Homeworks - What is it and will I be charged?

[banhamm]

We recently upgraded from Ultimate Oomph to Ultimate Volt reveals that we also have Homeworks alongside the one gig broadband.

What is it as I don't recall Homeworks being mentioned during the call with the offer to upgrade and will I be charged?

[jem101]

Ah well it is an extra paid-for service (£9.95 a month on top of your normal bill, I believe), which VM mugs customers who need to work from home and hence have a greater reliance on an internet connection over and above watching cat videos on Facebook, could sign up for, pay the money and gain 'extra' support!

Now you might think that as paying customer anyway, if you had an issue then VM would pull the stops out to help, but no, a 'special homeworks' customer gets priority support - (and considering VM's expertise for providing customer support, we might want to take that statement under advisement). Guaranteed next day technician visit if necessary (oh, except for the small print which says, subject to availability, so possibly not so guaranteed), and let's not forget the 'GADGET RESCUE' crew, whose extensive expertise is thrown in as part of the deal. Well, based on reports on here, their expertise consists of 'turn it off and on again', or let's factory reset it.

I mean just think about it, consider all the myriad of consumer IT devices out there, is it conceivable that anyone, anyone, could possible understand or be knowledgeable about all of them and how they all might interconnect? No; it's rubbish, all they could possibly provide is some generic advice (and frankly, turn it off and on again works more often than you might think - except I don't need to pay someone £10 a month to tell me that)!

Oh and you get the VM branded security product, which is F-Secure, and that's all a bit meh and nothing massively superior to what comes bundled in with Windows anyway.

Hope I haven't put anyone off.......

[banhamm]

Has anyone had a positive experience with Homeworks? As someone who does work at home three days a week it doesn't sound as if it would be adding much value for the £9.99 a month?
I will get it removed as soon as i can get through!

[Anonymous]

Yes I added BT Sport nothing else and found Home Works had been added without my consent or request. I have complained and am told it will take 48 hours to remove it. Better do or the lot will go.

[Anonymous]

Update on this, it has now been removed from my account, I don't have an answer to the question as to why it was placed there initially though. I think there are questions to be answered.

[jem101]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Update on this, it has now been removed from my account, I don't have an answer to the question as to why it was placed there initially though. I think there are questions to be answered.

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Indeed, and really, I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for a definitive response, on the grounds that, literally any response could be embarrassing. But I might speculate that a potential reason is that a proportion of the offshore and outsourced call centre staff, which VM have no direct control over, are actually corrupt and are ‘incentivised’ by local managers to ‘boost revenue’ by whatever means; or alternatively, the backend processes are completely broken and this this sort of stuff happens by accident.

Not a good look either way, really - but let’s see if a member of the forum team (VM employees) want’s to wade in and give any sort of realistic and definitive explanation? Of course, if they don’t, then that’s fair enough, but should anyone come to their own conclusions regarding the situation, well then I think (and probably a Court would too, if push were to come to shove) that would be fair enough.

[-tony-]

so wheres the VM reply in this - first post on the 6th - thats 7 days ago - they [staff] sit on their hands for 2 days to give users a chance to reply or for them [staff] to think up something other than their usual

• all staff are trained to the same high standards - etc
• thats not the experience we expect - etc
• installs can sometimes take up to 10 weeks - etc
• we may need council permission - etc
• hang about i will send you a pm which by recent replies in other threads is just another black hole
• etc etc etc

so come on team jump in and add something - anything - you know you want to [not]

[banhamm]

Yes come on VM staff forum monitors - we need a response on this. Why was Homeworks added to my account without consent / consultation?

[banhamm]

Further update on this.

Via the WhatsApp chat at lunchtime today (the only way to get anything done with the call centre these days), I asked for Homeworks to be removed. After a bit of to and fro I was told it would be removed in 30 days. However, I was told that my package price would go down by £9.99 a month - the fact that I was paying for this within the Ultimate Volt fee since I renewed in December was news to me. I asked for a refund for the last three months which has been approved by terminating it immediately and applying a refund of £16.99 next month along with a pro rata refund for February.

There are some points I would like addressed by the VM team:

• Why was I never told that my Ultimate Volt monthly fee included Homeworks for £9.99 - is this standard offshore call centre trickery encouraged by VM?
• I had also read it was a free trial period for three months, if this is the case why have they now refunded for those three months? Faulty Ts and Cs here

I think VM are on shaky ground here, and as a previous contributor pointed out, could be breaching Consumer Protection rules.

I really would value some response from the VM forum staff.

[John_GS]

Hi, 

The Homeworks feature is not included in the Ultimate Volt plan so apologies for any confusion there.

Did the team sort your refund out?

Best wishes,

[Andrew-G]

I really would value some response from the VM forum staff.

Well,  banhamm, you've got a response from the VM forum team, albeit one that doesn't address any of the questions you asked.  Do you value that response?