Horrible Service from Virgin Media

[DanielBradyGB]

Buckle in because this going to be a long rant.

I moved into my current flat about a month or so ago.  I had originally placed an order with Hyperoptic after seeing they could supply my flat with internet, but after I got the keys and went to the flat the same day I saw the previous person had left their Virgin Media router and their Virgin Media account active. I thought since there is already Virgin infrastructure in the flat, I may as well go with Virgin as I hoped it'd just be a case of plugging the new router in and off I go. Fast, stable internet for a decent price...

My first problems arose trying to place a new order with an account already active. I received an email explaining the situation, assumed Virgin were sorting it and thought I would receive an email with a date of my equipment installation, easy peasy. Right? No.

I heard nothing back from Virgin for a few days so chased them up on the phone. What I got was just a mess. I explained to several people on the phone, and over the online chat, my situation with them basically saying the previous account needs to be cancelled. From these conversations, I didn't know what was going on. Was the old account being cancelled? Was my order being cancelled? Have I been forgotten about? At one point I even got told to contact the previous person that was here to cancel the account. How am I meant to know who lived in this flat before I did? It took another week of chasing Virgin before I finally got my order confirmed and would receive the router the next day. Fantastic. Finally, after nearly 2 weeks, I would have decent internet in my flat.

The router didn't turn up the next day. Upon checking my Virgin Media account, I saw I had an engineer booked to install the router (This wasn't booked by me). I'm not against this necessarily, but I had no texts/emails telling me of this. Pretty evident lack of communication. 

Installation day comes and at last, internet in my flat. The only good thing I've experienced from Virgin at all was the guy who installed my stuff as he was a lovely chap. On the first day the connection dropped once for a few seconds. No bother, sometimes drop outs occur. Next day, another drop out, again for a few seconds. The next day, another drop out. Hopefully you can see a theme forming here. Since I had my installation 3 weeks ago, I've had multiple drop outs, varying from seconds, minutes and even several hours last week on friday. It is entirely random when they occur and instead of just using my PC normally, I sit thinking when is the internet going to go. Strangely, the download plummets to zero but the upload speeds remain. This was confirmed when I was playing games with my mates and the download dropped but they could still hear what I was saying, but not vice versa.

I tried the normal remedies, plugging out, checking wires, rebooting, the whole shebang. Nothing. Still dropping out. Fustration growing.

A week ago as of writing this I submitted a complaint online with the same story as above. Got a phone call on Monday this week from the complaints team. Guy on the phone booked me an engineer/technician for today (as of writing) so 5 days after the call on Monday. Also gave me a one of £20 credit (which I don't know how to redeem) and enrolled me in an auto-compensation scheme. I get through the week with more drop outs, optimistic to see if the technician can sort my issues.

Now we get to today, the supposed date of the technician visit. I received several texts throughout the week reminding me of this. I had to cancel plans I had arranged for today to accommodate the eagerly awaited visit. My slot was in the morning 8am-12pm. Not a problem for me as I'm usually up in the mornings anyway. 

I'll keep it short, it was a no-show. No texts, emails, calls.

So now I sit writing this, waiting to get on the phone tomorrow to complain again. Lovely. More time with shoddy internet.

Has anyone else had an experience this bad?

Signing off,
A very fustrated person

[goslow]

Does the service status number report any area issues on 0800 561 0061? Does the service status page show any info?

https://www.virginmedia.com/help/service-status

VM routinely cancels individual tech visits if it believes there is a common fault in the area. Unfortunately VM often does not inform the customer of the cancellation, for which you should receive compensation

https://www.virginmedia.com/help/billing-and-payments/automatic-compensation

If you can post up your router log info as per

https://www.virginmedia.com/help/billing-and-payments/automatic-compensation

some on here can interpret them and may offer you an opinion on your connectivity issues. You can also set up a BQM

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality

which will track your connection 24/7

[goslow]

Edit: Link for hub stat's instructions above should have been

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Networking-and-WiFi/Red-light-on-hub-3-unstable-connection/m-p/...