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
129 Responses
July 17th, 2007 at 7:50 am
The reason you have not been caled is the managers at virgin media will not take calls from the staff
They expect staff to deal with it. they staff have not got the authority to deal with more serious complaints so we have a stale mate they have the wrong people in management jobs.
July 17th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Don’t address it to To Whom It May Concern. Send it to the top of the company, recorded post. Add a note that you will report them to appropriate authorities if you do not see progress by a particular date.
July 17th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Thanks Andy – will keep you posted on our progress!
July 28th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
I’ve had the same experiences more or less but worse than yours with payment problems. The staff are rude and LIARS. They claim they never lie, the manages claim their staff would never lie. They’re thick, idiotic ******’s. And you’re right – it’s the worst TV service I’ve ever had to deal with too! They really don’t care do they? What’s up their sleeve with all of this bad treatment?
Funny isn’t it? They obviously know they’re doing a crap job because they cancelled their complaints line and now if you want to make a complaint it’s mandatory to send it through snail mail. Oh and don’t hold your hopes that it actually gets read because none of my complaint letters “ever arrived so I must not have sent them”. Crazy huh? From people who want my money no less.
Oh and have you been given this line by the technical staff yet? I have.
“We work in the technical department madam and we don’t care whether or not we keep your business because we don’t want your money. It’s the marketing department’s job to want your money.”
Can you believe they really said that???!!!!!!
True story. x Binks
ps – Who else is getting put on hold for over an hour at a time then getting cut off without getting to speak to someone?
July 28th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Thanks for your comments, doesn’t inspire confidence does it! No response to our letter yet but our NEXT phone call did result in an engineer call out next week which hadn’t even been suggested before.
July 29th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
We’ve had no service on 2 out of the 4 boxes for 3 months, and no telephone for 3 months. Now, in the last two days, the other 2 boxes have died as well, so nothing on all 4 boxes. Which address did you write to. I’ve spent many hours on the phone, numerous engineers have called, and still nothing. One week ago I wrote to them and gave them until 3.8.07 to fix or get the lot out, I haven’t even received an acknowledgement!
July 29th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Sorry to hear of your problems Myra, thanks for writing. We wrote to this address but no reply… yet!:
Complaints Department
Virgin Media
PO Box 50
Manchester
M22 0BA
July 31st, 2007 at 10:22 am
I AM COMPLAINING ABOUT THE LENGTH OF TIME WE HAVE TO WAIT FOR A PERSON TO COME ANDREPAIR A FAULT ON THE TELEPHONE LINE.
WE HAD A FAULT THAT THERE WAS NO INCOMING CALLS IT TOOK 3 DAYS TO HAVE A SERVICE MAN TO LOOK AT THE FAULT, NEEDLESS TO SAY HE WAS UNABLE TO DO IT AS THERE WAS CABLE FAULT SO WE WOULD HAVE TO WAIT FOR ANOTHER PERSON TO CVOME AND REPAIR IT, IT TOOK 9 DAYS FOR THAT PERSON TO ARRIVE. THEY REPAIRED THE FAULT ALL WORKING OK, GOT UP FOLLOWING DAY AND THERE IS NO CONNECTION ON THE PHONE AT ALL. HAD TO RING SEVICES AGAIN FOR MAN TO REPAIR AGAIN, THERE IS ANYONE AVAILABLE FOR 2 MORE DAYS.
I AM COMPLETLY DISCUSTED WITH THIS AS YOU ARE STILL REQUIRING PAIMENT FOR A PHONE LINE THAT IS UNUSABLE
July 31st, 2007 at 12:59 pm
I used to be a firm supporter of NTL and their cable internet service. It was so reliable and fast. Since the Virgin takeover the service has become progressively worse. I rely on the connection for emails and working online so it is crucial to have faults fixed. One week to get an engineer out is one week too long. The operator I spoke too appeared to either be a robot or reading from a script from which she could not be deviated. I was even told how much it would cost me if I wasn’t at home when the engineer eventually called. At 25p a minute or more it is the worst service I have ever come across.
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:08 pm
The engineering came today as they said they would. but heedless to say ther is a fault on the main line outside the house so there is need for another engineerer to come out to repair this, so i now have to wait till 11th aug,but i must say thy have put a temp line in so not all bad lol
August 3rd, 2007 at 10:00 am
Thanks for your comments. Our saga is still going on and an engineer is due to call this afternoon. I will update the page again after today!
August 3rd, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Well, we have had similar problems. Arranged with a salesman for Virgin to install at our new house. Told we could get xl broadband and xl TV for £41 per month. Then when I read a few forums, I realised that it couldn’t possibly be as easy as signing the dotted line. And I was so right. The customer service rep (after 26 minutes) told me that I was due to have the phone, medium broadband and large tv, at a cost of £50 something pounds per month. Hmm.. Well I corrected her and she claimed that I couldn’t have what I wanted for that price. An hour and 10 minutes into the call (after much to-ing and fro-ing) I got the package I wanted, but had to have phone too at £40.95 per month. Great start. Not. Anyways, no problems, arranged to have an engineer out here on the 2nd. I then received a call to “confirm installation on the 1st”. Well we wouldn’t even be in the house at this point so I said no. Being skeptical I asked this engineer what he had on his worksheet as the services he was installing. My blood boiled when I said “Erm, im just reinstalling the phone aren’t I?” I corrected the engineer and all was well. 2 hours later, another engineer called up to ask the same question. I told this engineer the story and he promised to get it fixed. I went to my sales rep to explain everything that had happened, he wasn’t there. Oh did I mention he was supposed to call me back to confirm everything. This never happened. An engineer arranged to call on the 2nd in the afternoon. I was awoken by the door at 8:45 for the engineer to install everything. I sighed and let him in. Everything was installed, I was finally happy. Untill I went on the internet. It wouldnt work. No connection. I called cust services and the most helpful person so far answered the call, fixed the problem and offered to call back to check everything. She actually did call back and I was delighted with this. However, I did a bandwidth speed check after noticing the internet was so slow. We were on the 4meg package, not the 20. The person who called me back sorted this, and everything seemed to be looking up. However, on the TV we have no interactive or On Demand services. Several calls later I am waiting for someone to call back. Total cost in phone calls: unknown as yet, but thought to be £20-£30 because of calling from mobile. Anger: extreme. Lesson learned: If you can get cable, don’t untill things improve. Get Sky. I have posted the short version of this story, there are other calls / arguments etc that I havent explained but there have been so many. Virgin suck.
August 6th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
hey jst to say if your complaining to the virgin address in manchester then its the wrong address ive just made them give me the address and its
Virgin Media
PO Box 333
Matrix Court
Swansea
SA7 9BB
hope that helps anyone who needs it
August 6th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Thanks Jacky. Perhaps the address to use depends where you are complaining from? The Manchester address did work – a standard letter saying sorry followed by an actual phone call from the complaints dept. (after 2 weeks 2 days). They have now agreed to a refund for loss of service. Also our set top box was replaced on Friday, it was faulty. Finally normal service has resumed. I would say that it is a lot of hassle but if you have the time and inclination DON’T GIVE UP or accept less that you feel you deserve.
August 8th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
I have to say I can empathise with everyone’s problems, I have been a customer of the shower of s*ite company known as Virgin Media now for 7 months and I received my first bill on the 15th July! Every month I call to ask why I don’t get a bill and every month I’m overcharged. I would complain if I had any faith that the letter would be read, let alone actioned. I would switch to sky if I was allowed to put a sky dish on my building. I would switch to freeview if I had an aerial (which I’ve been promised). So my current options are Virgin or static! They really do display a level of incompetence that can only be deliberate. The number of times you ask to speak to someone and are “promised” a call back that never happens is staggering! I can honestly say only 10% of call back promises have been fulfilled. These people have taken years off my life! I’m desperate! It’s jusy a pity you can’t sue a company for hopeless incompetence and stupidity or Virgin would be bankrupt long ago.
August 9th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
We have been customers of Virgin Media, previously NTL, for over 8 years. I can say that since it has switched to Virgin Media the customer service has gone from bad to absolutely unbelievably appalling. I have never had such bad service in my life. We have been without internet service or on demand for over a month. We got told we would need 2 engineers so booked them to come at the same time. One engineer came out (after having to wait 3 weeks for one), 3 days early! I wouldn’t have minded but I was rushing to leave the house. I was thus 30 mins late for an appointment. He didn’t know anything about there being a problem with the on demand just the Broadband, but he said he would look at the other too whilst he was there and couldn’t understand why I had to book 2 engineers.
He was there for 45 mins and told me it was working, within a couple of hours the system was down again. No one I then spoke to wanted to do anything to get us an engineer as a priority thus we have now got to wait another 12 days for another to come out. We tried to escalate it, supervisors were meant to phone us back, we had one call back 48 hours later and he couldn’t help us at all just said exactly what the others on the helpline had told us. He told us he would raise it with their complaints department but no-one would be phoning us back, as no-one from that department speaks to the public!!! Excellent I thought a complaints department that doesn’t speak to customers! Says it all.
