My horrific experience with Virgin Media. <Rant>

[DouglasRamsey]

TL;DR
I’ve had a nightmare experience with Virgin Media while trying to get high-speed internet installed at my rural home in the Midlands. Despite multiple delays, poorly executed installations, and ongoing connectivity issues, their customer service has been unhelpful. I’m currently relying on mobile data, and despite my frustration, I’m still holding out hope for a resolution because I don’t have any other options for fast internet in my area.

The Full Story:

I have never experienced anything like what VM (Virgin Media) has put me through over the last month. I live in a rural area in the Midlands and, for years, the internet options available through standard providers like EE, BT, and SKY (all using Openreach) offered speeds between 25 and 35 Mbps—usually around 30 Mbps. While it wasn't great, it was at least consistent. As a gamer and a software engineer who works from home, I needed faster internet and eagerly signed up with any company that could potentially wire up my village.

So, when I noticed roadworks around my area with the VM logo, I was excited. A month ago, I got a text confirming that VM was now available in my area. I immediately signed up for their M500 package and scheduled an installation. I also called my existing provider, EE, to close my contract the day after Virgin’s installation date, paying the early cancellation fee (around 8 months). And this here is where the problems started.

One: A few days after setting up my VM account, they called to say they couldn’t meet the installation date I chose. They rescheduled it for a week and a half later. Unhappy but left with no choice, I accepted. I managed to extend my EE contract end date to match Virgin’s new installation date, and I have to say EE’s customer service was excellent.

Two: VM told me they needed to do “external work” before the internal setup but didn’t provide a date. I assumed they didn’t need to inform me, figuring they’d work on the green box outside or something other. However, they installed a brown box on my property without contacting me or even knocking on the door (no alerts from my doorbell camera or security cameras). I let it slide because I was eager to finally get fast internet. I rearranged some things and drilled a hole in a built-in cupboard to accommodate the new router near the brown box they installed, which wasn’t in an ideal location.

Three: The installation day arrived, and the engineer—who was very polite—connected the router. Unfortunately, because of where the brown box was placed, the router had to go inside the cupboard housing my fuse box. I wasn’t home, and my wife didn’t instruct the engineer to give us a long enough fiber cable to run it through a hole I drilled and place the router outside the cupboard. So, it stayed inside.

Four: When I got home, I was excited to test the new speeds. Unfortunately, the Wi-Fi signal was weak because the router was inside the cupboard. It worked okay downstairs, delivering the promised 500 Mbps in some areas (worse farther away I got from it - Still downstairs), but speeds dropped significantly upstairs. I temporarily placed the router outside the cupboard, on a chair, with the cupboard door open, and while this improved the Wi-Fi downstairs, the signal upstairs remained poor.

Five: WiFi issues? No worries! I decided to use my own router, an Archer X50, to improve the signal. While it was better than Virgin’s router for wifi signal, the location still caused issues, and speeds ranged from 50 to 100 Mbps—far below the promised 500 Mbps. Another gut punch from VM is when I discovered Virgin’s new Hub 5x router has no modem mode (WHAT?!), meaning even when my own router is connected, speeds are halved, rarely exceeding 250 Mbps. At this point I’m getting a bit annoyed with them so I go online and find multiple discussions about the new router not having modem mode. I’ve seen posts form people who said that VM sales person straight up lied to them saying that it was there, others claiming that they spoke to VM and they promised it in April 2024, others say that it will be enabled by the end of a year. I’ve also found  a way of kinda doing it via a secret modem page but that does not work for me very well, as it has turned the VM router to green and hid the ability for devices to connect to its wifi but my own router now no longer goes over 50mps and that’s with me sitting on top of it. Also connecting my laptop to this now so called MODEM I can’t even access its ip address (192.168.100.1). Frustrated I reset it back to factory settings.

Six: Two days after installation, I work from home and its all fine (Not great -   just fine as outlined before, but it works, my office is directly above the routers anyways to I can work fine) until around 6 o’clock. My internet suddenly stopped working. All my smart devices—cameras, doorbells, and TVs—lost connection. I restarted the VM router, and it worked for about 3 minutes before cutting out again. I called VM, and their automated system ran tests but found no issues. Since there was no one available to speak to me, I connected my TV to my mobile network and called it a night. The next morning, we left for London and returned late that night, only to find the internet still down. I was able to connect via WIFI to both of the routers the whole time but none had access to the internet. 

