Dreadful Broadband And Customer Service

[shanebrown88]

Hello,

Has anyone else experienced great difficulty in dealing with Virgin Media's Customer Service Team?

I've been going back and forth for months,  after having terrible service and numerous attempts at diagnosing the issue to engineer visits which failed to fix the issue, to being ignored when I asked then pleaded to cancel(as though I was being held hostage to a non-existent contract!), to spending 90+ minutes on the phone and speaking to approximately 9 different people who kept asking me the same security questions, asking me to explain the situation all over again after saying they had "read the notes of my complaint" and then assuring me the next transfer would be the "the right place sir".

My wife works from home as a manager for the head office of an international company and a multitude of comments have been made about the constant disruptions of her internet service and how it was having an impact on them. Every time we approached Virgin to request that they fix this, an assurance was given, and like suckers - we trusted them on their word that they would resolve this for approximately 12 months, ensuring that we kept paying in excess of 70.00 a month.

I was told that I was eligible for compensation and they agreed in writing via the WhatsApp service(after back and forth over hours of pleading for them to cancel my contract instead of trying to get me to purchase a commercial line to "fix the problem") that it would be processed in 3-5 working days and we're now weeks on with no response. I've paid over £850.00 across the course of a year for a broadband which was vastly substandard to what was promised on the tin. They've acknowledged there's an issue, they've acknowledged there's a history of fault(s) and yet now nothing has come through.

I'm posting here in the hopes that someone can put me in the right direction and that a satisfactory resolution can be reached, otherwise I have no choice but to just take everything to the Ombudsman.

[goslow]

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@shanebrown88 wrote:

Hello,

Has anyone else experienced great difficulty in dealing with Virgin Media's Customer Service Team?

<snip>

I'm posting here in the hopes that someone can put me in the right direction and that a satisfactory resolution can be reached, otherwise I have no choice but to just take everything to the Ombudsman.

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Have you gone through the formal VM complaints process up to this point or just been speaking to VM support on the phone?

https://www.virginmedia.com/help/complaints

The VM formal complaint route is unlikely to result in a useful outcome for you but is a required formality before going to Ombudsman Services for adjudication.

https://www.ombudsman-services.org/

As an aside, as I understand it, you may well still be connected to the same infrastructure on a VM business connection so moving to a VM business account may not be any use in fixing your problems. You may well have the same issues, depending on where exactly the problem lies.

[jpeg1]

What can one say? You are not being picked out for particularly bad service, this is just the way they operate. It's why Virginmedia is rated as 69th out of 69 providers on Trustpilot. 

You might try what they said and change to a business line, which unlike the residential service does have a service level agreement for what that may be worth. 

Before going to the Ombudsman you have to make a formal complaint and follow the lengthy formal procedure.

( Crossed with @goslow) 

[shanebrown88]

Thanks very much for your reply!

I've been through the complaints process and currently have two logged, one from January and one from earlier this month.

I need to give Virgin 8 weeks to resolve the issue(so from early January, I am well outside of that 2 month period), although I'm trying this as a last ditch attempt to get everything straightened out with Virgin theirself.

[-tony-]

how will a buisiness line help with the connection - yest it has SLA's but the complaint here is a bad connection - the business hub is no better - some say worse than the domestic hubs - if the connection is bad it will still be bad

and at the price paid it suggests more than BB and afaik you cannot get TV on a business deal

to the OP - open a complaint if you have not already done so - if you have go to arbitration with all the history and see if they will force VM to release you from your contract  - the april price increase should let you leave anyway at no cost if thats what you want

BT and the like may be slower but is that the deciding factor

[shanebrown88]

Thanks very much for your reply!

I've since took up a broadband with another service provider which has proved faster, cheaper and so far we've had 100% reliability.

I'm hoping that Virgin can resolve my issues without having to go through the Ombudsman and in the process restore some sliver of faith so that come the end of this contract, I do not have to permanently boycott any new service offers Virgin might bring out.

