I have to mention the inefficiency of this company, they don’t know the meaning of the words “customer service” and are the worst service provider we’ve ever dealt with. Tim has spent far too much time over the past month on the phone to them, trying to get some service, and both of us have spent nearly as much time trying (and failing) to watch the On Demand or Freeview programmes.
We’ve had no On Demand service for 3 weeks and are not even one step closer to resolving it or getting an engineer to call! Tim has previously written about it on his page. I can’t help feeling that if we accept this abominable service and keep paying them, it will never be resolved and they will treat every customer this way.
Below is the letter being sent to Virgin Media’s complaints dept today (names have been removed to protect the guilty!). It probably won’t do any good as they are not regulated by anyone for their TV service — but what more can we do? Surely time is too valuable to be spent this way so perhaps the lesson is to stop watching TV altogether then!!
To whom it may concern,
I am writing to complain about the appalling level of customer service your company provides and to demand a refund.
When the Sky channels were removed from your service I was loyal enough to Virgin not to switch to Sky – but only just. A lot of your customers are in the same position and we all expect you to be doing all you can to retain the ones who did not switch. Instead, we are being driven away by empty promises and disappointments. Here is my experience of your customer service :-
1. Some time in April or May I reported a minor fault with the digital TV set-top box and was told that an engineer would call me back within the week. No such call was ever made.
2. On Tuesday July 3rd I reported a major fault with the digital TV set-top box, in particular that the “On Demand” service is not working at all. I was told the issue would be “escalated” and that an engineer would call me back by close of business Monday July 9th. No such call was ever made.
3. On Monday July 9th I phoned customer support to ask why I had not been called back as promised. I spoke to ***, who told me that she would “escalate” the issue (of my not being called back) to her manager, ***, and that this manager would personally call me back within 2 working days, or “at the latest” by close of business on Thursday July 12th. No such call was ever made.
4. On Thursday July 12th, I phoned the faults line to ask why I had not been called back a second time. I spoke to ***, who explained that the reason I had not been called was that more information was needed(!) by the 2nd level team. During the call I recited the same error code and pieces of information that I had originally provided on the 3rd. ***’s manager, ***, personally assured me that I would receive a follow-up call from the 2nd level team about the technical problem by Sunday evening. I expressed my scepticism at this but was told to “trust [him]”. No such call was ever made.
During the call of Monday July 9th I was assured that I will get a refund for the loss of service, starting from 3 days after the fault was reported and continuing until the problem is fixed. I’ve been told that a refund will be made once the problem is fixed. I am not satisfied with this because there seems to be no effort to fix it. In the meantime I am paying for a service which is not being provided and this is not acceptable.
To be absolutely clear, here are the actions I expect from you:
As the technical problem concerning “On Demand” is not fixed, and no effort is being made to change this, I would like you to stop charging me for the “TV Size: XL” service, back-dated to July 6th, but continue to provide me with the digital channels I am receiving.
I would like you to provide a written explanation of why I have been repeatedly lied to by your staff, most recently by ***, and what steps you are taking to rectify this.
Update: Wednesday 15th August 2007
I didn’t expect so many comments in response to my post, at 20 so far I can see I’m certainly not the only one disgusted with Virgin’s service! If you have a complaint I would suggest you write to the address below which is where our response, and eventual refund for loss of service, came from…. and good luck to you all!!
Customer Loyalty & Resolution Manager
Virgin Media
PO Box 333
Matrix Court
SWANSEA
SA7 9BB
Hello there, I work for Virgin Media and find they are great company to wotk for. I feel terrible to hear such bad stories about how customers have been treated and how bad there service as been. I know for a fact that when Virgin took over NTL:Telewest all wasnt as rosey for either company. The area I lived in was NTL and we (before I worked in cable) were forever getting bad customer service. Virgin are spending a lot of time and money in making sure that this company delivers the level of customer service and fully operational Digital,Broadband and Telephone services by upgrading the whole network. This can’t be done overnight. Me and my colleagues work very hard when repairing faults to make sure that the fault and anything else that seems untowards whilst at the customers premises are done right first time. Virgin have big plans and are changing the way the company works. I apologise for the problems people have but I can whole heartedly say that there are very satisfied customers out there and we(engineers) need to make sure we keep doing whats right because without you the customers we are out of jobs so it is in our interest we deliver the best service possible.
