Virgin won't replace faulty equipment

[MrMessy]

For the last 3 weeks, I've been trying to get my non-functioning Tivo box replaced.  I've been promised a replacement twice, but no action has been taken and I'm still paying for a service that I'm not getting.

Imagine my annoyance when asked to repond to a customer satisfaction survey!!  This was my response;

"I've been a Virgin Media customer for a number of years. I've had the Virgin Media Tivo box since 2012 and had been very pleased with it until it started playing up (unresponsive, freezes, jumps, reboots randomly etc) Searching the Virgin Media Community site (very useful) indicated a failing hard disc. Called 150 twice and was promised new Tivo box each time, but no further action resulted! I have no wish to continue the cycle of spending an hour on the 'phone every 10 days to no effect while paying for a service I no longer receive.
I am currently investigating alternatives for TV & broadband and actively discouraging people from using Virgin Media with their appalling customer service."

[japitts]

You've not actually said, so I'll ask....

What's the fault with your TiVo that makes you think it needs replacing?

And how have you gone about reporting it? (This is your first post on this forum)

Who promised you a replacement?

Many issues can be resolved by other customers offering support & advice. If that's not going to cut it, VM staff do monitor this board but they'll need an explanation too.

[MrMessy]

I did paste in my response to a VM customer satisfaction survey which did explain the problem.

My TiVo box (new in May 2012) is slow to respond to commands (sometimes 10 -15 seconds), recorded or paused TV will freeze, it pixellates badly (text book example of video compression failing), will often jump forward by several minutes, and will randomly restart.  Live TV quality is fine, which indicates to me that the connections are all fine, however, this is unuseable in practise, due to the random and increasingly frequent restarts.

Searching through Virgin Media Community site has been very informative, the consensus being that these symptoms are indicative of a failed hard disk and that the unit needs to be replaced.

Called 150 on the 30th June, the friendly VM respondant agreed that the symptoms and age of the TiVo box pointed to hard disk failure and that a replacement unit was required.  He said that it would probably be shipped a week later and that I would be informed of the likely delivery time and the Yodel tracking details (I've found Yodel to be very good on this).

Nothing more was heard, so I called 150 again on the 10th July.  Again, the friendly VM respondant agreed that the symptoms and age of the TiVo box pointed to hard disk failure and that a replacement unit was required.  However, he also informed that there was no record on my account of a replacement TiVo box being requested!  He said that he had requested a replacement and that I would be contacted on the following Monday (the next working day) for an update about progress.  This time, however, he did give me a reference number.

Nothing more has been heard from VM apart from an invitation to complete a VM customer satisfaction survey.  I did find this very annoying under the circumstances, which explains my rather tetchy reponse to it and my previous post.

I could waste another hour on the 'phone, but I have little confidence that the situation will be resolved.  When it worked, it was great, but now I am paying for a service that I don't receive.

[japitts · Accepted solution]

I'm not sure I agree that pixellation is necessarily a text-book example of video compression failing, there's several possible causes but all the same. Not important overall.

Your box certainly sounds unwell and in need of a tech visit at least. The TiVo boxes aren't known for being quick in general operation compared with the newer boxes (V6 or 360) but I agree shouldn't be behaving as you describe.

Generally most replacements these days are done by engineer swapout rather than courier delivery so I suspect this is partly the cause of non-receipt.

Given that you've done all the right things with VM C/S, I will escalate this post for forum staff to respond quicker than they otherwise would. This should hopefully get you a response sometime tomorrow.

In the meantime, do you have VM broadband? If so, you could do a lot worse than consider a swap to the V6 box. Same software as the TiVo but on much more capable hardware.

[MrMessy]

Thanks for the quick response.

Yes, I have VM broadband, it's rather good, I probably only use a fraction of it's capabilities.

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[Laurie_C]

Hi @MrMessy,

Thank you for getting in touch, and a very warm welcome back to the Community Forum. I am sorry that you're having some problems with your TiVo box.

I'd be more than happy to look into this for you, I'll just need to confirm some details with you via Private Message. Please look out for a purple envelope in the top right corner of your screen.

Kind regards,

Laurie

[MrMessy]

Adam, technician from Virgin Media visited on Saturday.  He quickly decided that the TV Box needed replacing and that a new faster hub would also be beneficial.  I now have a new V6 box and it's all working very nicely now.  Thanks to all that helped towards this.

To anyone else who has similar issues, request a visit rather than just replacement equipment, in order to resolve the problem.