I received a cold call from Virgin earlier this week telling me that my existing bundle discount was about to expire and that they could get me a better price and faster internet if I took the an upgrade bundle which included TV 360. It seemed like a good idea so I said yes. The Virgin rep asked me several questions including: how many TVs, did they all have internet etc etc. At no point was I asked "Is your main TV in the same room as your modem?" or even "is your modem near a TV", which in hindsight seems like a fairly crucial question to ask.
Fast forward to today when the man from Yodel arrives with my shiny new kit from Virgin, only I find there's a slight problem... The coaxial splitter means the TV 360 box needs to be next to the modem, but the modem is in my office where it needs to be as it's in passthrough/modem mode and my office is the only room that has two ethernet cables to allow me to connect the modem to my 3rd party router which is in my comms cupboard connected to a 16 port switch. Not a standard domestic setup I admit, but the issue is the same: my modem is not near a TV and I don't want it to be and I have a strong dislike of wires wrapped round the outside of a house. So I call the support team and ask if someone can come and take away the TV 360 as it's useless in my setup. Unfortunately the person I'm speaking to cancels the whole bundle - I didn't ask for this and had I not called back to double check it would still be cancelled - all I wanted to do was give Virgin their TV box back.
It takes approx 1 hour and 2 calls to get back close to the original offer price of £44 PCM: I end up with £45 PCM and initially a £40 one off charge (£5 of which was for delivery of a box I already had and didn't want!) which I managed to get removed in the 2nd call.
This can't be a good way to do business!! Can it? I'm happy so far with the ISP role that Virgin Media fulfils, but the customer service/sales team needs to do a lot better.