We have had many frustrating phone calls to get someone to sort out the problems, without any joy. They don’t care that it will be 6 weeks that we have not been up and running, no-one in the company cares what happens, they do not like to escalate calls, not just do not like but blatently refuses to escalate, you never get called back (infact the last person I spoke to told me that he couldn’t call me back as he wasn’t authorised to as they have a list of situations where they can phone you back, but mine wasn’t one of them!)
And above all they charge you 25p per minute for the privilege of receiving this service.
After the lastest fiasco, I am finally taking the plunge and changing providers. Even with my dislike of BT, I’m prepared to get a phone line from them just so we can switch to SKY for TV, Broadband and telephone.
By the way, they have informed me that my complaint has been registered with Ofcom! Yeh right!
August 11th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Update on the situation: After several more calls (my phone bill will be the death of me!) I finally have an engineer coming out on Monday. Last phone call, got through to retentions and asked them to cancel it. Only then did they offer to get an engineer out to me. And just to top it off, the box now freezes and displays “pace” excellent. If it aint sorted on Monday, Sky are getting another customer. Virgin really do suck.
August 13th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
We have been a customer of blueyonder for over 10+ years and anytime we had a fault it was always fixed very fast, also whenever I have phoned the technical support line, they always knew waht they was talking about and sorted the problem very fast.
Just earlier today I phoned the premium number of tehcnical support with an email account problem, during the first call, I couldn’t understand the indian woman on the phone very well and the line was really bad, and she didnt have a clue what I was talking about.
Then I made a second and thankfully I could understand the indian woman alot better, but she still didnt have a clue about VIRGIN’s own systems(which is shocking) and she tryed to keep me on the phone as long as possible, and then after I explained everythign to her, she wanted me to stay on the phone for 19 mins, so I hanged up, that is the short version.
Basically, the technical support line now costs 25p a min and is in INDIA, and they havn’t got a clue what they are doing, they don’t know a thing about PC’c or the internet or VIRGINS services.
I will be sending a very lenghty letter of complaint to VIRIGN and will be asking for my problem to be fixed and the call costs refunded.
August 15th, 2007 at 10:52 am
Hi,
Does anyone have the name of a manager to whom I may address a complaint?
I returned home from work last night to find that, unbeknown to me, a Virgin Media technician had opened up the green circuit box outside my house, disconnected my phone line, connected it to a different property on the street, and then closed the box seriously damaging my hedge (which is behind the box).
These people are grossly incompetent.
August 15th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
i have been disgusted with Virgin media, it took 3 weeks to get the engineer to install the equipment correctly, and staff were so rude all of the time. I also have ordered accessories and a month and a half later have not received them and they are refusing a refund!!! i have to file a dispute with them, i am so disgusted. does anyone know of a regulatory body we could write to, they should not get away with this. As i am typing this i am on an online contact with them, and as soon as they found out who i am (as i have been ringing and writing for weeks, they are now ignoring me!) this is amazing customer service, why are we allowing them to get away it???
August 15th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Two and a half years and finally problem is now fixed.
We started with freezing pictures and finished up with loosing 5 channels every night.
Now after over 100 phone calls, lost count on how any times Engineers been out, been fully re-wired from box to road.
Fault finally traced to a Network problem in green box.
Have told them this for many months (I work in the industry).
Been told to write to Customer Concern in Swansea, they will get back within 2-3 days, now been told it will be a month.
August 16th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Like everyone else I am uttelry sick to death of Virgin Media. I asked for a simple call deivert to be activated last month and despite 5 calls each one stating that the last one didn’t do their job properly etc and promising it will work within 24 hours it still isn’t working. I got through to some t**t last night who wouldn’t give his surname, when I told him that they are the worst company I have ever dealt with and that only British Gas came anywhere near them he stated he used to work for them. I gave up and asked him if NTL had head hunted him? Richard Branson GET OUT now before these arseholes drag all of your empire into the gutter with them!
I am going to Sky on Sunday!
August 17th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Has anyone else had their BT line cut when Telewest installed their phone?
I want to leave Virginmedia due to persistant problems, approximely every 2 weeks I have an Engineer at my house to fix problems that are at the box down the road
I am unable to get Sky or another Broadband provide as I no longer have a BT line and will have to pay BT 124.99 for them to send out an Engineer to rectify Virginmedias (Telewests) sabotage.
August 19th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
For the umpteenth time had to call TV faults line. Got the Indian call centre and as usual their only remedy is to send an engineer (minimum wait time 4 days !!).
Tip for fellow sufferers – when you demand a refund for loss of service they automatically say £5 but when pressed to explain how calculated it seems this is a ‘goodwill’ payment only. Therefore if you calculate the actual loss against the monthly charge you can get this added on to the £5. Not much I grant you but I took some pleasure getting back a small fraction of the vaste amount I have spent with this shocking outfit over the years.
Oh, and the address I was given to make a complaint was Matrix Road, not Matrix Court. No idea if either works or even makes a difference – I don’t expect a response anyway !!
August 20th, 2007 at 11:04 am
[...] up for the known-to-be-awful Virgin Media service, if it is possible to get it without the phone, and take a hit when we [...]
August 20th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Finally we have had our problems solved (on demand still freezes occasionally but that’s part of the course). The second engineer told me the first engineer didn’t do his job properly or thoroughly.
We were without broadband for 6 weeks and on demand the same. They have refunded 6 weeks broadband and all the calls to the helpline and the ondemand film that we only managed the first 30 mins of. This though was not agreed without alot of frustration and a 30 minute phone call.
I am still moving providers, I have never experienced such bad service.
August 21st, 2007 at 6:18 pm
does anyone know how to contact the CEO or chairman?
August 22nd, 2007 at 2:13 pm
VM Residential customer complaints, as everyone before me has said, is appalling. Don’t bother with Swansea you will never get a reply. Try emailing ryan.pursey@virginmedia.co.uk. He is the Customer Concern Director. If he gets a multitude of emails it may make him realise that there are hundreds if not thousands of unhappy VM customers. The number for the CEO’s offices in Manchester is 0845 234 0752.
August 23rd, 2007 at 6:48 am
I’ve given an e-mail to Mr Pursey a try overnight – will report back on whether it actually results in some action to get our phone line reinstated after 2 weeks with no service at all and the constant run around by call centre staff and mythical creatures known as ‘Team Managers’ and ‘Regional Managers’ who promise to call you but never seem to find the time……….
September 5th, 2007 at 10:23 am
Dear Mr Pursey,
Against the advice of my wife, and purely because I
like the technology of cable, I signed up for NTL
Broadband and TV in December last year.
It wasnt connected when promised and I was also
registered for a business and residential account when
I only signed up for a residential one. The package is
for TV and broadband, and despite 3 attempts to get
you to accept a Ditect Debit for the TV element you
are unable to process this which has only recently
come to light despite my attempts to ascertain exactly
what has been going on with the billing and the TV
’service’ itself which, incidentally, adds extra
channels unasked for or deletes them at random.
I have ended up with a letter from a debt recovery
firm which I have paid straight away.
I wont catalogue all the instances of insitutional
incompetence I have been subject to by your staff
because you will know them all too well.
However, I have to say that I feel defiled having got
embroiled with your company. I owe nobody anything. I
dont have a mortgage. I have no credit cards. I have
no loans, and yet I have ended up having to deal with
a debt collection agency because of you.
I gave up counting in January once I had listed 23
different Virgin/NTL customer contempt operatives
which only served to prove my wifes opinion right and
set the tone for the contemptous approach your service
has.
I know this will make no difference to you, and, on
the evidence of this week and every previous set of
encounters, you may well feel a sense of amusement and
enjoyment at the sheer scale of lies, evasions, and
contempt you as a company are managing to get away
with. I can only gain small victories and cut my loss
by stopping the service after 12 months and doing my
damndest whenever Virgin Media is mentioned to tell it
like it is in the hope I can save others from enduring
the torrent of lies that you use as an operating tool.
Your company really does hate people doesnt it?
P Lewis
September 5th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Hi, this is my complaint letter, sent recorded delivery on 05-09-07 I’ve ran out of patience trying to resolve these issues on the telephone. To whom it may concern.
Firstly, I would like a letter confirming that I owe nothing for my previous address, 8 blah blah blah Street.., contrary to debt letters which have erroneously been sent in last couple of months. I moved out of my old address on May 11th to which I informed you of at the time, cancelling my direct debit and updating my contact details. I have already had it confirmed verbally over the telephone that this is acknowledged, and been told that I would receive confirmation of this acknowledgment in writing, yet several weeks have elapsed since then without receipt of this confirmation letter.
Secondly, I recently verbally agreed to take out a 12 month 20 meg broadband deal for £27 pounds. The contract I received says £37. I am aware through speaking to a customer service representative that my contract will not show offer price. I find this wholly unacceptable and request a contract which states the correct £27 a month 12 month contract.
Thirdly, I was never at any stage informed that the in first month of the contract there would be a double payment called for, and this money was taken from my account around the 28th of August, which was at once a nasty surprise and extremely inconvenient as this took me over my overdraft limit which will result in a total of £60 worth of bank charges for me. I cancelled the direct debit payment before it left my account,(although not before the aforementioned charges kicked in) and shall withhold this payment until such times as I receive a response to this letter and we reach an agreement on how we are to proceed.
