I recently filled out an order to get broadband services from virgin - my current contract with another provider ended so i decided to avail of the speed that virgin offered.. The whole of my street is able to get virgin broadband. So I fill out the usual details...next day get an email saying i saying they can't provide the service to a business address as i applied as a residential customer. This malarky has been happening year in year out - so never bothered to chase it up... but this time round i thought i'd find out what on earth was going on.
I phoned up virgin...and told them the puzzling response in the email..... and the explanation given is mind-boggling. The lady tells me their database has my address as a business. I explained to her, yes it was a business some 10 years ago. When I moved into the property it was a listed as a business, but as is the law, I had the property applied for "change of use" to the council and was duly accepted. It's illegal to live at a business address without proper planning permission - as the business is not registered as residential.
I have lived here for nearly 10 years. Every other broadband provider sees my address as residential.... even royal mail do. Yet Virgin, supposedly at the forefront of technology, still uses a database of addresses which is by all account nearly a decade old thats still showing property as a business.
I explained to the lady, politely of course, that if the company still relies on a database that is nearly a decade old, what chance of providing a superior service... above and beyond keeping a simple up to date database of addresses? Why was it only Virgin that saw my address as a business, yet every other broadband provider saw my property as residential? She had no response. I politely suggested, isnt it high time you updated the database ?... she coudn't gie an answer as that wasnt within her remit.
I then finally suggested, that for a silly and effectively stupid mistake, they have lost a potential customer - i decided to stay with my current provider who obviously provides and charges me as a residential customer and not business.
It's truly baffling that a simple update of residential addresses is not done on the fly ... heck even an update every week wouldn't be too much of an ask... but relying on a 10 year old one.... bonkers !!
