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Symmetric speed saga

aceiashen
Tuning in

I was really excited to see symmetric speed available in my area (a XGSPON area) when it was first launched by VM. I requested it 5 different attempts via online chat with lots of different answers ranging from 'It's not available' to 'it will cost an extra £26/month'. After the 4th attempt I opened a complaint.

The complaint responded saying I could have 1Gb + symmetric for a total of £45/month and asked me to reply - I did. Then today I get a phone call from a customer service person who rescinded the £45/month offer and said "It's not available, it's only available to 2k customers as a trial"... even though I told him if i go on the site and attempt to sign up as a new customer I have the option to select it, and none of the statements from VM or on ISP Review state it's a trial. He couldn't answer and just seemed keen to close my complaint. I said I was not happy with the non-explanation given, and then 5 mins later I get an email saying he's closed my complaint - even though I said i wasn't satisfied that the complaint had been dealt with. I've since reopened the complaint and am hoping it can get sorted by someone who knows what they're doing.

My original install of VM was abysmal and resulted in a hefty charge to VM - I thought it'd be much easier than this to try and pay VM more money by getting an upgrade. The fact I've had to open a complaint to try and pay VM more money is ludicrous.

12 REPLIES 12

FlockWallpaper
Up to speed

You have experienced first hand, a classic issue with VM. Although you might think of them as an ISP, in actual fact they are better thought of as a marketing company, pushing their own wares, with a service provider arm grafted on as a sort of after-thought!

Their marketing and advertising people will often launch 'campaigns' and 'special deals' and 'new fastest broadband', type offers to try to garner interest and sign-ups. Fair enough, but what they fail to do is to make sure that the underlying infrastructure is in place to support this or that their customer support people are aware of any of this, have been trained on it, or have the ability to implement it.

In a way VM are now a victim of their own failures, for years their offshore CS provision has been an industry joke. Despite what is sometimes claimed, they are all untrained, generic call-centre workers, who can do nothing more than read off from a script in front of them - and when your particular issue isn't covered by said script, they simply make something up which might sound vaguely plausible.

And it really isn't going to get any better......!

Hahaha well said.

The funniest thing is, when VM recently won the award for worst customer service ever, why didn't the CEO immediately fire the Customer Services Director??? I believe her name is Rachel.

If my company won an award from Ofcom for worst customer service I'd have immediately started writing an apology to the whole United Kingdom, detailing exactly what I will do to improve my customer services! The CEO at VM seems to be asleep???

She clearly isn't doing her job of directing the customer services department. How can VM release a new product and the customer service team has had absolutely no direction from the customer service director???

According to this thread the customer services director has been sending letters to customers offering packages which her OWN customer service team don't have the ability to activate!! hahahahahahaha.

VM's leadership is just baffling and absolutely bizarre. I have offered my professional services to VM to help reduce the complaints by 95% within 3 weeks, however they just aren't bothered!

always has been a shamble, and always has been due to zero communication between departments.

Connection: Virgin FTTP Gig2 (XGSPON)

aceiashen
Tuning in

I've still got my fingers crossed if anyone from the VM forum team could help as I saw on another thread they were able to get symmetrical through one of the forum people?

Martyn
Superfast

my trail ran out 15th, got my 500mb installed 16th, and its 500/500 just waiting for my volt upgrade now to 1000/1000

image12312321.png

Connection: Virgin FTTP Gig2 (XGSPON)


@Martyn wrote:

my trail ran out 15th, got my 500mb installed 16th, and its 500/500 just waiting for my volt upgrade now to 1000/1000

image12312321.png


Actually that’s a point which I don’t think has been properly addressed, ‘does the Volt speed doubling apply to both the upload and the download’? In your case, even if you get the Volt double speed, will this be 1000/1000 or 1000/500?

I don't think Martyn has had much luck as they were 'Volted' to 1000/100 from 500/500...

Hi aceiashen, 

Thanks for taking the time to contact us via the Community. It's lovely having you on board with us in the Forums.

We're sorry to hear that you've had some issues with getting the symmetric upload speed add on. Taking a look at things here, it looks like you have a hub and connection that we're unable to support in the Community. You'll need to contact our specialist team so they can help further. Please call the team on 150 / 0345 454 1111. As long as you're calling from the number we have as a contact number for you, this will pop you directly through to the team you need. 

Many thanks, 

Kath_P
Forum Team
Wishing you & your family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

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


I've contacted the support team loads and made 2 complaints and am not being helped. The forum was my final port of call. My connection is in a nextfibre area, I have a 5x router, it should just be a click of a button to trigger symmetric and charge me £6/month more for the add-on?