Thanks
Cable Guy
I had no landline for 3 weeks, couldn’t receive or make calls due to a faulty cable, which happened shortly after installation, so had to use my mobile. I sent a letter of complaint and said I would be submitting my excess mobile costs to Virgin and was told I should have asked my friends to phone me, and should have asked their permission to use my mobile. They are refusing to pay my costs but said they would refund the £1.00 it cost to call them. I pointed out my friends have pay as you go mobiles and why should they incur large phone bills calling me when I have a package that gives me free evening and weekend calls. It was like talking to a brick wall, he was polite but kept repeating my friends should have called me, no they shouldn’t have to, I didn’t have a landline due their faulty cable. When I said I would take the matter further I was told Virgin’s reputation could withstand that. mmm having trawled through all the comments here I doubt it. I’ll try emailing Neil Berkett and see what happens, but I am prepared to take it to the small claims court if I have to, don’t like bully boy tactics, I’m only asking for £50 to cover my excess costs, probably less that a couple of bottles of wine at a directors lunch.
It’s amazing to find so many people who have experienced the nightmare of trying to get an issue resolved with Virgin Media (as they are now called). For the last two weeks, my life has been phonecall after phonecall to Virgin Media. I have lost count of the number of times I have had someone tell me: “Don’t you worry David, my name is …….. and I will help you get this problem sorted.” They obviously learn this phrase as part of their training, because they ALL say it! Likewise I get bucket loads of apologies, sympathy and understanding… they tell me they know how I feel (I really don’t think they do). I am stressed out like I have never been stressed out and I just feel that this is my idea of what hell must be like. I don’t want sympathy and apologies (and certainly not at 25p per minute)… I want someone who can help me resolve an issue. I want someone who, when they say that someone will ring me back, someone will.
I find that the question that really throws them, is: “If you were ME sitting here, feeling stressed, tired, angry and at the end of your tether with the complete lack of any sign of progress… what would YOU do? That question is usually met with: “Look, David… I am really sorry and I apologise…”. At this point I break in to say: “No, I do not want your sympathy or apology… I asked what would YOU do in MY position.” This is nearly always met with silence! They are just unable to answer.
After almost two weeks I really do not feel I am anywhere further on than when I made my initial call for help.
The level of service is shockingly abysmal and am unable to think of ANY example of a level of service that comes anywhere near as bad.
It looks like my experiences are shared by many others. Fellow sufferers let me give you a small sample of my experience of Virgin Media.
Staff are selected primarily for their ability to lie convincingly. To provide a service to paying customers is not the aim, rather it is to get them off the line or hope that they will lose the will to live and hang up before being answered.
Virgin Media is a communications company yet seems incapable of even the simplest internal messaging - on one attempt I asked for an engineer to ring my mobile an hour before he went to my house so that I could get there from work some miles away. This was for a 12.00 to 4.00 service. Not having received a call I elected to go home anyway and wait for him. He never turned up or phoned. so I called VM and they said he had tried to phone my mobile and got no answer and also tried the home number. The mobile number he had was wrongly copied to his jobsheet and the call to the home phone was a lie. He never even left an ‘out’ card to prove he had called at the property.
I am now a week and a half down the road of trying to get a picture, have spent five and a half hours talking to the worldwide army of VM staff, have been lied to, transferred back and forth in the hope I will give up, lost half a days pay with the prospect of losing another half tomorrow and all to be told that VM do not compensate for loss of income while waiting for an engineer who is not going to turn up. They even had the temerity to charge me for not being at home when the engineer allegedly called.
I am now proposing to counter charge for two lost half days pay and the hours spent on the phone trying to get some sort of resolution (shall I hold my breath?).
It is amazing that given the number of complaints against this company that it is allowed to continue trading. Now I know why Sir ‘Dick’ did not get to run the Lottery! He should be stripped of his knighthood for the shabby way he treats the proletariat.
My sympathy goes out to all you other voices in the wilderness, especially the old and infirm who deserve far better treatment than this.
