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Lie to me!

Danmin
On our wavelength

You want to has internets? Yas plx!

Just moved into a new house (on 28th June). Went onto virgin website to get some an internet connection installed. Here's the first snag: earliest appointment for connection is 19th July, that's like 3 weeks without internet, oh man. So I see a helpful button in the corner of the screen - "chat", and I'm like "What a pleasant coincidence!", so I go ahead and enter the chat.

I explain to a very polite person what I want, and she tells me "go ahead and order the connection with 19th as a date, then call this direct line, and they will for sure be able to sort you out with an earlier date". I'm like, "hey, I'd really like a bit more assurance before I commit to this" and she was like "don't worry, Trust me trust me! Just do it, grow a pair you peasant! " (I'm paraphrasing a bit).

So I did. And oh boy, did they make me regret it! I call the number right after ordering, and what do you know, it's a machine with 4 choices, none of which applies to me. So I pick choice number 4 - "other", after 20 minutes in the queue - I get to someone. "Hey, I got told XYZ by your colleague, so can I haz early internetz plx?", - "Let's go through the security first!" ... - "Okay, thank you Mr Danmin, no I can't help you, but let me put you in the queue to someone who can!"

[30 minutes later]

By now, I feel like I can recite the lyrics to the entire repertoire of 3 songs that they play over and over in the queue, in all their ultra-compressed-sounds-like-8bit-console-speaker glory.

- "Hello, let's go through the security!"

- "Why, thank you, let's go through the security to you too!"

The guy this time tells me that some pre-installation work needs to be done outside of the property (note he said "outside of" not "on the outside", this will become relevant later). He proceeds to explains Virgin media's internal processes to me, and tells me that until that work is done - he physically can't book an earlier date for me. BUT! There is hope! He tells me that the work will be done "tomorrow" or "the day after", which would be 29th or 30th of June, and that once the work is done - I'd get a text confirming that and I could call him again and he'd be happy to book an earlier appointment for me! What a champ, huh? Sounds grrrr8! Not really, since it's been effing 2 hours at this point of me talking to Virgin Media and by all appearances - I was mislead into placing my order.

We are terribly sorry that you're a sucker

So, after this, I go on the website and look up a way to address these shenanigans. Is there an email address? - nope. Well, you have a complaint option, so let's go with that. By this point I have a whole complaint thing written up, so let's go baby! I'm so ready!

I click a chat button, end up waiting for about 20 minutes, no worries, I'm a pro at having my time wasted by this point! You can't beat me! Ha haha.. ha... 

A guy shows up in the chat eventually. Now we play our favorite game of "let's go through security". Then he tells me that he's sorry and virgin media is sorry. I tell him that I don't care for his or some virgin's apology, what I want is solutions, not platitudes. He says he will record the whole case and it will be investigated and resolved. By this point we have wasted another 20 minutes, mostly waiting for him to "record" what was written by me in the chat. Copy-Paste sure is a hard skill to master.

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana 

Some the promised 2 days go by, and I get nothing. No promised text, no call, no email, nada, zilch. But then, suddenly, this masterpiece slides into my mailbox:

Danmin_0-1626204554449.png

To sum it up "you gave us feedback, we gave you an apology, we agreed that this resolves the complaint".

Neat isn't it?

Adventure calls

Not exactly, my name is not actually "Adventure", but I sure did call them about this wonderful piece of creative writing. After playing "who wants to go through security" - I explain the drama so far to a very polite and helpful sounding lady. She tells me she is "sorry" and that the virgin is "sorry". I ask if, since the 2 days that we promised are up, if I can book the appointment now. She tells me that external work is still not done, and get this - "not even booked yet". Meaning what I was fed previously was premium grade 💩. The lady tells me she can't book an appointment or basically do anything helpful except for apologizing.

My name is Karen, and I want to speak to your manager!