Fourthly, I was promised a call-back from a team leader, by a customer service representative on a phone call, around The 20th of August to discuss the first and second issues that I have outlined here to you. As I was never given any such call-back and as I again attempted to reach satisfaction by calling (03-09-07), being passed through to your sales department by an ineffectual IVR system, and after going through this whole affair with Sales Rep blah blah blah, who refused to make any effort to obtain for me a call-back from the appropriate customer service department team leader, refusing to email or task the correct department (I explained that my lunch hour was coming to an end and could not wait to be transferred) I am writing this letter in exasperation and in the hope of swift resolution of these issues and put it to you, in light of the bank charges that I have and will suffer next month that perhaps the best idea would be to waive the initial £54 pound double month charge and take £6 off my next bill.
As a loyal customer with Virgin Media, I have come to expect a far greater degree of customer service than what I am experiencing currently, and this experience is making me question the wisdom of actually signing this contract. Additionally I am far from impressed with the slowing down of your servers between 4pm and 12pm daily. Please do not attempt to fob me off with nonsense about “peak time stress” or the old “try downloading something from one of our sites” download speed checker. I am not a foolish individual. If I do not hear back promptly and met with absolute satisfaction I will seriously be reconsidering my options.
Not impressed.
What this level of service represents to me at this moment in time is a serious breach of contract.
September 5th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Hi, found this site whilst looking for virginmedia complaints procedure. The whole web seems to buzzing with people in a similar postion, frustrated with lack (or total no-existence) of virginmeia’s customer care. We are having similar problems and we are not in the best of health and all this stress is making us very ill. We have decided to stop sending letters of complaint (all our letters are registered so we can prove we did try), and we won’t be phoning any more. Even Ofcom tried to help unofficially at one point, they emailed virginmedia’s head office asking them to urgentley contact us, virginmedia ignored this. We have been told we have to wait 12 weeks after the first letter to officially compain to CISA (the ombudsman). We have told Ryan Pursey that the 12 weeks to resolve our problems will be up in 4 weeks and if we still have not had anything sorted out we will make our complaint official to the onbudsman. This is a terrible company to deal with.
September 7th, 2007 at 9:11 am
Oh yes I totally agree with you that they are rubbish. My broadband & phone services (I don’t have the tv package) were cut off without any explanation and then 3 weeks AFTER they cut me off they wrote and told me they’d be doing it with immediate effect. It’s so nice to know that they disconnect services and then inform their customers many weeks after they’ve done something and think that it’s perfectly acceptable behaviour.
I am still waiting for a reply to my very snotty letter, but in the meantime I am in the hands of the library opening times to be able to access my emails etc.
September 10th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
HI again. I found a website which has a petition running for people who are having problems with Virginmedia. I have supplied the link below. Wish everyone luck.
http://www.ccnhosting.co.uk/Virgin/virtual-misery.html
September 14th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Warning to all. Virgin Media has taken over £140 from my account. I am no longer a customer due to their bad service, however it would appear that this does not matter to them. It also informs that they have breached The Data Protection Act and law in failing to destroy my bank details when I ceased to trade with them.I consider this to be an act of theft and will complain to the authorities.any other advice?
September 18th, 2007 at 12:33 am
I have been trying to have the name changed on the Virgin account for the past 9 months. I havew taken over the property since my mum passed away in January. Its my bank account that pays the bill but they refuse to change the details. They keep asking for my mothers permission to change it. They really don’t listen. Will try contacting Ryan Pursey to see what he has to say about it. But I really am not hopeful. Any advise would be appreciated.
September 18th, 2007 at 10:53 am
I am sorry to hear that Sue, a particularly insensitive case of Virgin not listening to its customers. I have to say the account we had was in my name only so whenever my husband phoned up they insisted on talking to me to verify they could talk to him which got very annoying!! Despite numerous requests they never changed it to be in both our names. My first name was also spelt incorrectly and although mentioned at every call, never changed either. We have now moved and left them (Sky has been a breath of fresh air to us so far). A huge relief, I hope never to deal with them again.
September 18th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
I signed NTL last year, we have no serious problem since last Tuesday!! My broadband had downed for one week, and phoned Virgin Medial customer services for many times. A letter from Vigin Media informed me that a service engineer bring installation CD will visit me on Monday, but I waited for him for whole day in vain. I called the customer service again, they told me thay are not responsible arrange service engineer? They are very rude and implite! Any body know where I can fill a complain against Virgin Media?
September 19th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
It is not only the Virgin tv service that people are experiencing problems with. I have experienced endless problems with them since April and they are unapologetic and completely useless. The service team are untrained to deal with queries and the managers (if you get a genuine manager – one actually admitted to me that he was just the first ‘advisors’ friend!) are obnoxious liars!
I have e-mailed them again today and am awaiting a response. If this continues, I am just going to send a copy of my e-mail along with a log of calls and my BT bills to the media to see if they can get a response. My e-mail was such:
I have a received an e-mail from you today, informing me that my service has been cancelled. I have not requested that my account be closed and you just took payment from my account on 4th of this month. I have been trying to make calls to speak to someone in person, but keep getting put through to a call centre in India, where they have no clue what they are doing. You would be better off getting my 6yr old daughter to man your phones over there.
I apologise if I am coming across as angry, but I have had nothing but problems since signing up with you in April and my continued frustration at the completely inadequate way I have been dealt with has reduced me to a nervous wreck on more than one occasion. I am now beyond the tears and want something done.
Firstly, it took you months to get my account up and running. Despite the fact that I made it clear that I needed use of the internet to work from home. During this time, the level of customer service that I received was disgraceful and I got no help. Even when I spoke with ‘managers’, they were very unhelpful. Some promised to call me back within 24hrs to update me, but they never did.
Eventually, about a month before my broadband service was finally up and running, I was given a pay-as-you-go, dial-up connection, for which, I was told, I would pay 1p per minute.
Just over a month later, I received a bill from BT and upon calling them, it became clear that I was actually, unwittingly being charged 3-4p per minute! The bill from BT was over £540! I cannot pay this.
Not only was I being charged this ridiculous amount of money by BT for my internet usage, but they were also charging me for calls, as your customer service ‘advisors’ had failed to inform me that I needed to enter a code before dialling, so that my calls would go through Virgin, rather than BT. So again, I was paying far more for those also, than I should have been.
I am now unable to make or receive calls through my landline and I presume that the e-mail from yourselves this morning means that I will also be losing my broadband connection.
To say that I am upset would be a huge understatement. I am absolutely livid at the disgraceful treatment I have received since joining up and some of the best advice I have received from your staff has been that they “would not recommend Virgin to anybody”. Well that says a lot, doesn’t it!
I am a single parent and simply cannot afford to pay an unnecessary £500 phone bill. I am also quite certain, that these were not the final charges from BT so who knows how much the final bill was, before you finally set up the service that you had promised me?! Although, I’m sure they will tell me soon enough!
I have written to you twice in the last couple of months (enclosing copies of my BT statements and requesting some sort of refund for them – as advised by several members of your staff), I have also fired off two e-mails, none of which have been responded to.
I am putting another letter in the post today, enclosing more copies of my BT statements, in the vain hope that someone will have the decency to respond this time.
Please note, that for once, I expect to be taken seriously. I expect this e-mail to be passed on where necessary and for these matters to be treated as a formal complaint.
I await your response.
My thanks to everyone who has added Virgin addresses to this site. I am going to send copies of my letters to them all and see who finally responds!
Good luck to you all!
September 19th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Hi folks, just thought I’d keep you all updated. Saturday afternoon we had a knock at the door, it was Interflorer with a huge bunch of flowers with a sealed note addressed to Judy. Inside the envelpope was a card which said “Please accept our sincerest apologies from all at Viginmedia.” Monday we checked our bank and the money that was taken which they have always refused to return was back in the bank. It really looks like our complaints are now getting looked into. It has been a lot of hard work and we have been made quite ill by all of this but we did not give up. I am hopeing now for a satisfactory explantion on why we had to go through all this in the first place. Wish everyone luck. Ron.
September 19th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Ron & Judy – I am so pleased to hear that you are finally getting somewhere and wonders will never cease with the flower delivery!! It is not going to make up for all you have been through but at least it’s a gesture. Hope you are feeling better. Best wishes, Sue
September 19th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Hi Sue, yes dealing with Virginmedia certainly has been the most surreal experience; if I went into detail about our bazaar journey through Virginmedia’s customer support you would probably think I had plagiarized a Franz Kafka novel! What we have learned though is the people who you deal with on the phone are not trained well enough to deal with most requests and obstinately refuse to admit they don’t know what they are doing. I also think that maybe they’ve been briefed never to escalate things to management level, rather refer you on to another department (which is an endless chain of call centres) or simply lie to you to get you off the phone (only I refused ever to put the phone down!) Regarding the lies – we have found their staff will tell you anything (I really do mean anything!) to get you off the phone, we have so badly been frustrated by these people. The letters to Swansea are a waste of time: they get logged, scanned onto their system, and then an automated letter is sent out to you telling you they are dealing with your compliant. I think possibly the secret in getting your problem resolved is writing to them and specifically request a ‘deadlock’ letter; inform them you intend to report them to the ombudsmen if this matter is not resolved after a certain time. Oh, most important, make sure all letters are recorded delivery – that’s your proof when you involve the ombudsman. Anyway, again I wish you all luck. Ron.
