Volt - I'm afraid it's looking like an upgrade con...

[tastyfish]

Hi All,

I wanted to canvas experience with other O2 and Virgin Media customers on actually receiving Volt benefits, as I'm having a real problem getting VM to activate the promised broadband speed upgrade, which is listed on my account (screenshots below).

I have 4 pay monthly mobile contracts with O2, plus the highest (Oomph) package available with VM.  I have activited Volt Benefits via O2's site, which are listed as active on both VM & O2.

I've contacted VM three times, spoken to 4 different agents (2 customer service, who then each transferred me to the retention team) in order to upgrade the broadband from M600 to Gig1, which is now available in my area.

On each occasion, VM have stated that they will charge extra (Varying from 10-25% additional monthly cost, plus a Mobile SIM charge) for this "free" benefit.  None of the agents could point me to any T&C's which state this or contradict the information I sent them via screenshots.

Has anyone else received any Volt benefits from VM without paying extra? 

Sorry to say, with the current experience, I'd be considering leaving both Virgin and O2 when my contracts expire.

Thanks!

[tastyfish]

[cje85]

The 600Mb package is an odd one, as you can see it isn't listed in the table showing upgrades in the screenshot. Technically it was already a boost from 500Mb for customers on ultimate oomph (or whatever the ridiculous name was). I do think VM need to clarify if 600Mb customers are also entitled to a Volt speed upgrade, on top of the oomph upgrade. 

[tastyfish]

It states that I'm elidgible, however the VM reps always send me to retentions, who TBH do a pretty poor job of encouraging customers to want to remain so.  The upgrade "offer" from the retention team is higher than the price of the upgrade suggested by the CS team.

Has anyone else actually received the upgrade promised?  I'm seriously considering leaving both O2 and VM if this is what the JV is going to be like.

[jem101]

@tastyfish leave now!

This is how it works,

VM customer services setup is a complete shambles; now if it happens to work for you then stay with them as the provision is really quite good, but the second you want to change something and you get even the whiff of something going wrong then bail out immediately. Now as far as support is concerned, the forum team here are excellent but VM’s corporate structure does appear to promote, or at least, tolerate, a culture of customer services based on robotically following a script, and when anything which deviates from said script; then lie!.

Now if there is no rebuttal from the forum team to my assessment, you might want to take it is as a tacit admission of the situation - I couldn’t possibly comment on that!

[Beth_G]

Hi tastyfish,

Thank you for your post. I'm really sorry to hear you've not had to best experience when upgrading to one of our Volt bundles, and for any confusion caused surrounding the benefits of Volt and how the packages work.

It isn't something we'd usually advise on our Community Forums sadly, however I want to ensure you get the best help possible so I'd suggest to give our team another call.

Just to clarify, here is what our main Volt benefits include:

• Double the mobile data on every eligible O2 Pay Monthly Contract Plan in their name and household
• A broadband speed boost to the next available level (so if you're currently on the 600mbs plan, you'd be boosted to 1Gbs)
• WiFi Pods at no extra cost.

All benefits can take up to 14 days to be applied once you've signed up to the package.

I'm sorry that we couldn't be of more help from here.

Beth

[tastyfish]

Thanks for the info and advice all.  So here’s the conclusion and experience:

I called into VM on multiple occasions and received a hard sell from the CS team, who pressured me to pay more money to receive the benefit already advertised as free by both VM and O2.  On each occasion, I was then passed to the customer retention team who tried to sell me other packages with offers that were more expensive than those offered by the CSR and complained that because I was not paying the current RRP, I would not be able to receive the upgrade (False information).  If anyone from VM would like to investigate, the transcripts are available.

I decided to wait a little bit longer, having enabled the volt add on via O2’s website.  I received a notification after 2 weeks that a new router would be shipped to me to upgrade to 1Gbps, FoC. I’ve now received and installed this and will test the connection when I get a moment from a hardwire.

Sadly, this is a very poor representation of Virgin Media and shows both questionable ethics and customer service and poor training of their staff compared to O2, who are typically very customer focused and well trained.  I do hope the culture is spread from O2 to VM rather than the other way around.

My advice would therefore be: Enable Volt from your O2 account and do not engage with Virgin Media at all on the process.  They will simply try to lock you into a longer contract at a higher price for a service which is free.

Thanks all

[Ashleigh_C]

I am so sorry to hear that this has been your experience @tastyfish and thank you very much for updating us. 

Though this appears to have been a lot more difficult then it should have been on our part I am very happy to hear that this has now been arranged for you, even though it was via the O2 side. 

I will be passing this feedback on the relevant teams and we do hope that the new speed works out well for you! 

Please do let us know how things are looking once the Hub has been updated! 

Thanks again.