[goslow]

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@shanebrown88 wrote:

Thanks very much for your reply!

I've since took up a broadband with another service provider which has proved faster, cheaper and so far we've had 100% reliability.

I'm hoping that Virgin can resolve my issues without having to go through the Ombudsman and in the process restore some sliver of faith so that come the end of this contract, I do not have to permanently boycott any new service offers Virgin might bring out.

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I think you might be hoping against hope that VM will come up with a fair and reasonable settlement to deal with the problems you have faced. They have failed to do so up to this point so why would they do so now (especially since you have a new supplier and will be leaving VM)?

Even in clear-cut cases on here where the automatic compensation scheme, for delayed installations and repairs, should have paid out, VM has delayed and stalled using smoke-and-mirror tactics to avoid paying out. Complicated cases with intermittent problems are harder to resolve and quantify compensation.

FWIW, and IMHO, if you have now passed the 8 week limit since you complained, just go ahead with a complaint to Ombudsman Services. It is time consuming but at least it will be assessed by a professional adjudicator rather than via VM's pantomime processes.

[shanebrown88]

Thanks very much for your reply!

At this point, I just want confirmation that my service has been cancelled. I'm out of contract anyway but with speaking to so many people at Virgin and them doing so many different things regardless of clear instruction to simply "Cancel Service > Process Compensation > Done".

On My Virgin Media it shows that my contract was updated on 03 March whilst at the same time, they've requested, and I've sent, the hub back, and I want the automatic compensation scheme to be fairly put into practise. It was confirmed this would be the case on the WhatsApp message that I would receive news of the compensation in 3-5 working days from 26/02/2023. We're now over a month on with nothing.

I was told my final bill details would be on 16/03/23 for £66.40 and yet it's come through as £73.40. 

After the confirmed cancellation, I got a text messaging saying that an engineer had been booked which I then I had to cancel through text message. I really don't know if I'm coming or going with them.

[goslow]

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@shanebrown88 wrote:

Thanks very much for your reply!

At this point, I just want confirmation that my service has been cancelled. I'm out of contract anyway but with speaking to so many people at Virgin and them doing so many different things regardless of clear instruction to simply "Cancel Service > Process Compensation > Done".

On My Virgin Media it shows that my contract was updated on 03 March whilst at the same time, they've requested, and I've sent, the hub back, and I want the automatic compensation scheme to be fairly put into practise. It was confirmed this would be the case on the WhatsApp message that I would receive news of the compensation in 3-5 working days from 26/02/2023. We're now over a month on with nothing.

I was told my final bill details would be on 16/03/23 for £66.40 and yet it's come through as £73.40. 

After the confirmed cancellation, I got a text messaging saying that an engineer had been booked which I then I had to cancel through text message. I really don't know if I'm coming or going with them.

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I would expect you would want to present your case to Ombudsman Services in a way to go beyond simply the automatic compensation scheme and take into account the fact that you paid £865 across a year for a significantly sub-standard service from VM.

The automatic compensation scheme is quite clear cut about when it pays out (which is for a 'total loss of service'). It is not that favourable to the customer for intermittent faults that go on over a long period of time. If you have had extended periods of poor connectivity (as opposed to a TLS) then you would need to factor that into any complaint to Ombudsman Services.

Any award from Ombudsman Services would be based on the evidence you present so getting all of the details, and VM's failures, correct is important in presenting your case.

[shanebrown88]

I was hoping the circus was down to a language barrier and locational to the Customer Service Department as opposed to a culture of banditry which stretched across the company as a whole. While I've moved to another provider, contracts are only a few years at best and just because your customers move over - the future of your business will rely on maintaining a good rapport to give you a chance of winning them back on future services. Leaving the customers with such a sour taste in their mouth will only ensure that they vehemently refuse to ever enter into contract with you again. It's basic business and I might be somewhat optimistic but here's to hoping that I might find a representative of the company with the understanding and ability to bring a very simple resolution to a very simply request. Fingers crossed, won't hold my breath though!