Download speed extremely slow… no help from Virgin via Phone, just been told to wait 48hrs. HELP!

[gseb27]

I joined Virgin last week on the promise of amazing guaranteed speeds, but unfortunately the reality has been very poor. 

We’re paying for the M350 fibre broadband, but the speeds we’ve been getting are on average 21mbps download and it cuts out regularly.

I phoned the technician team and asked to speak to a supervisor, who astonishingly told me there’s nothing they can do and hung up on me as I was mid-sentence. 

Just looking for some help/advice as my experience with VirginMedia has been awful so far.

thanks 

[jpeg1]

Which connections are dropping- ethernet or just WiFi?   Post the router stats now.

[Alex_RM]

Hi gseb27,

I've been able to locate your account using your forum details, and we've identified a short-term connectivity issue which may cause intermittent or performance related issues with your connection.

In the vast majority of cases, these types of issues are resolved after 24 hours.

If you can please pop back and let us know how you get on.

Alex_Rm

[gseb27]

My connection is dropping consistently and I can’t even get online the last 2 nights.

WHY IS YOUR SERVICE SO SHOCKINGLY BAD!?

I just want to cancel my contract now, this is so so bad. I’ve tried everything and spoken to your useless customer service team countless times with no resolution - just the same “intermittent connectivity issue” excuse, which essentially means nothing.

can you please advise on how I cancel my account and be done with this horrific experience? 

[Andrew-G]

As you've relatively recently joined you'll be locked into an 18 month minimum term contract with exit penalties likely to be £240.

Given your customer experience you may have a case for demanding to be released without penalty, but you'll need to clearly state a good case that demonstrates that the service has been nowhere near what might reasonably be expected, and that VM have failed to resolve the matter despite having the opportunity, or that multiple poorly handled problems represent an overall failure of service quality.  To achieve a penalty free exit, you will probably need to steer this through VM's complaint process, and very probably escalate to the industry complaints scheme, CISAS (not forgetting a copy of any CISAS complaint to Ofcom).  Sometimes forum staff can intercede and arrange for customers to be released without penalty to avoid what for the company is an expensive hassle, and if they offer that it is your quickest resolution.

If you choose to do this, the grounds of your complaint is the poor performance and the poor customer service, and your request for release from contract without penalty is twofold: First the Consumer Rights Act 2015 that requires any consumer service to be provided with "reasonable skill and care", and second, the Ofcom Fairness Commitments which VM signed up to in 2019, that state "Customers’ services work as promised, reliably over time. If things go wrong providers give a prompt response to fix problems and take appropriate action to help their customers, which may include providing compensation where relevant. If providers can’t fix problems with core services they have promised to deliver within a reasonable period, customers can walk away from their contract with no penalty."

Make the complaint using the online form in My Virgin Media (as you've found, VM aren't capable of communicating by telephone), summarising the background, stating that grounds above, and requesting a resolution of either (1) immediate release from contract without early termination fees, or (2) if VM will not agree to that, the issue of a "deadlock letter" for the purposes of immediate escalation to CISAS.  If escalating to CISAS you will need to provide the most detailed explanation and history possible (don't forget that they start off knowing nothing about your case), detail and rudeness, disconnected calls, long wait times, incorrect advice, broken promises, and you should set as your requested resolution release from contract without penalty, plus compensation for the poor connection, and the poor customer support.  VM's handling of formal complaints is conducted to the same exceptional standards as their customer service, so don't expect too much from that, but sometimes they'll see sense, more often than not they'll reject your complaint or fob it off, but that doesn't stop you from escalating to CISAS.

When and if it gets to CISAS, the complaint is reviewed by a trained dispute adjudicator, and they offer you what they believe is a fair settlement, if you accept that then it is binding on VM.  Of the broadband complaints to CISAS, data shows that VM immediately concede on 42%, they challenge the remainder, but lose 50%, and only 8% of CISAS complaints are found in the company's favour.  That, unsurprisingly, is the worst performance in the industry, tieing with Post Office broadband for bottom place, which tops off the company's recent achievements in customer service.

As a regular in this forum, I find it dispiriting to be offering advice like this.  VM's customer service is appalling, it has always been appalling since it was offshored to some third world dump (and outsourced to TheOffshoreCompanyThatDoesn'tGiveATinker'sCuss Ltd), yet the bread-heads of VM's US parent company Liberty Global and VM's useless British management have proven time and again that there is nothing of such poor quality and cheapness that it can't be done still worse and cheaper. 

[gseb27]

Thanks for your advice Andrew. It’s a massive shame it’s come to this.

based on the chart here: https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/efd17a0cc67a3f35dce12ecf3a82d22f77...

is this likely to improve and is there anything I can do to improve it? Wired connection makes no difference either in this, so it’s clear to me it’s a network issues as opposed to my Wi-Fi setup…

thanks,

[Andrew-G]

Yep, BQM confirms a VM network fault, and leaping to a conclusion based on not much evidence it looks like a network amplifier fault (based on similar previous traces and reported outcomes rather than any expert knowledge on my part).  If VM would take ownership and investigate properly, fixing that would be a relatively simple job for a properly trained technician.  Worst case it's a damaged cable to your house - that's still a conceptually easy fix involving repulling a new cable, although it does cross into the Franz Kafka world of VM's outsourced civil works fiasco.  

In terms of will the company get a grip and sort it out, I'd like to think so (when it works VM is pretty good), but I have to temper that with the observation that this is Britain's most complained about telecoms company, and there's little or no evidence of any serious customer focus.  The forum staff here do their best (fighting against crap systems, broken processes, and company senior management who don't give a ssot.   

Give the staff a day or so to see if they can offer any positive response (such as escalation to the Area Field Manager), if there's no progress then it's time to crank the complaints machine into action, noting my earlier comments.

[Natalie_L]

Hi gseb27, 

Thank you for coming back to us and updating the thread. 

I have taken a look from our side and can see a fault has been detected within your area in relation to SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio).

The details for this are as follows: 

Date Open:05 OCT 2021 23:12

Estimated end date:13 OCT 2021 09:00

We are very sorry for any frustration or inconvenience caused. 

[gseb27]

Thanks Andrew. 

On all of the online checks I can do through the VirginMedia site, it says there are no known faults - yet on the phone a technician made me aware that there’s an issue which is complex and will take until the 13th October to fix. All of the chat bots just give the same generic advice as do the technicians. 

When our connection is stable, it’s great - th best speed we’ve had. The engineers who installed it absolutely butchered our paint work and it was a very sloppy installation - another that I’m very frustrated with the prospect of having to leave, but I really don’t see any other options. 

No resolution or compensation has been offered yet and they’ve even gone as far as cancelling my engineer appointment that was booked for Friday “due to ongoing faults in your area”

Tried to call and cancel earlier but was threatened with early exit fees and told there were no notes on my account - despite a technician last month telling me that they had made a note of my early exit fee being waived if issues persisted.

Frustrated beyond belief and still no stable connection. Everything is cutting out, no matter what time of day. 

[gseb27]

So this will keep happening for the next week?

I’ll lose my job if I keep dropping out of calls… this is unacceptable. I’ve been offered no compensation or solutions at all - am I just expected to ‘deal with it’?

[Adduxi]

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@gseb27 wrote:

So this will keep happening for the next week?   I’ll lose my job if I keep dropping out of calls… this is unacceptable. I’ve been offered no compensation or solutions at all - am I just expected to ‘deal with it’?

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I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Residential Broadband contracts have no SLA's, unlike the Business side.  If your work depends on a 24 x 7 uptime, you really should have a 4G backup router, or use phone tethering.