September 24th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
I have had TOO MANY problems with this company. First their workmen turned up at 8:30pm – I had taken the day off work as told that they would arrive during the day before 6pm. They were on their 1st day (apparently it takes two people to install a tv service) and assured me everything has been installed. THEN I found my BT line is still on BT and hasn’t been switched over. I figured it would take a little time for the switchover to be put into effect. Anyway now my phone line doesn’t work at all. As we speak I am not connected to either provider and when I dial a number am told it cannot be recognised. I have called from my mobile which is costing me money and get put on hold over and over again. After 20 minutes of waiting with no staff response, I sent an email instead. I received no response. It seems likely that i’ll have to go back to BT and probably will lose my phone number that i orginially had. I frankly wish I had never entered into service with these people as they clearly have no respect for their customers.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
I too have had many problems with Virgin – the same problem keeps happening to me time & time again. Last time it happened was in May. By luck I came across the name of the CEO – Steve Burch (unfortunately he quit his job a few weeks ago- wonder why!) & emailed him. I had a response within an hour from someone in his department – does anyone know who replaced him as I intend to email them now about my latest problem. Why did I ever eve BT??
September 29th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
I cannot find words verbose and vehement enough to express my disgust at the ineptitude of this firm.
Customer service isnt even good enough to be a bad joke.
they have lied cheated procrastinated and overcharged their way into my hit list.
I will be seeing them in court presently…and I am assured of a precedent setting win.
I hope this firm devolves to the slime from whence it came.
Utter rubbish….not even worth the time it takes to complain…around 100 hours by their standards.
October 1st, 2007 at 9:03 am
I have read this trail with bemusement given that I have a similar tale to tell but will not bore you with the details other than to say all the above has been suffered by myself since the beginning of the year and still hasn’t been resolved. Like others I have spoken to an incomprehending Indian Call Centre who have no delegated authority whatever to take big decisions, I’ve had the insult of a letter to say “We’re sorry to hear you’re unhappy ..”, and then total silence. I have done as was suggested and sent a recorded letter to the CEO (Neil Birkett) at Head Office and have not had a hint of acknowledgement and I continue to receive monthly bills which bear no semblance to what I receive as a service. Consequently I now send a cheque for what I know is the correct amount and will continue to do so until somebody in the appropriate level of Virgin Media has the common decency to respond to my letters – I’m not holding my breath!. In the meantime I shall take a perverse comfort in monitoring this blog with the knowledge that its nothing personal and I’m not alone!
October 4th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
I agree with many of the comments here, without wanting to go into details I have spent around £50 on calls and waited close to 3 months to get my broadband activated. What I am outraged about is that I am moving house now and have 3 months left on my 12 month contract. I am told thatI would have to pay £140 to get out of the contract, and because I am moving house I am now required to take out a new 12 month contract with them or pay the cancelation fee. I am trying to find out the legality of this as to me it does not sound legal,I only signed up to a 12 month contract and in my mind moving house is irrelevant, they are effectively forcing me into a 21 month contract. Has anyone else had a similar experience or could throw some light on whether they are allowed to do this?
October 4th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
i’m sitting in a queue to cancel their service right now (7mins no human contact)after… no joke… 6 attempts in which they last 20 minutes, in which I am either sitting listening to some computer tell me there ontop of it and the “asap” bs. OR I am bounced around department to department with them trying to figure out where I’m meant to go… i guess thats what you get for cheap broadband, no god damn customer service.
11 minutes still no joy
sucess!! I got through at 18 mins and was surprisingly effcient… always the case when ur trying to prove something!!
October 10th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
OMG – how many problems and now I add to them.
My OD service is appauling with the same constant error message. When you report the fault you get the scripted response from the foreign call centre saying you will get a call within 3 days (still waiting 6 weeks later) – it is terrible. I only took the service because they were offering it at a huge discount.
I have given up with calling 151 and now ring the “add services” department – funnilly enough they answer that one really quickly and you get a UK call centre.
I have only had the service for 8 weeks – what a mistake!
October 12th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Update on the OD issues!!!!
It appears that when I was set up they neglected to tell their systems that I have a seperate broadband modem and do not use the VM Box to supply my BB.
That has been fixed by the sales guy and it seems to be working again.
Don’t bother with support – Ring sales!!!
October 22nd, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Hi all,
This is incredible what I am reading here!
I had my VM Broadband installed beginning September and everything was running great, no problems, until one bright sunny Saturday they just cut us off.
Having spend tens of pounds on idiotic conversations, which could be boiled down to “We don’t know what is wrong, and we’ll call you back/check/send someone” (no callback, no checking done, nobody came of course), on Tuesday they found out that they blissfully assumed we had moved out because somebody else told them he was moving to that address.
Mind you, they did send us a letter asking if we were moving out – on Thursday – two days before they cut us off (it didn’t arrive until the following Tuesday).
So now it’s been two weeks we’ve been fighting with them to get them do something about it. Apparently they have never ever had a case of house sharing in their history and it left them as helpless as a baby…
What a bunch of….
October 23rd, 2007 at 8:00 am
I too have had problems as above. We have been 6 weeks without our dial up internet and have been passed from tech support to customer services on a regular basis. They say the problem was outage. We agreed to take Broadband yesterday and within 15 mins our dial up connection returned! I have complained to Watchdog – perhaps you all should do so. I have been very upset by all this and I am in the middle of a degree which has really made things worse. Anyone know how we make a formal complaint?
October 23rd, 2007 at 4:45 pm
try the CEO office 0845450000 or 08452340752 / 01384829936
October 28th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Well – after reading all your posts – if I was about to subscribe to Virgin Media I would run a mile!
I too have been a loyal customer to NTL for over 25 years and stuck with Virgin Media to give them a chance.
My problems have been with the billing. This month I have been charged for broadband which was cancelled over a year ago and they have defaulted on an agreement I made with them last month for a TV package which I am now told has been cancelled.
Needless to say I am writing to the Managing Director (below) I too am fed up with holding on, being passed from operator to operator and eventually cut off.
James Kydd
Managing Director
Virgin Media
Bartley Wood Business Park
Bartley Way
Hook
Hampshire
RG27 9UP
wish me luck!
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:47 am
Customer service is rubbish one day after tomany to mention calls and registered letters they cut off my services with one days notice
November 3rd, 2007 at 9:35 pm
ANYONE ELSE HAVING PROBLEMS WITH VIRGIN MEDIA HARD SELLING TACTICS?
i’VE HAD LOADS OF PROBLEMS WITH PUSHY SALES PEOPLE FROM VIRGIN MEDIA. I HAVE ALREADY FOUND TWO PEOPLE WHO’VE BEEN STALKED BY A PARTICULARLY KEEN DOOR TO DOOR MAN
ANY OTHER EXPERIENCES? IT’S GOOD TO WORK TOGETHER ON THESE THINGS TO WORK OUT WHETHER THEY ARE ACTING LEGALLY OR NOT?
ZEM
November 5th, 2007 at 11:16 am
We have had evry similar experiences to the ones above. We have dealt with inept people on the phone who take no responsibility and if they can’t solve a problem just put you through to another random person to speak to. I have copied my letter of complaint to all the addresses mentioned.
November 5th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
I have been reading everyone’s comments so far and I must say I’m glad to see I am not the only one who is disgusted with Virgin Media’s Services. When we signed up to virgin meia in June their representative asked me for my bank details and I told him my account isn’t set up for direct debits, I was told by him that Virgin Media would never take money out of my account and that they were only using my details for reassurance purposes so I accepted that and handed over my bank details….. BIG MISTAKE!!!! A month or so later I receive a letter from the bank informing me that I have to pay them a mantainance charge of £30.00 due to Direct Debits being taken out by Virgin Media. I phoned Virgin Media and was told that this would not happen again and that they have put on their system that no money is to be taken from my account….. Rubbish!!!! Here I am into November and I am still getting letters from the bank about £30.00 maintainance charges being taken out of my account. I am absolutely disgusted that Virgin Media are still taking money even though my mum is paying Via Pay-point. Surely I could take legal action against them if I wanted couldn’t I? I phoned Virgin Meida again on November 2nd 2007 and the girl I got was very helpful and told me to send of the maintainance letters from the bank to this address and I would get a reimbursement. The address I was given was
Customer Loyalty & Resolution Manager
Virgin Media Payments
PO BOX 333
Matrix Court
SWANSEA
SA7 9BB
Has anyone ever had this problem if so what were you told to do. I am sending my letter today in hope that I will get my money reimbursed soon. I am a young girl and simply can’t afford money being taken out of my account like this especially when I didn’t give them permission to do so in the first place. Virgin Media need to sort their company out if they plan on keeping their cutomers because at the rate they are going they are gonna have no customers left.