At this point my name might as well be Karen, because I do ask to speak to the manager. I explain to the slightly apprehensive lady that I don't have any issue with her, but that her manager might have more authority to solve this cluster 🦆. She relents and says that I would be wasting my time, since I'd get exactly the same answers and overall response, but says she'll put me through. We proceed to... the phone queue, of course. After around 20 minutes of queue - the lady gets back to me and tells me that the manager is still busy, she says he'll call me at 14:30 instead. Fast forward to that time. I do get a call, the lady says that the big cheese is still busy, but. But! He will definitely will call me before 17:00. Now, for a bit of a suspense, I ask you, dear reader to guess - what happened next:

  1. I got a call from the manager before 17:00
  2. I got a call from the manager after 17:00 that day
  3. I got a call one of the following days
  4. Jack + 💩, without the Jack

The answer is:

Spoiler
4. Not a darned thing. Nobody called me. Nobody texted me. Nobody sent me a letter, email, telegram, message in a bottle or any other form of communication.

 Rock'n'Roll

Couple of days ago I hear some jack-hammering sounding sounds from outside of my house. So, as you do in this kind of a situation - I pop out to have a look in the front garden. Lo and behold! Two strapping lads jacking and hammering holes in my home and laying down a cable. I mean... I'm renting and I wasn't told that any external damage would be done to the building, so I'm a bit.. what's the word... flabbergasted? Yeah, let's go with that.

The two lads did a very neat job though, holes in the mortar, evenly spaced, good cable tension. Nice. However, they also cut the cables off of the BT box that was on the outside of the house.

This brings me to today, since there's no email, and I kind of feel like the virgin would just brush me off as before. I'm posting this here for.. I guess "poops and giggles".

23 REPLIES 23

Zak_M
Forum Team (Retired)
Forum Team (Retired)

Thank you for coming back to me @Danmin 

 

I am going to pop you over the PM so we can pass security and I can then re-raise your complaint to be investigated properly. 

 

Kind regards,

Zak_M 

Danmin
On our wavelength

@-tony- wrote:

to clear up  a couple of points - you say

your customer service is bad - the use of the word 'your' in a direct reply to me suggests i work for VM - i do not - i post here in my own time adding comment and info i have gleaned/learnt from being on here for many years - some is my opinion as to closing the thread is - some is experience from previous posts add some is what i believe is VM's policy - NON of it is attributable to VM as such


I have never been under the impression that you are working for or in any way are affiliated with the Virgin Media Group. I'm sorry if I conveyed the opposite. That was not my intention. I have convoluted the usage of the pronoun "you" in my writing, to mean both "you" the person I am responding to, as well as "you" the company I am interacting with (in past/present tense) to talk about virgin media or a fictional abstract company to illustrate a point. Again, sorry for the confusion.


@-tony- wrote:

you have [again imo] created some of your own problems - thats a little unkind but true in hoping/believing that companies act as you would or would expect them to - i agree with you 100% but realism or is that a negativity has over taken over that view with trying to help people on here get through the fog VM create 


I mean, you get told something, without any hedging like "we will do X" and then they don't - that's lying. I expect to be operating in good faith, yes, incompetence and mistakes are expected, but this is the whole next level. The only way I can read your paragraph in view of our previous communication is "it's your own fault for being lied to". Like it would be my own fault for being assaulted for wearing a revealing dress, I suppose? I hope I'm not misrepresenting you. 


@-tony- wrote:

i am a customer just like you are hoping to be - the product is great - it has problems at times - all things do but that has to be tempered with a system behind the product that is what it is - each customer or potential customer will see that differently - if you order - its installed as hoped and the only contact is seeing the money going out each month then that/those customers [the majority] swear by it


I was hoping for pretty much the same. I didn't have illusions that a cheap service would both be great and have an amazing CS service. So we're on the same page I think.


