancel the "service change" from last night, but not once did he try and reinstate the original deal.  I stressed that I wanted the original upgrade/price as agreed and after 25 minutes of me repeating myself and getting frustrated, he helpfully transferred me to get my 2nd box activated, at this point I hung up and decided a complaint was my only option.

I've submitted a complaint, as frankly I cannot waste anymore of time.  Are you able to see the complaint in the system?

I really cannot understand how any business deems that this is an agreeable service level, I will pursue my complaint to the highest level as virgin media frankly deserve it.  I spend my working days coaching/developing sales process for "sales excellence" & guess who we put front and centre - our customers as without them we have nothing.

If you can offer any assistance or further advice here please do, as I'm exhausted!

Thanks

Dan

[Steven_L]

Thanks for coming to me @danger_mouse78. I'm sorry to hear that your most recent call into the team wasn't successful and you haven't been able to get this resolved and causing you to raise a complaint about this.

Did the agent say that they had raised a complaint for you and give you any type of reference or have you raised the complaint via your online account?

Regards,

Steven_L

[danger_mouse78]

Hi Steven,

I have discovered that if you stay on WhatsApp for 2 days, eventually you will speak to someone who can actually do as you need.

I've just spent 3 hours chatting with Bea, who I believe has resolved my contract issues and given me what I originally negotiated for the correct price.  That's frankly an insane amount of time to upgrade but, at least it is done.  I will see when the changes come through if I have as requested for the 4th time of asking.

With regards to the complaint, I lucky copied it into word prior to submitting it, as your website (My virgin media) is almost as good as your customer service and failed to issue me a reference or record my complaint, which is either clever coding or the fact that it just doesn't work.  So no I have no active complaint open.

I would rate my experience with Virgin Media in the last 7 days as the worst customer service I have ever received. 

I thank you for your prompt responses and will be posting if I had success tomorrow.

Thanks

Dan

[Nathan_B]

Hi there @danger_mouse78, glad to hear the team were able to sort this out for you. Please do let us know if you have any further issues with this and we will do our best to help.

Regards

Nathan

[danger_mouse78]

Good Morning,

My 3rd attempt at a contract is still active and I actually got a better deal than I agreed on WhatsApp!!  They quoted a price, only for me to be paying £4 less per month?!?  They also included home works on the broadband pricing, which looks like it could be of some use to me, shame the mesh pods are not available though.

@Nathan_B or @Steven_L I have a service change receipt that is in addition to the above and dated 23rd April 2022 (I can send the number via PM if needed), I obviously don't want this applied (Nor did I actually agree it) How do I go around getting this removed, without spending another half of my week waiting to talk/talking to your support bots team?

What have I learnt in the past 2 weeks:

1.  Do not believe anything you are told in any conversation with VM until you have it in a legally binding contract.

2.  Complaining to VM digitally is virtually impossible.

3.  The various digital support channels actually make customer interaction and issue resolution very complex and time consuming.  (I'm considering releasing my WhatsApp transcripts just to show how bad/repetitive/LONG this actually is)

4.  Loyalty means nothing to VM.

Anyhow, I wish you all well and will be back when/if VM don't do as expected!

Dan

[Anonymous]

Can the VM team please clarify whether the broad themes of what is posted on these forums are fed back to the decision makers at VM HQ?