Regards
November 5th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
hi all, Why does virgin promise a service that cant give. From day one
they cant even connect a phone line properly, they give you a neighbours number and all the calls are charge to the neighbour,Trying to get someone out to repair the problem is a nightmare, they dont seem to care, they even said they will charge me to repair the fault which i could not beleive, ‘customer service’ is a nightmare too at times they can’t understand what your saying plus they don’t understand what the customers are saying they have a habit of putting you different depts, it seems they dont know what they are doing. One time i even got cut by a manager because he could not or WON’T help,You wonder why people get heated over this, If virgin wants to keep there customers they should be better trained.If i was asked to rate them out of ten i can’t even answer that one
November 6th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
I too, have had nothing but problems since NTL changed to Virgin Media, most recently I rang to subscribe to caller ID. This seemed to be no problem and I was told it was all set up but would take 24 hours to work. After 3 days of it not working I rang customer services again. It took several attempts as the first few calls that were finally answerd (one after 17 mins)ended up in me speaking to people who had no grasp of the English language and failed to understand what I wanted – however they were able to ask me if I was well, and they wished me a good day!!! When I finally got through to someone who spoke and understood English, I yet again explained my problem, that I had subscribed to Caller Id (which i had to pay for at £1.75 excluding VAT) but it was not working. She then went through different tests and procedures, but she couldn’t find anything wrong and told me I would need a technition to come round. A time was arranged, unfortunatly I had to cancel, when I rang to rebook, the non English customer service man wanted to go through all the tests again, but my husband finally manged to explain that all we wanted to do was to rebook the technition he agreed and a time was arranged. I rushed home to make sure I was in for the 4-7pm time slot and waited…….At 6 pm (I had already been waiting 2 hours) I recieved a phone call saying that the technition would not be calling as he should not have been booked in the first place (even though two seperate members of staff had booked them) because Caller Id is not available in the area we live!!!
I asked to speak to a manager and suprise suprise there was not one available, so they put me through to a lead technition, who did apologise but im not convinced he took on board what I was saying, at this point I was starting lose the will to live and ended the conversation, without even asking about getting a refund for a service they were more than happy to charge me for but are unable to provide. I will need a few days to calm down before I ring customer services again to sort my refund!! The only thing keeping me with Virgin Media is a good deal I have with Virgin Mobile (which I can only have if im subscribed to Virgin Media) If you already have enough stress in your life do NOT subscribe to Virgin Media.
November 8th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Thankyou so much for putting the email of the customer concerns director on this site! I am disgusted with the customer service of Virgin Media. (i was a customer with ntl for 5.5yrs in 3 countries and have never experienced such a service before).
I wrote to confirm my disconnection of services (as i was moving property to a non cable area) a month in advance and when I called 7days in a row and never getting through finally(after holding for 70minutes i might add) 1 week before i was due to move to arrange collection of the box they said they hadn’t received any letter and would be charging me a £25 30day notice fee! I was appauled and cancelled my direct debit. When my final bill came through with the additional £25 added I wrote to complain and after waiting a further 2 weeks-no reply. Today I emailed and within hours I had my whole final bill cleared as a gesture of goodwill! Happy days!! My advice dont waste your time on the phone or even post a letter, try emailing for a prompt response!
many thanks
catherine
November 10th, 2007 at 9:28 am
I could write pages and pages of the bad service I have had from Virgin Media in the last 8 months but in short here goes .Broadband down twice for weeks at a time,Phone down at different times,tv jumpy and on demand not working for months.So long on hold, so many rude staff, no managers to complain to,so many indian call centres.I could go on and on.By the way try ringing the ” I want to join Virginmedia number”.They answered in 70 secs, that 2 hours less than the broadband line.
In short if you want to look 10 years older in 3 years time and have grey hairs then by all means join Virgin media.
November 15th, 2007 at 11:20 am
I got an agreement from virgin that i would get free tv until February 2008 when my contract runs out, and first payment had the credit on, so no problems, but now this month not only have they not credited the account, they have also added the credit they gave me from last month too!! and can i find the complaints department number? can i hell.
November 18th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Is it possible for all of us to sue Virgin Media? After seeing all above posts I have realized that they are such a nuisance and their service is undoubtedly appalling. My landline number is out of order and when I called the Customer Services, no need to repeat what everyone has faced in here. I was, therefore, thinking if it would be possible for all of us to sue Virgin Media or might submit some petition against them…???
November 23rd, 2007 at 6:05 pm
My husband and I are more than willing to join whoever is up for sueing Virgin Media – how Branson can be so stupid as to remain a major shareholder I do not know. I really admired his stand against Sky, which is on eof the main reasons we switched to Virgin Media. How daft could we be. It’s back to BT (phones) and Freeview (TV) for us, but I repeat we are still up for sueing this sub standard organisation. Let’s hope others are too.
November 29th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
I am amazed at how many other Virgin Media customers have had problems.
My main issue has been with their Broadband service. We have had Telewest for close to 10 years, and Broadband from Telewest was great. In the 5 years we had Telewest Broadband I can recall 5 times the service failed and within about 4 hours was working again. Since Virgin Media took over in the last year I have had about 5 failures in service with no notice or means to contact them (unless I want to call a premium rate number). Today certain routing problems THEIR end has meant various sites and internet services are down, I call the freephone number to request help and get told they CANNOT patch me through to broadband help I HAVE to call the premium rate number, because and I quote “the issue may not be our end”. Tracert proved it was their end the problem was!! and I still have to call a premium rate number to tell them that?? I pay £70 a month for services (TV Broadband and Telephone)which I might add is a significant increase since I was carried over from telewest. At least I knew where I was and where I stood with telewest, they were always helpful and communicative, and the broadband service was significantly faster and more responsive when they ran it than it is now.
November 30th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
I’ve just had a totally frustrating time trying to arrange a visit from service engineer, with an Indian call centre. They had absolutely no knowledge of the set top box, unlike the old Telewest customer service who could often sort any problems over the phone.
The biggest problem I had was trying to get someone to come after I had finished work on Friday afternoon……
Me: “The only convenient time is after 1:15pm on a Friday”.
Call Centre: “The engineer will come between 12:00 and 4:00 pm”.
Me: “That’s no good, I won’t be back home until 1:15″
Call Centre: “I’ll get someone to come between 12:00 and 4:00 pm”
Me: “I’ve told you, that’s no good, I won’t be back home until 1:15″
…….repeat for a couple of minutes…..
Call Centre: “Would between 8:00am and 12:00pm be ok?”
Me: “That isn’t after 1:15 is it?”
…….a couple of minutes of more confusion……..
Call Centre: “Well the only other slot we have is between 4:00 and 7:00pm?”
Me: “I think you will find that is after 1:15. Why didn’t you offer me that in the first place?”
Call Centre: “You said you wanted it to be after 1:15pm”
Me: … totally speechless …
I’m not at all confident the engineer will turn up next Friday.
I understand the desire to save money by using foreign call centres but using people who struggle to understand English and have no understanding of the product doesn’t help anyone.
November 30th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Thanks for your comment Olly (and everyone else who has commented recently – there are a lot of you), you have my greatest sympathies! Your exchange did raise a smile when I read it but only because it is more like a joke!! I know exactly how it is, even after arranging a time you have little faith that someone will actually turn up. Surely it doesn’t have to be that way. I’m now with Sky and have to say the service has been much better and more smooth from the outset. It is not right that there is no competition and if you have cable then you are pretty much lumbered with Virgin. Good luck! Sue (Flibbertigibbet)
December 1st, 2007 at 9:38 pm
I am horrified after reading all these complaints. I took out virgin media yesterday, enginners left a huge cable running across my drive, and the XL broadband that we ordered was only running at 2mb not 20mb as ordered. Upon ringing virgin (same day as installation) I was passed from pillar to post, was cut off, was told it was a problem higher up on the network and they couldnt tell me when it would be resolved, after two and half hours on the phone with them (no joke) yesterday, the last outcome was we will get an engineer out immediately to you to sort the cable out (surprise no one turned up), and let you have the first month free, and we will ring you back monday, but still no good reply as to why we are not getting the 20mb line broadband that we are supposed to be getting. I have also emailed them a very very snotty letter advising them that if this is not sorted within the next few days I will be cancelling with them as i am still in the 30 day cooling off period. I am flabbergasted by the lack of customer service, only one good guy i spoke to and he seemed permantly embarrased by how i had been treated. after reading the above comments i think come next week i will be cancelling whatever!!
December 6th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Virgin media are cheats, Internet does not work,TV gets half the channels promised.
and we have to talk to computers if V call..!
i get internet average for 24 hrs(MAX) in a week..
Islington…
December 13th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Just had a big issue with virgin media. Called them to make a payment 2 months ago, and requested that my account be cancelled at that time. The guy offered me 17.50 a month for 3 months to keep me on, which i said was fine! When virgin took over i had a deal with ntl that i was only paying 17.50 a month, but virgin took it upon themselves to put it back up to full price!
So i call today to find out why my bills are 37.50 and the lady informs me she has no record of an offer of 17.50 and that they dont even offer that kind of a deal, so its tough luck……
Dont know what to do now, as i owe them 3 months at 37.50 they say, but i dont want to pay it when i was promised 17.50 a month….
I feel i was lied too and mislead to keep me as a customer.
December 13th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
hi
I would just like to say i’m so glad i am not alone out there and to erge people to watch the programme watchdog in the coming months as i have written to them about virgin media and i’m sure they would love to know about your complaints too. LETS TAKE A STAND WHY SHOULD WE TAKE THEIR RUBBISH SERVICE ANY LONGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!
