Virgin Media Community

[noelmm]

I've woke up this morning around 5am to find the broadband, TV or phone line not working. I've gone through the checks online and it took me to a page that said book an engineer, when I got that far the button do not work. I've tried multiple browsers and devices while tethered to my phone.

I decided to wait until 8am to ring customer services and report the problem, I got cut off the 1st 2 times and then got through to someone who had no idea what he was doing, asking me to turn the router off and then asking what lights it was showing etc.

After requesting an engineer I have been told the earliest I can get an engineer is next Monday (7 days time from the problem being reported)  which in my opinion is far too long, if it was a single service that would be acceptable but not for all services.

When stating this wasn't acceptable and I would like to speak to a manager or supervisor to complain I was refused, at no point should a company refuse to accept a complaint.

Virgin Media need to actually train their staff rather than simply reading from a script. 

Of anyone from Virgin Media reads this can you contact me regarding this matter?

Noel 

[Andrew-G]

The loss of service and slow response is your real concern, unfortunately I'm pretty sure that unless you're a vulnerable customer the 7 days will be seen as "reasonable" within the context of a network operator.  You can raise that as a complaint using the online form buried in My Virgin Media.

Separately, I'd suggest you raise a complaint with Ofcom over the refusal of VM staff to register a complaint.  This isn't the first time I've seen this reported recently, and it is a flagrant breach of the terms of Virgin Media's licence to operate (C4.2 within Ofcom's "General Conditions"), and a breach of Commitment 6 of Ofcom's Fairness Code that VM have signed up to.  If I were VM staff reading this, I'd be urgently starting a witch hunt to find and sack the employees responsible, because if Ofcom were raised from their slumbers and investigated refusal to register a customer complaint, the costs of even the most modest regulatory investigation is about half a million quid in staff time and legal advice fees, and then goes up from there.

[noelmm]

It gets worse. I rang back to see if I could speak to someone more reasonable and explained the situation and they have now told me that my engineer visit has been automatically cancelled due to an area outage.

I went on to inform them that the virgin media website states there are no problems so the appointment should not have been cancelled and they have said there is nothing they can do until the problem is resolved. Apparently the engineers fixing the problem have not give any details of what the problem is or when it will fixed but until it is no engineer vist will be allowed. 

[newapollo]

Hi Noel,

Sorry to see the issues you are facing.

@Andrew-G had given very sound advice.

Just a heads up, the online Status Checker doesn't always show all faults.

Generally if nothing is showing there  you could also try the automated Service Status number  0800 561 0061. 

This often gives details of more local issues down to postcode level. and an estimated resolution date/time.

When there are area  faults the VM's systems automatically close any open fault appointments until such time as the area fault is resolved, then if the customer is still having issues the appointment needs rebooking.

[LittleMick73]

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@Andrew-G wrote:

The loss of service and slow response is your real concern, unfortunately I'm pretty sure that unless you're a vulnerable customer the 7 days will be seen as "reasonable" within the context of a network operator.  You can raise that as a complaint using the online form buried in My Virgin Media.

Separately, I'd suggest you raise a complaint with Ofcom over the refusal of VM staff to register a complaint.  This isn't the first time I've seen this reported recently, and it is a flagrant breach of the terms of Virgin Media's licence to operate (C4.2 within Ofcom's "General Conditions"), and a breach of Commitment 6 of Ofcom's Fairness Code that VM have signed up to.  If I were VM staff reading this, I'd be urgently starting a witch hunt to find and sack the employees responsible, because if Ofcom were raised from their slumbers and investigated refusal to register a customer complaint, the costs of even the most modest regulatory investigation is about half a million quid in staff time and legal advice fees, and then goes up from there.

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I'm afraid Ofcom don't deal with members of the public 

[jpeg1]

There is a link on Ofcom's website

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/problems/broadband-landli...

but it will refer you to CISAS.  Ofcom won't deal with complaints directly.

[Andrew-G]

The point of complaining to Ofcom is not about them intervening in the individual complaint, it is that they do monitor the matters people complain about, and some things attract their attention more than others.  These aren't necessarily the same things that matter to you or I (eg speed or reliability), but things that matter to Ofcom as a regulator - so things like companies breaching licence conditions, failure to honour fairness commitments, not helping vulnerable customers, poor complaints procedures, failure to honour CISAS adjudications.  VM have been warned or fined before about some of these matters, and the purpose of complaining to Ofcom is to put (in this case) the failure to register a complaint on their radar, and then they can challenge VM, and if need be set up a formal regulatory investigation.  Whilst you won't see the results immediately or directly, it's a useful mechanism for putting pressure on VM to improve. 

[Dominatez]

Or you could take a look here with more information and help you get to the right people and get the ball rolling.

Complaints Ofcom Deals With 

[Roger_Gooner]

A member of the forum team should be able to provide the area fault reference. I cannot see the how it can be sensible to raise a complaint whilst a fault is being fixed, it's not as if VM is knowingly refusing to sort out the problem.