After being with NTL/Virgin for about 6 years I cancelled the lot with them yesterday.
I was given a retention deal for xl broadband, talk unlimited and xl tv package which at the time was a very good deal. The deal was given for as long as I remained a ‘loyal’ customer. After a conversation with VM yesterday, it seems that my billing has now doubled in price and that there is no record of my previous deals of which I have paper bills to prove it. Needless to say they basically said that I accept the new terms or cancel my contract - easy choice.
For what it’s worth Sky are doing me a good deal on the HD box (£99) and reimbursing me the BT charge for reconnection. As it stands I’ll be paying Sky the same as Virgin but getting more TV channels.
hi all, well where do i start, my instalation on the 18th march was late he turned up at 7.45 and once installed i thought good its all up and working, ohhhh dear how wrong!!! firstly the modem wouldnt work and was told it would be on soon, then the tv kept breaking up and freezing and now it changes chanels on its own (clever tv), we then called an engineer out to fix the problem, they tried and couldnt, we had engineers out nearly every day for 3 weeks only the problem is still there, we brought our phone number over from talk talk and was told that we did not have to cancel talk talk as virgin would do it for us, well well how wrong, we have just got a bill from talk talk for £168 as they say we are still a customer of theres and virgin has not told them we have gone over to virgin, then we decided to change our phone number as we where getting strange calls, this they did, and all was well for about a WEEK, then for some strange reason they changed our number back to our talk talk number, and said that we requested it, well that would not be right as my partner has a bad heart condition and the xmas just gone had a major myocardial infarction (very bad heart attack) so we gave the new virgin number to the hospital and her surgeon, so that they could keep in touch in case they needed her, but they changed the number, after 3 long weeks and many phone calls they changed it back last tuesday, which we though hurray!! but ohhh no by the thursday it was cut off compleatly, we have only had it restored today 6 days later, we were without a phone and when told customer service it was a medical emergency that the phone be conected as soon as possible, they laughed at me down the phone and said ” ohhh mr blade i dont thinks so, laughing” it is disgusting, well we still have our old talk talk number but have been “promised” it would be changed next wednesday, well its watch this space as they are just liars and idiots, and there promises are pie crusts, easily broken, there is actualy more to this than i have writen, but i dont want to be sat here all nite, the word vigin means pure, what a laugh, of which they certainly are not!!!!!
Hey, at least the customer support line is free now
Now to try and get employed by Virgin…
“What can you bring to our company?” - I’m a virgin customer, I know the scripts better than your current customer service staff.
It’s not just Virgin Media that’s a problem - Virgintrains are too!
Well, i have had similar problems with viring, i started service with them in Jan 08, didnt get a bill and didnt agree to sign up for direct debit, however i did pay upfront on my card as i got the VIP package. i told them that when i get a bill, i will go to the post office and pay over the counter, four months and several phonecalls and still no bill, then they cut me off, by this time the bil was £300. they tried to take money out of my bank without my permission via direct debit (how they got my bank details is a mystery to me)i sent a letter of complaint in and after many more phonecalls, the matter was resolved, i got my bank charges back and my bill ammended. so keep at it, they will give in eventually,
now the best bit……
i paid the bill in may, asked for monthly bills as usual. I phoned them last week to tell them that i havent got a bill, according to virgin media, I do not have an account with them. it is closed and i dont not have service with them. I rang them again and they said the same thing so i called them and got a supervisor to clarify the position which i have recorded. she clearly states i owe viring media no money, i am no longer held to contract. I am not a customer of virgin media etc. So my move to another ISP will be painless and im sure the STB will go for a few quid on ebay LOL!!!!