December 17th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Hi All,
Have been trawling through various forums about our beloved Virgin Media and thought you’d all like to know a very helpful Email address…
To cut a very long story short, have been with VM for 2 months. The installer came, half installed, left ‘to be back soon’ and never returned. Numerous phone calls and promised call backs later, finally managed to get it resolved the following day, resulting in me having to stay home from work now for 2 days. Sought compensation for inconvenience and loss of income through many calls and promised call backs, finally got satisfcatory compensation.
2 weeks later my contract arrived for me to sign and I realised that the compensation was incorrect. Many calls, promised call backs later, I was informed that the agreed compensation should not have been offered and VM would not honour the agreement, instead I could have something less.
Obviously not a difficult decision to make, this issue is still on going, however in addition to this, we have since had a fault with the TV and many calls and promised call backs later discovered it is a result of the original installation being done wrong. and would have to have new installation done. Arranged, time off work, and surprise surprise a Virgin Media no show!!!
Have since had rang many times, had many call backs promised and the latest failed call back resulted in a desperate Email to the CEO Neil Berkett who’s Email address i discovered in a forum, before realised he was the CEO!
Anyhoo, fully expecting it to bounce back, he responded within an hour telling me he will have it looked into today. So the little ounce of faith I have in mankind has me pinning my hopes on some sort of contact today and will be sure to let you know…
Anyway, that all important Email address is: Neil.Berkett@virginmedia.co.uk
December 17th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
I would like to thank John Crosby for the above e-mail address. I am tearing my hair out now as a result of a dispute with Virgin, my number despite 10 requests has still not been portalled over, hence I am running and paying for my BT line still and now Virgin.
To make matters worse, when the engineers came to install I had all my money stolen from my purse which was in my handbag.
of course all iv’e had is a flippant letter back (after sending four complaint e-mails and 2 recorded delivery letters)
Their letter states that they are unable to offer any goodwill gestures to me as they don’t feel my situation warrants it. Memo to virgin, if you read this and have an ounce of goodwill in you:- Forget the goodwill gesture, all I want is my money back that was stolen and a phoneline that works with my number on it.
Anyway thanks again John
December 18th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
ref the email address above that John gave.. emailed Neil
Berkett last night, and have just had a call from the chief executives office acknowledging my email, and that they are looking into whats going on (i wrote a message beginning december on this website) and its got worse since then, after 2 weeks with virgin i now have no broadband to speak of, no cable tv (as installation was rubbish) no shows with engineers and probably about another 5 hours worth of calls to them, with rude staff and being disconnected. I am hoping that this office will now assist me in getting the service that was promised to me.! i will keep you all informed!!!!!
December 18th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Virgin Media ripped me off 3 times. I believe what they do is mass fraud.
I wrote my story on
http://VirginMediaComplaints.co.uk
December 18th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Hey man u think thats bad ?
We had a random virgin guy drilling on our box and modifying outside OUR house for 45 minuets. When we phoned up to ask why they said they are not aloud to tell us because it was nothing to do with us … (drilling into our wall isnt to do with us eh)
We had a download speed of about 10 kb/s when we should of had 250kb/s for about 2-3 weeks after that incident but we were still told nothing about it.
We have had exactly the same on demand problem as you i have spent god knows hours on the phone to solve the problem and eventually after 2 weeks it was solved.
Most recent was that our plug on the modem blew out. We phoned up … and my gosh did it take so long for them idiots on the other side of the phone to relise that Everything was fine but it was just a plug that was broke !!!
This was on a Thursday night and when they understood the problem they told us it would take 3 days to deliver a PLUG !! and that they had to send a engineer out !
On the phone we just asked for them to send ti in the mail so it would be here the next day .. but no we had to wait 3 days with no internet access (but ofc still paying for it) for them to come out and an engineer to come in and hand us a plug …
They also said we would get a refund for loss of service on many occasions but we never did.
And now the internet was down the whole night.
But yeah sorry for the rant we all thought ntl was bad and virgin would turn it around .. so far we have lost sky channels customer service and our patients.
Sky here we come
December 19th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
I’ve been fortunate enough to have no technical issues. However my billing is incorrect by an extra £3 each month. Not a lot wrong to be honest and when I called to get the money returned to me in September they were more than happy to refund £3. However its happened twice again. But upon asking for the money back (asking a very discourteous customer service advisor) this evening, I was told that the prices have changed “because its Virgin Media now” and the TV package I had signed up for at the end of August is no longer running! I said I had complained once before and received my money back and after all, it was only in August that I was put onto the plan. I asked to speak to someone who would be willing to try and help me but was told that no one would do anything for me! I asked who I can make a complaint to and he said I have to make a written complaint to this address……
Customer Concern
Virgin Media
Matrix Court
Off Nantony way
Seamens way
Enterprise Park
Swansea
SA7 9BB
They are simply ridiculous.
December 20th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Dont write to them, email Neil.Berkett@virginmedia.co.uk (Chief executives office) I must admit they have been jumping through hoops for me at the moment to get my service up and running!!!! You need to really write a snotty email to them, I promise they will come running!!! I threatend them with trading standards and watchdog!! it works i promise!the other day i had an engineer out within 15 minutes due to dealing with the chief executives office direct! Will write more once I’m done with them
December 31st, 2007 at 5:49 pm
…phew….have just read all of the above as a result of looking for an address to send my complaint to. I’m uplifted by the huge body of fellow sufferers that are out there – I thought it was only me. The dispiriting thing is that it has taken us 4 months to get our installation to happen, with all of the experience of everyone above.. with no phone, no internet and no television – and at last, it has happened – but it seems that all we have to look forward to are problems with reception, speed and billing! Thank you for all the suggestions of addresses and names to complain to. One of the most frustrating parts of my experience has been the lack of communication and explanation from Virgin (yet the lies that the tele-staff have so easily come up with suggests that they have received extensive training in the art). I am just about to send this website address to Neil Berkett, because, surely he needs to know of its existence?
I’ve also noticed that there is a rolling change of names as this website progresses through time and once having vented their spleen and maybe been satisfied by that ( or Virgin) they no longer contribute to the discourse…..how then does a definite body of support sustain itself if we all drift in and out of each others consciousness? For instance, someone sensibly considered suing VM … I would support this but would need to know how this idea progresses.
All has been quiet over Christmas, the last blog before mine was Dec. 20th. So perhaps, all is well and we have achieved a certain peace with Virgin- maybe I will be the last one to complain in 2007?
Happy New Year to all who have contributed to this so far, you have cheared me up.
January 5th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
It is interesting to read all these comments. My daughter rang Virgin Media early last year to cancel her Virgin Media package as she was moving. She paid by d/d and she moved house in May 07. Now she has a debt collection agency stating that she owes money for her broadband service BUT VIRGIN ENGINEERS TOOK HER receiver away as agreed — HOW ON EARTH SHOULD SHE BE EXPECTED TO PAY FOR A SERVICE for which she had no access ???
She is now frantic that she will have a bad credit rating due to Virgin media not closing her account as requested. AT NO POINT WAS SHE INFORMED THAT SHE HAD TO CANCEL EACH SERVICE INDIVIDUALLY, after all she signed up for a package !
January 9th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Update – We contacted Virgin Media Customer Relations and they were SUPER.They listened to the problem and agreed to ring back with after investigation.Within an hour all was sorted and they contacted the debt collection agency. They even contacted me the next day to confirm that everything was okay. My faith is truly restored in the company. Thank you
January 9th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
We contacted Virgin Media the day after writing our comment andthey were most courteous and helpful. Within a couple of hours, all was sorted out by Customer Relations AND they even contacted my the next day to confirm that I was happy with the outcome. Thank you to all concerned
January 15th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
virgin media custoemr services?! what does that mean? does it exist?? i had the worst experience even in my entire life trying to deal with these people!! call it anger , frustration..anything. spent so much time on phone trying to sort out the ineffeciency of this company and its employee. they have the worst computer system and no one knows what the other is doing!! u can speak to india offices , then wales, ..manchester..etc and no one keep any detailed info especially if these are for ur benefits as customer. i ended up been charged moe than 500 pounds!! i hate all people working in this company and they are the worst example of customer srvices!!! it is rip off company basically. not mentioning that a manager is like a GOD except u may be able to talk to god and get listened to! what about their telephone and talk800 anywahere?! a joooooke!they use poor internet quality and they still charge 70p/min+vat for such calls!!! the owner guy always say he cares about customers! i think he just ripping the whole nation off.in a nutshell, it is a money making machine very fast with body guards . once u had it ,u had it…no one can help u. SO BOYCOT THIS APPAULING COMPANY…
January 15th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Virgin Media are an appaling company. I have now suffered poor service since they took over from NTL. My internet service goes down every month. Their engineers don’t turn up when they say they will. The modem I had wasn’t even capable of the 20meg service I was paying for. But it doesn’t really matter as on average I get about 1meg if I’m lucky. My set top box loses channels or crashes now and again. They changed my telephone number without telling me, and then took two weeks to change it back. They offer refunds that never arrive and many of their staff are demoralised liars who couldn’t care less about customer service.
The best joke of all was when they told me I couldn’t cancel my services as I had outstanding faults. The sheer f***ing cheek of it.