@-tony- wrote:

HOWEVER if at any stage in the process of joining or using the product you run into problems you can see what you have seen - it may be wrong - it is - but someone somewhere has decided that that is the business model the VM will use


That's just the thing. I get that VM wants to save a buck, that's normal and totally understandable. Commendable even, as those same savings are passed onto the customer in some form. However, as someone who has been around the block, I believe that even their automated services are entirely inadequate. There are no checks and balances (at least as far as my case was), there is no recourse for the customer, relevant information is not given to the customer (which could be 100% automated) and simple things like relating customer info when being passed from one freaking queue to the next, having to do security check twice - that's not saving a buck - that's a sign of not giving a 💩.

I don't think that VM doesn't care about its image - I'm sure they do. Why? Because looking good attracts more customers, looking good lets you raise your prices, looking good is good for business. The fact that CS works the way it does is a sign that the management has dropped the ball and by your description - has been dropping the ball since long ago. It's not a matter of costs - not entirely anyway, it's a matter of prioritization. I know for a fact that me spending 2-3 hours on the phone/chats with them costs money to VM, paying for the phone line, paying salaries to off-shore guys, paying for the office space there, designing/maintaining IT systems etc. It's not free. The fact that I'm here and Zack is here - that's not saving money, so I stand by my point - it's not a matter of money, it's a matter of prioritization and competence on part of management.


 

Danmin
On our wavelength

So an update. Zak was very nice, and we played my favorite game "let's go through the security" over in PMs, then he made another complaint ticket, which I presume was shot into the black hole by Sir Richard Branson 🚀, because I never heard from them since.

Meanwhile, an engineer came over to my house (woohoo!) and after drilling some more holes, he hit the motherload! 💎💎💎 ...nah, just kidding, he hit a water pipe. 

A flood, some emergency repairs and a week later - we had 2 things:

  • super fast internet
  • hole in the wall with pipes exposed

The wall repairs are still ongoing, 2 weeks since the pipening. 

 

The engineer was a nice guy, and he was probably more freaked out about the incident than me. I was just like "oh, okay, the joke just keeps getting funnier". His manager was a nice guy too, and they sorted out emergency repairs pretty quickly, as well as staying on top of the wall repairs generally.

Danmin your storytelling skills are brilliant. 😁

VM customer services are an absolute joke, they never have any idea what's going on. Every time I call VM Customer Services its like the call gets routed to a random stranger with no affiliation with Virgin Media.


i agree with you that communications from VM is awful but thats how it is


 "That's how it is"? hahaha this is why Virgin media's customer service is utterly horrendous, because people just accept that "that's how it is". Lets all hope -tony-'s internet breaks or he has some technical issues and Virgin sends him round in circles for months and he cant do JACK about it. Then we'll tell him "that's how it is".

I also have an ongoing saga with Virgin Media. Basically they've sent me 2 old broken modems, (charged me £35 for one of them even though it's OLD and thus has already been paid for by another VM customer [double charging on their inventory, I'm guessing because Branson needs to buy more fuel for his Space playdates]. Anyway The computer keeps sending me automated demands to send the modems back, but Virgin Media support cannot accommodate the return of two modems at the same time, Three different representatives have tried to send me returns packs for TWO modems but the computer doesn't let them. Its just a bizarre paradox. The computer will end up automatically billing me for two modems while making it as difficult as possible to return the two modems.

 

Customer service for ALL companies will simply get worse in the future because all companies are trying to push towards Artificial Intelligence to replace actual intelligent human workers. Companies do this because it's more expensive to hire someone with actual intelligence, so if they just use artificial computer intelligence then the CEO and the Bosses have more money for themselves and they can buy more fuel to build bigger space rockets for their Mars playdates.

They've already started getting rid of REAL intelligence in companies and replacing it with ARTIFICIAL intelligence. There's a huge mission from ALL human society to get rid of all workers with real intelligence and replace them with zombies with scripts and fake artificial intelligence. The people currently manning the phones are only there so you have a human voice to hear. But soon they will replace real human voice with fake artificial voice synthesizers too. Once that happens there will be no hope left whatsoever, when computer says "no" that will be it.