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We need help!!

Nicola_t1
Tuning in

I need someone from Virgin Media to take ownership of our issues and help us.

We signed onto a new package in July/Aug, and have been billed wrong ever since, and each time we call to query the bill they change our contract then tell us WE requested a higher package charge, WE requested to cancel netflix when we Absolutely didn't it just seems every call someone makes unwanted changes to our account.  They also overcharged us by £112 but refused to lower the bill despite us calling in advance, which is disgusting when people are struggling to pay bills to charge £197 instead of £85.  Since then they still hadn't given us it back or credited our account properly despite it being OUR money they took off us. We thought we finally got it sorted after so many calls/chats and promised callbacks that don't materialise.

Now we think the billing 'may' have been sorted (we'll see next month when nothing should go out our account), but Virgin sent an email last week cancelling our netflix and despite hours and hours of contact since we still haven't sorted it.  No one will call us back, no one will help us, the online link doesn't work and the app doesn't work to activate either.  So paying for a service we aren't receiving, and everyone we speak to gives us a different story and no one actually resolves anything.

Absolutely at our wits end in general with being consistently overcharged, no one can ever help, consistently being told we cannot make a complaint and have no escalation point.  We spoke to a 'resolve' team yesterday who sorted most of the issues, now today when we have the last thing still not sorted all phones agents are denying any knowledge of a resolve team.  How do we actually speak to someone to get this sorted?!

Several calls over the past few months, and just this week we've totted up about 5 hours trying to sort netflix plus over 24hours on the online chat, this is so stressful it's awful trying to get anywhere!

5 REPLIES 5

Ayisha_B
Forum Team
Forum Team

Hi @Nicola_t1

Welcome to our Community Forums and thanks for your post. 

I am sorry you've not had the best experience with us. It's certainly not the level of service we aim to provide. 

I am glad there appears to have been some progress in terms of your billing being sorted but if you do see any further issues on your next bill, just let us know. 

Regarding Netflix, was this part of your package or were you paying for the subscription via your billing? 

Ayisha_B
Forum Team

New around here? Check out the do's and don'ts, in our Community FAQs


We've spent almost 3 hours on the phone again this morning trying to sort netflix this is such a colossal waste of our life.  Why does everyone on the phone say they can't help, and that you have no complaints team?

We have netflix in our package, and got an email off you last Sunday saying you'd removed yourselves as a payment method (despite us only being a month into a new 18 month contract) it had been working successfully when we activated it through yourselves in September, now it has gone.  Almost 3 hours today on the phone and we still don't have it back its ridiculous.

Thanks for coming back to us @Nicola_t1, I would be happy to take a further look into this for you but would need to confirm a few details via private message, please look out for my message and we can get started.
Kind Regards,
Steven_L

The telephone agents have been lying to you (this is normal practice for them), you can raise a formal complaint, and you can escalate it to the industry adjudication scheme CISAS when VM have fobbed it off; I say "when" because their complaint handling is by the same unmanaged, untrained imbeciles that answer the phones.  Whilst for you the poor billing and crap customer service are the biggest issues, from a regulatory perspective, for staff to be telling customers they can't complain is massively serious - a flagrant breach of Ofcom Condition C4 (see page 50 of this).  Unfortunately Virgin Media don't abide by the regulations, and almost seem to take pride in their contempt for the industry rules.

As you've expressed dissatisfaction, I'm hoping Steven_L will be helping raise the relevant complaint, won't you mate?  Failure to raise a complaint when a customer expresses dissatisfaction here would be a further breach of the Ofcom regulations.  In terms of resolving this you have valid grounds for complaint against three specific items:

1) Wrong billing, dragging on for months

2) Truly appalling customer service failing repeated opportunities to fix this

3) Refusal to raise a complaint

All of those in my book are three separate and " very serious" when considered against the industry adjudicator's compensation guidance, and they're aggravated by the lies, mistakes and repetition of the failings.  So by my reckoning, your terms for settling this should be the original contract to be properly implemented, any excess charges to be refunded, and compensation against each of the 3 serious failing to be paid (I'd be looking for around £400 in your shoes).  This is a reasonable resolution, you should hold out for this.

If the forum staff come up short on any of those, or won't raise a complaint now, then you should proceed to a formal complaint to VM, using the postal address on this page.  Ignore the web form - it doesn't work reliably, VM know but don't care, and likewise ignore the phone lines, you've already tried dealing with VM's useless call centres.  Chances are you'll get a half backed offer of resolution or an outright fobbing off, and when that happens you reply rejecting the "resolution" and asking for a deadlock letter, with the deadlock letter you ask CISAS to get involved.  In fact, might be worth phoning CISAS on Monday and asking them - in a similar situation with a different business, I was able to raise a complaint directly with the relevant adjudicator after the company ignored my request to raise a complaint (and I won the complaint and got a nice settlement).

Thank you so much that is really useful, everything you have said is so right the call centres are awful, and when we asked to complain they just transferred us to another agent in the same team who again couldn't help us.  And each time they transfer us to someone who also can't help, they never relay the problem so we have to keep repeating ourselves.  I'd also tried the Web form which wouldn't log anything, and the Web chat for over 24 hours which got us nowhere.

I've not heard back from Steve on the private message since I outlined the problem yesterday so I'll see what happens, regarding your advice about CICAS we will definitely call tomorrow and see if we can get help from them for a resolution.  This is the worst customer service I've ever had!

Thanks again for the advice will try that next.