It’s back to BT for me, it can’t be any worse than this. Trying to deal with them is stressful and time wasting. Sure I’ve lost money and feel ripped off, but they’re stealing my life and it’s just not worth it.
Good luck everyone, you’re going to need it.
January 19th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Seems like a lot of us have the same problems. I was very happy with my telewest service but as soon as Virgin Media took over problems came, first my broadband was very bad, I was paying for the XL service but it was slower then standard dial up, they eventually sorted it and gave me a month free…
Now since June 2007 I have been without a phone service, two guys have come out and looked at it but say its a cable fault and soemone will need to come out and repair it….I have made countless calls to the call centre(the new one in India is diabolical)…..anyway the last UK based guy I managed to get through to informed me that “the previous guy who came out to repair reported the fault to the wrong dept so it has just been sitting there in red tape”. I wasd relived that I seemed to be getting somewhere at last but after him promising to get soemone to call me and not getting anything I have just written a letter.
Its awfull and the problem is the only option I have is to move to Sky/BT and I know from other family members and friends that they have a customer service base in india as well and just as bad.
I guess its a case of better the devil you know, shame we dont have choice anymore.
January 22nd, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Virgin Media are the WORST company I have ever dealt with.
We moved house in September 2007 to another cabled area, and having being customers of Comcast and then NTL for over 10 years without major problems we naturally wished to continue as customers at our new house.
To cut a long farce short, once moved an engineer semi fitted the cable TV box. Channels were installed and then we asked what was happening about the broadband service (having waited a week while their computers were updated). The update didn’t work as our TV channels went off, the internet equipment never arrived, we were told our property didn’t exist and that indeed they had no record of our 10 year custom.
Matters finally came to a head when an engineer never arrived whilst my wife had lost a day’s pay, and I came in finding her crying after 4 hours on the phone to this crap company having been told she had an attitude problem.
I immediately told them to cancel all services, was told that as a new customer (I’m not) I had a 12 month contract and couldn’t – so I finally threatened them with the local newspaper for which I work. They finally relented and disconnected us and collected the equipment.
3 months later we received a £250 bill as they had not disconnected services at our old unoccupied house (as they were advised in writing). They relented on this and we’re now claiming against them for engineer no-show and loss of wages.
The happy ending to the story:
100s MORE CHANNELS IN REAL DIGITAL TV NOW WITH SKY, EFFICIENTLY SET UP, CUSTOMER CARE EXCELLENT WITH NO PROBLEMS.
As for broadband – line activated and now with ORANGE who do our mobiles. Great service, no need for engineer (everything posted), far cheaper, just as fast (Lucky to get a quarter of Virgin’s 20MB service).
Perhaps Branson should concentrate on the businesses he already owns instead of offering spaceflights etc. He is a cunning businessman who comes over as the battling underdog but really doesn’t give a stuff about his customers.
DON’T GIVE VIRGIN MEDIA HOUSE ROOM OR ALLOW THEM TO WASTE YOUR TIME.
January 25th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
I paste here extracts from my about to be sent letter after an incredible saga that hopefulyl ends tomorrow. I have never met such incompetence, obfuscation, absolute lies and disregard for customer in the industry (I am a senior systems architect and requirement manager in a mobile telecomm company).
——-
The complaints are (to be substantiated by the log of events and conversations):
- Staff has mutually contradicted and self-contradicted themselves several times, all successfully proven by subsequent cross-checks.
- I was misinformed, fed blatant lies and glaring falsehoods as proven by the subsequent facts
- Staff repeatedly refused to treat a clear technical fault as such, despite clear and classic symptoms and even acknowledging it – but lying about logging it as fault, it took several days until it really ended up logged as a fault.
- Staff’s evident incompetence caused a simple and clear technical fault your end to have a prolonged saga, making me receive other people’s calls, not being able to access voicemail, missing calls for many days.
- Staff repeatedly refused to escalate my calls or even log any details – every call to customer services had to start explanations from scratch, with the exception of the last 2
- Staff refused several times to provide me with a complaints department contact number or to log a complaint with a reference number.This was and is against UK law!
- I was technically called a lier when your staff logged a blatant falsehood about attempts to contact me via my mobile phone and in person. I don’t care what mistakes they made, but own up to it and do not blame it on a customer that can prove the false nature of the VM statements.
The log of events (with exact quotes):
Monday 22 Jan 16:20:
I am told that this is a technical fault with voicemail (?!) and that “will be escalated to senior technical fault department”, I “will be called back within 48 hours” and also, “fault was noted with all details” I provided. I have also given my mobile number for contact which the person claimed to have typed in.
I then called back same night, to verify.
But it turned out: there was no trace, no log of my problem, my call nor any information related to it. a clear lie to customer.
Monday 22 Jan up to 22:40 (!!):
I kept being routed to various people in general customer services, checking account details repeatedly and being asked about my phone…
No calls, details or fault statements have been logged by anybody.
When I asked explicitly, I was reassured they are making notes on my account. This was again proven to be absolutely false by subsequent verification calls I made.
At 22:50 I finally managed to get someone to acknowledge this as technical fault. This time, she actually logged it –FINALLY– and a subsequent call was able to verify this.
I was told I have to ring back when technical fault department opens and explaint to them again everything. Have you ever heard of error logs and task queues ?? You don’t have the most basic systems in place or your call centre staff is dangerously incompetent in using it!
23 Jan 08:50AM- 09:35AM from my office I spoke with two different people:
1. first person simply told me that there is indeed a log this time and that “switch is not working and please call back in 2 hours”. (?!?!)
2. Second person finally booked an engineer in face of clear facts. Timeslot was 24 January 12:00-16:00.
I explicitly asked to be called on my mobile number as I could obviously not receive calls dialed to my correct landline number.
24 Jan 11:43 – 17:00:
I took off time from work, arrived home at 11:43, waited for an engineer to come to my house.
Rang at 12:40 again, to check if my mobile number is really still on my account and that all details are confirmed. Everything checked out.
Person told me another glaring lie, I quote literally: “I can see engineer left our head office and will be with you in minutes”.
She was in a call centre in India! Also, since when do engineers go to Farnborough area from a ‘head office” that is so tall you can see it from India?!?!
Rang at 15:02 to get a status as nobody yet turned up.
I was told: engineer “called mobile and left message” and also “could not get access”, hence a 10 pound penalty charge !!
I sat with my laptop and mobile, logged on to my company’s secure intranet during the entire time, facing my window and the street for 4 hours 20 minutes without a Virgin Media van getting anywhere near my house, nor anyone phoning me or approaching my door.
They either phoned landline, despite explicit instructions (and clear fact it was not working!!) or went to wrong address. Mobile incoming call log from company mobile and/or network can prove the false nature of their statement – by this time I was fed by a series of absolute falsehoods for days!
After all this saga and several calls to ensure all my contact details are correct, I had the absolute interest in you getting this fixed!
Only around 17:00 I managed to get the charge removed, and obtained finally (!!) a complaints department number and a complaint log reference. Booked also another slot for Saturday 26 Jan 08:00-12:00.
I then spoke with a helpful lady in the complaints department, who acknowledged the issues and verbally apologised. Promised to call the area manager and also to call me back on Monday about status.
I again asked for confirmation of my contact details and everything again checked out OK. I again asked to be called on mobile, as landline was clearly compromised.
25 Jan 16:09
Called complaints department to check yet again, that address details and everything is correct, without the possibility of going to my old address where I moved from in Jan 2007.
I was told that area manager was contacted and that they confirmed they did visit… but what address? They were not even anywhere near me the previous day and I have 300 yard visibility of the street from my home office room window.
I was assured visit on Saturday 26 Jan will take place.
The two people from complaints department were the only persons to have a decent understanding of the problem and genuine willingness of finding out all details.
February 26th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Myself and my flatmates signed up with Telewest and had no problems whatsoever. As soon as the company was taken over by Virgin Media the problems have been endless. We have not received a bill since the company became VM resulting in our internet and TV service being cut off on a number of occasions as we hadn’t been able to pay a bill. This obviously led to expensive phone calls being made to try to get bills sent through. To date despite 2 letters of complaint and many phone calls we have still not received bills and have received no answer or apology to our complaints. Absolutely appalling service. As students we cannot afford the late payment charges but as we have never received a bill these are impossible to avoid. I am at a complete loss as to how to move on the VM. What should we do?! (Apologies for poor grammar – I get into such a rage about Virgin Media that I find it difficult to think straight!!)
March 15th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Virgin Media haven’t listened to any of my previous requests to cancel services, this has been going on since September, I call twice a month and just hear fake promises. I cancelled the direct debit in Feb because I was getting fed up paying for a service i don’t use. now i am being past to debt collecters. I found Richard Bransons address which i have sent him my complaint and also a invoice for each telephone call and unauthroised debit they have taken from my account. i done this to made to wind him up like his company winds me up. obnly sent it today, ill keep you informed, anyone got any email addresses for any of their directors??
March 17th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
go striaght to Neil Birkett, his colleague Adrian Ogle sorted out my problems in 2 minutes!!
March 26th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
I have read, in disgust, the comments that have appeared on this website regarding Virgin Media. I currently work for Virgin Media as a Team Manager (previously Telewest Broadband).