i am also still getting my ful VIP package of 20 meg BB, full XL TV Package and the phone package too. sorry forgot to mention
NICE TO SEE IT IS NOT JUST ME HAVING PROBLEMS WITH THESE IDIOTS, I HAVE HAD NO INTERNET FOR 2 WEEKS AN ENGINEER WAS SUPPOSED TO CALL ON MONDAY BUT DIDNT SHOW BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT THAT A PROBLEM THAT HAD BEEN FLAGGED THAT DAY WAS TO DO WITH MINE (NOT) ANOTHER WAS SUPPOSED TO CALL ON WEDNESAY DIDNT SHOW BECAUSE IT HAD NOT GONE THROUGH PROPERLY, HAVE ASKED FOR COMPENSATION AS HAD TO TAKE 2 DAYS OFF WORK TO BE TOLD THAT I HAVE TO WRITE IN WHICH I DONT REALLY WANT TO AFTER READING COMMENTS ABOUT NO RESPONSE, THEY ARE INCOMPITENT AND THICK I AM GOING BACK TO SKY
I never make comments on boards like these but upon entering ‘virgin media on demands complaints’ into google it led me here and boy am i glad i not the only one. i feel completely cheated by virgin the on demand service doesn’t even work properly and you’d think that all the top shows (e.g apprentice, dragons den)would be available regularly but they’re not. my broadband is super slow sometimes and regulary times out so i have to refresh. and on top of all that i can’t even escape because i’m tied to a 12 month contract. p.s sorry any punctuation/spelling mistakes.
sick of losing my net page
and sick of trying to get answers
It still seems have bad as ever. They have overcharged me and keep cutting me off even tho they owe ME money. I won’t go into all the boring details except to say that it is quite clear that there are several call centres of each type - billing, credit control, technical, customer care etc. and that they are supposed to log each call. Acutally they dont’ - and it is impossible to get back to the few people you speak to who make sense - so I several times I have thought I had the problem sorted - only to have to start all over again. They never call back, they make things up and when they cannot answer they cut you off. Many of them are v. friendly - but TOTALLY inefficient. I have spent over 10 hours on the phone - and am still nowhere. Avoid them if you can - or go with
Virgin Media and shorten your life!
This is not about broadband or the TV package, they are fine. No, this is to do with a monthly contract mobile:
1) I phoned them Friday 29 Aug to ask for one. I went through the order including the credit check and the order was confirmed. The phone was to be delivered Saturday morning.
2) I waited in all Saturday morning for this phone. Nothing came. I called NTL from my existing PAYG phone and spent most of my £5 credit on hold. When I did speak to someone, they called me back so I could explain the situation. I went through the order again and was this time given my order number and asked for my debit card (there is a fee for delivering a phone apparently). I was told that the phone would be delivered today.
3) I left my phone on charge on Saturday afternoon. When I returned to the phone, there was a message on it from Virgin: “We regret to inform you that you do not pass the criteria for our monthly contract phones. Thank you.” She didn’t leave her name or anything!!!!!
4) I phoned them back this morning and spoke to someone who couldn’t find my address on the system (I live in flats, it’s not difficult) and told me to ring Equifax to confirm my address with them, then call Virgin back. I did this.
5) I called Virgin back and was told I would need to go through the whole story again as “there is no record of any conversation”.
I am now annoyed. They’d better watch out…
hello all, thanks to this site i was encouraged to continue a very long hard fight against lies, terrible customer service and misinformation over billing dates, billing amounts, levels of service, etc. finally tried the disconnection option and spoke to possibly the only member of virgin media staff based in the uk and who knew what she was talking about, just a mention if you are told by their wonderful cold call staff you will recieve an offer too good to be true it will be ! and speak to the right member of staff and they will tell you the sales staff do lie openly to get a sale and worse still their managers will back these lies up. I cant imagine what these rare hardworking individuals have to suffer on a day to day basis but i hope the money virgin media manage to erm “obtain” from their customers goes directly towards a suitable reward for their people, i get the feeling they deserve it.
i think virgin is realy bad #
you watch a program then it stands still for a long time you have missed so much of a program then it comes back on again only to go off for another long time -i am fed up with this happening i now feel its time to leave virgin as i am not getting what i pay for
I too have had the most awful customer service from Virgin and it is my intent to fill in as many of these types of sheets as time of mine that has been wasted speaking to them on the phone or writing letters. I was with NTL and when they took over, all I wanted was one change in the package (switching from just internet to adding the phone) and since then, it has been nothing but problems. They have regularly overcharged me for their service and nothing seems to change it, not even sending an email to Neil Berkett !