Seven: On Saturday, the internet was still not working, so I called VM. The representative seemed uninterested and only asked if the cables were properly connected. When I confirmed that everything was fine but the connection was only active for about 3 min after each router reset, he tried to book an engineer but couldn’t schedule it immediately and as I was on a way out of the house I had no time to follow thought on it. I later contacted the engineer who originally installed the system, and he kindly arranged for a rewire scheduled for the following Thursday. I told myself that I will call VM next day as soon as they open to find out what the issues where.

Eight: On Sunday, the internet was working fine in the morning and afternoon so I decided not to call as I thought, that since it’s a brand new installation it needed time to “Settle?”… well I regret it as it cut out again around 5 PM, right on schedule. I called VM again, ready to escalate the issue, but the representative I spoke to didn’t seem to care AGAIN!. I listed every problem I’d experienced—poor service without a single day of proper service, lack of modem mode, unauthorised entry onto my property—but received no real apologies until I pointed out the lack of acknowledgment. He then tried to solve my least concerning issue at the moment (Poor wifi signal) by upsell me on their Wi-Fi pods, which supposedly extend coverage but only guarantee up to 30 Mbps (what happened to my 500mps?), and at an extra cost of £8 per month (AGAIN WHAT? I have no internet and you trying to increase range of your useless router?!)! I refused, pointing out that this was barely better than what I had with OpenReach at half the price. I asked about compensation for the service loss and for the mobile data I’d been using, but he only said that they have a compensation scheme for service loss failing to explain what it even means?. I was told that because he is unable to access my router and engineer needs to be scheduled. Looking at my account he cannot schedule one since I’ve got someone coming on Thursday for a re-wire. I tell him I don’t care about re-wire get me someone here tomorrow and fix this internet as I’ve got work in the morning! Yup, you guess it; NOBODY IS AVAILABLE. After more complaining from my side (all of a sudden) an engineer became available for Tuesday.

Nine (Monday): The internet is down most of the day, so I had to use my mobile network for work meetings. I’m constantly monitoring my data usage now, as I’m nearing my monthly limit of 40 GB.

At this point, I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. I was with VM many years ago, and when their service works, it’s great, so I still have some hope for a resolution. But with no other viable high-speed internet options in my area, canceling would mean going back to slow speeds—something I’m reluctant to do. If I had any other option, I would cancel immediately, given how poorly VM has treated me as a customer.

Edit: Ten (Tuesday - Engineer Visit): The internet was down all day yesterday and most of this morning. However, it surprisingly came back to life just before the afternoon for about two hours, then went down again, and fixed itself about ten minutes before the engineer called to say he was on his way.

When the engineer arrived, he saw that my router was connected to the Virgin Media (VM) router and suggested that my router might be interfering with the VM signal, asking if the issues started after I connected it. Since the internet was working at that moment, he noted it would be difficult to diagnose the problem. I expressed my skepticism about external interference being the cause, pointing out that the light on the VM router was flashing white regardless of my router’s connection.

After some discussion (he was a nice guy), he connected a device that finally led Virgin to acknowledge there was an issue. Vindication! He investigated further and discovered that the previous engineer had left a mess with the cables, covered in dirt, which prevented the light from the fiber connection from traveling properly. The current engineer was surprised it had worked at all. He also provided a longer fiber cable, allowing my router to be placed on top of the cupboard.

So far, the internet is functioning well. However, issues like poor WiFi upstairs, lack of modem mode, and poor customer service remain. I checked Openreach’s plans to upgrade 25 million homes by December 2026—just about when my Virgin contract ends—so here’s hoping my village is one of those areas! 🤞🤞

[Ilyas_Y]

Hi there @DouglasRamsey Thanks for reaching out to us and a warm welcome to the Virgin Media Community forums. 👋🏼

I'm so sorry to hear about the poor experience you have had since the service installation up until today in regards to the service.
This is far below the level of service we wish for our customers to experience, especially new customers.

I'm glad to hear that the engineer that came out was able to identify the issue and fix the problem with the cabling which has resulted in a better connection since.
In relation to the WiFi pods, they are part of the WiFi max service which is £8 per month unless the account is a VOLT account which has allows for free WiFi pods as one of the benefits.

We don't want to see you leave once your contract is up so I'll look in to what I can do for you and take this privately for the experience you've had so far.
I will send a private message.

Kind regards,
Ilyas.