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Mis sold contract & extremely poor customer service

Nicolea
Tuning in

Hi - I wanted to write in to share my horrendous week long experience with virgin media. I tried to submit as a complaint via your form but it is restricted for 900 characters- why is this?  I would like to share the full experience with you so that your business may realise how ridiculous your customer service processes are and so someone might actually address my issue. 

It all started when I phoned up to renew my contract- I was told I couldn’t renew to the contract price that was on the website I had to go with the deals the rep had access to which were at least £14 more expensive a month than the current price on the website. I was told that the only way I could get an online price was to cancel and sign up on the website but the wait time on installation was apparently 3 months (this sounds inaccurate to me & likely a lie)

The rep said I could renew for the exact package that I had been on for £20 more a year which I agreed to.

he said it included 1gig internet, tv and 2 SIM cards.

I later found out from another rep that the internet speeds I purchased are unlikely to come to fruition for a long time because there’s a fault with that product (issue 1) and more importantly the rep forgot to order my partners SIM card despite us discussing at length during my renewal (issue 2).  I only

Agreed to renew because that price apparently included the internet speeds  & 2 SIM cards.

He also forgot to book in the engineers visit that I requested to fix our virgin outside box. (Issue 3)

When I phoned to get the missing SIM card sorted- the rep said he would sort it but his system was down and would ring back later that day to fix- he never phoned

I rang a few days later and the rep said he again fixed the issue and ordered my partners SIM card - it never arrived.

I phoned again and was transferred between the houses. Every person said it was not possible to fix or transferred me to someone else (o2, media services, virgin mobile- no one would help). 2 people said they were transferring me but actually hung up.  Each time I rang back i had to wait on hold to speak with someone.

I was also informed that not a single note had been left on my file by anyone I spoke to-  since I purchased the package. That means those 2 people who said they’d fixed the issue had lied and deleted any record of our conversation

One person submitted a mini complaint form & said someone would ring back within 2 hrs to fix - they never phoned. When I rang back the gentlemen said they couldn’t ring me back in 2 weeks well after my partners SIM card would be cancelled & he’d be without for two weeks.  I asked to speak to a manager & He hung up instead of trying to help find a solution so my partner wouldn’t lose his phone network. I then phoned up again and spoke to someone about buying a new SIM card now & I’ll retrospectively get virgin media to fix the contract.  Finally I have a SIM card on its way but I shouldn’t be paying for something that’s meant to be in my existing contract.

My experience has been incredibly stressful, ending in tears after feeling helpless & so frustrated, I’ve spoken probably to 12 people over 6 hours of calls. I’ve never raised my voice or been rude- I’ve calmly been trying sort out this issue but not a single person actually helped & many lied. I just want this sorted once and for all- so I never have to speak to someone from Virgin again - I want what was promise when I renewed

7 REPLIES 7

enlli
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

Is this a Volt Contract With O2 SIM cards or Virgin SIMs

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Zoie_P
Forum Team (Retired)
Forum Team (Retired)

Hi Nicolea, 

Thank you for your post, I am sorry to hear you have not had the best service with us or experience. I can see from our systems you spoke to our team was this regarding your complaint?
And we will do our best to assist you from here.

Zoie

Hi Zoie
yes I did speak to various people and I received a reply from the complaints department today again not addressing the issue - fobbing it off. Can you please arrange for a manager to ring me so I can finally get it sorted? 

Nicole 

@Nicolea I would just like to set your expectations here, I can (almost) absolutely promise you that a manager (assuming that that an entity exists) will NOT ring you back - ever! This is simply the way that VM operate, previous posters on these forums have reported being told that 'every manager is in a meeting and cannot be disturbed' or 'all managers are on training' (not sure what for, certainly not to be able to manage, but I digress).

Going back to your initial post, do you think that VM's senior management aren't perfectly aware of the shambolic, disorganised mess that passes as customer services, and further more since it has been so for some time, that they aren't bothered about it and don't care, after all it takes real commitment to be propping up the bottom of the customer services league table for internet providers for year after year. 

The 'fobbing off' of your complaint is, alas, a normal occurrence - nothing is actually done other than a boilerplate response is sent which often has no connection whatsoever with what you are complaining about - in fact there used to be a reply (may still be as far as I know), along the lines of 'education given to the customer' - which is guaranteed to get said customer to have the sudden urge to visit VM's head office equipped with a nail-studded baseball bat!

Now having done my usual castigation of VM's joke of a customer service provision, the one shining beacon of light and hope is the forum team here. So lets give @Zoie_P a chance to rectify things, but if she were to run up against the brick wall of VM's operations, then come back hare and we can certainly advise you on how to escalate a complaint to the industry regulator, which if nothing else costs VM a pretty penny just to defend, and there is every chance you will get a favourable outcome plus a bit of compensation to boot. 

What I would advise, if push comes to shove, is that you keep records of every interaction with VM, what you asked for, what was promised and what actually happened.

Best wishes

John

Our sincere apologies @Nicolea,

I'm afraid we are unable to arrange a call back here but I have taken a look at our system and can see you spoke to our team yesterday afternoon and a request for a call back was submitted.

Do keep us posted so we can offer further support if required.

 

Ayisha_B
Forum Team

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@jem101. I think this sort of poor customer service is indicative of most, if not all, large service companies nowadays, They hide behind 'ooooh Covid has had such an impact on us' excuse. Only recently I was force moved to another electricity company because my supplier has gone bust. As this meant a 100% rise I requested a smart meter to be told 'we are not prioritising you lot'. When I asked what they meant by 'you lot' I was told those that have come to us because their supplier went bust.

Back to Virgin - my tip is keep all conversations, notes, emails etc.and submit a formal complain to the regulatory body, Ofcom. The procedure isn't too bad to be honest and at least it gets it off your chest. I made two claims against my car insurers to their corresponding regulatory body and won both of them. They are pretty independent. I see many on here with issues that I am sure would be successful in an Ofcom complaint.

cje85
Trouble shooter

Ofcom don't deal with individual complaints, but it's worth contacting them anyway as they do keep a record and release a quarterly summary, naming the worst providers.

VM nearly always comes top for number of complaints but that doesn't seem to shame them into improving.