Firstly, we receive a number of complaints from customers advising that since Virgin Media took over the Customer Service has been rubbish – I would like to point out that all Telewest Customer Service Reps and all Telewest Systems have been transferred to Virgin. So the level of service you receive is not down to Virgin taking over it is down to the particular rep you are talking to.
I have a few tips for those of you who are currently making complaints to Virgin:
Ask the CSR to log your complaint onto CCCS (Customer Complaints and Correspondance System), you should also be provided with a reference number as this system automatically generates one. This system is regularly audited by Ofcom to ensure that we are compliant with current legislation.
Unfortunatly, Team Managers and CSR’s are not provided with a contact telephone number for Head Office – strange considering we work for a telecommunications company! So if you are advised we dont have a telephone number, we are telling you the truth. All complaints must be made via our website or in writing.
Also, I wouldnt wast my time requesting a call back, stay on the line if possible untill you speak to someone. CSR’s are not able to dial out from the customised phones they use and TM’s are often passed hundreds of complaints each day, it would simply be impossible to call everyone back.
If you require to speak to a TM explicitly advise the CSR that you do not want to be passed to a floor walker. (A “floor walker” is an experienced CSR who has a higher level of accreditation the standard CSR’s).
Finally, this is probably the hardest part, be nice to the person you are speaking to. I know it is easier said than done when you have been misinformed or have had a bad experience but being condesending, rude or abrupt to someone is not the way to resolve your issue. You are more likley to receive assistance if you are plesant. I know everyone should be treated fairly but sadly it isnt the case…
We are not all morons (although I appreciate that we do employ a fair few)!
I am not agreeing with Virgin Medias policies or procedures, I merely wanted to let you know what its like on the inside. Its not nice being screamed at all day, every day!
If anyone has a specific problem, let me know and I will helpyou as much as I can. Strictly off the record of course!
March 26th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Thank you Lynsey. I really appreciate you taking the time to write as “an insider”. It helps to know how the system works and I certainly agree that it is better to be nice.. at least for as long as possible. I saw the programme about call centres the other week – we’d do well to remember that the person at the other end of the phone is just one person who may well be full of good intentions and really want to help. It must be incredibly demoralising if they do get one complaint call after another from already angry customers. Thank you for the offer of help, I hope you are not inundated as a result! Sue (Flibbertigibbet Admin)
March 27th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Currently arguing with Virgin Media. I moved out the house I shared phoned then said I was moving out wrote a letter explaining I was moving out, got confirmation with a name change form. Idiots I was living in never sent the form off. Had a nice letter of the debt collectors 11 months after I moved out and notified Virgin for over £250. The debt collectors investigated the complaint after I said not on your nelly am I paying it and referred me back to Virgin. I sent them by recorded delivery a copy of the letter to my landlord and a copy of the letter I sent them. they are now saying despite me sending a letter and phoning them because the form didnt get sent back they “presumed I still lived there” even though they sent the debt collectors letter to my new address?! Got in touch with OFCOM who have told me I am not responsible for it Citizens advice have said no I am not, the government consumer advice line says yes I am so OFCOM have told me to get in touch with the osm. people (CICAS?) and go from there in the mean time they are threatening me with court action etc. Noone seems to have a clue whats going on or what they are doing have spoke to one useful person today rest of them just havent got a clue or really cant be bothered to help
March 29th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Hi Marie, sorry to hear you are having a terrible time.
Did you call Virgin Media to disconnect your services at your old property or were your ex-flatmates taking over the services from you?
If you called to disconnect, there will be a record on your account which is automatically generated when you call into one of Virgin’s call centres. If the disconnection was not actioned by Virgin then you are not liable and any outstanding amount will be cleared.
Unfortunatly, if you were arranging to transfer the services into one of your ex-flatmates names and they failed to send the Transfer of Responsibility forms back then you will be liable for any outstanding amount. CICAS will confirm this. If you can prove you were not living at the address when the charges accrued on your account and you sent the letter requesting to cancel by recorded delivery then there may be a chance you will not be held liable, again CICAS will advise on your personal circumstances.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:31 am
Never connected to bt,joined ntl when they came to our area.8years ago.knew where we stood with ntl,not perfect,but steady service.Vagrant media on the other hand are an absolute disaster,they overcharge on a regular basis,unfortunately for them I check my bills closely.2MB broadband,average download speed 256kbs!!T.v.service always puts up box on screen when recording late night film.Film ruined.They also allocate phone nos from lod customers so we are still being asked how our new kitchen is, and where is Mr Smith and if he doesnt answer legal action will be taken.£5per month for not paying by D.D.!!!!wouldnt let brothel media near my account,(no virgins in brothel get it lol),dont forget £10 pound per month for late payment,no chance, they have manipulated the billing dates so if you dont pay by middle of month you get charged, so if like me you dont give em a penny each month till you are satisfied then woe is your wallet.If virgin airlines maintenance has the same standards as Vilest media, woe betide airtravellers.I am abandoning ship and joining B.T. and I hope v*g*n*l media catches a serious disease and shuffles off the corporate coil.My heart goes out to all you people out there,stressing over this slimy joke of a company.THE ONLY WAY TO DEAL WITH THEM IS,withdraw your direct debits (make them fight you for your money)check all your bills,check all options and then swop to an alternative provider.Hit them in the pocket and put them out of their misery.Thanks for reading.
April 14th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
After several years of suffering Virgin Media’s appalling lack of service, I have made the leap and started the move to Sky. So far I’m about halfway through the process of switching TV, phone and broadband over. TV went in without a hitch and the service is far more reliable than NTL/VM ever was. I had hoped that switching back to a BT phone line would be equally as painless but sadly this was not to be….my BT line was supposed to go live today – I placed the order 2 weeks ago, they told me I could keep my existing number and that, joy of joys, I wouldn’t even need to contact VM directly to cancel! My bubble was burst earlier today when someone from BT called me to say that my line wouldn’t be going live until May 7th because right at the last minute (you guessed it) Virgin Media had somehow thrown a spanner in the works!!! When I called VM to find out what was going on, the pleasant Indian girl that I spoke to assured me that my phone service had indeed been cancelled and was so baffled when I asked her how it was that I was using it to speak to her that she put me straight through to a UK call centre. The chap I spoke to there was also completely stumped but after leaving me on hold for a few minutes, presumably to consult someone with better training, he told me he was emailing my details across to a colleague who could run some technical tests and would be able to disconnect me later today. The phone is still working and, after reading some of the posts above, I’m thinking this may have been a simple ploy to get me off the phone – silly me.
In spite of this (hopefully small) hiccup, I would still recommend switching to Sky…if anyone’s being put off by BT’s extortionate charges to reactivate a phone line, don’t be! Sky will credit your account with up to £124.99 to cover this, you just need to ask them for a claim form.
Wish me luck with the phone line…..
April 18th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
I am in the same situation with being called a liar, that I havent complained as many times as I say I have, I was told the job (no on demand)had been rectified and oh yes I had received a call and I must have missed it (they obviously dont know how to leave a message – could be ’cause they didnt call!!)
Im only in my first week of complaining but boy am I fuming – I rang to complain initially how much more expensive Virgin Media was to Sky and they reduced my bill accordingly but since then they have been a complete and utter nightmare. I have given them until Monday 21.4.08 to rectify it or they will lose me and all I know as customers.
April 24th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Still having fun with the whole Virgin thing debt collectors are now trying to take £316 off me despite dropping the case and referring me back to Virgin! Osbudsman sent me the wrong letter but have referred me back to Citizens advice. Turns out the 12 month contract I paid for has all been paid off and according to one person at Virgin its Septembers bill and another person has said its Octobers. Given the contract I drew up with them finished in August and I had notified them consumer advice seems to be coming down on my side at the moment! Again Virgin havent contacted me direct at my new address the only communication I am getting is through the debt collectors. There is a threat of court action in Hull Im living in Kent due to spend all day at Citizens advice on my only day off Monday after working the last week. So watch this space!
April 24th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Sorry Lynsey didnt answer! I called Virgin to find out what we needed to do and they accepted I was moving out told me to put it in writing aswell and they would send the forms out to me to transfer into another flatmates name and spoke to him on the phone at the time.
Form arrived with a thud on the doormat day I was moving so signed the bit I needed to left the form with the flatmate to wade through ( surprised they didnt want inside leg measurement there was that much paper). Moved out in the April had a phone call in the November asking for the set top back explained no longer lived there and hadnt for the last 8 months didnt hear anything from them until I got a letter from the debt collectors in March when it all kicked off. Despite telling and writing and all of the 12 month contract being paid off they are holding me liable but wont tell me who has paid the bills since last April despite it being made by a card yet they are claiming Iam the bill holder! How many people have been told by any company sorry I cant discuss that with you unless you are the bill holder?! Citizens advice have said I am not liable, consumer direct said I was because of the 12 month contract ( before I got dates of when the contract was set up) OFFCOM have said I am not liable and referred me to CICAS who sent a letter saying they couldnt help because the first complaint was over 9 months ago. Phoned them and asked for the lady who had signed the letter. She then found the letter on her computer because she doesnt deal with all of the cases she signs and then said they have sent me the wrong letter out it should have read because my complaint to the company is under 3 months they cant help me. So today I now have a letter back from the debt collectors threatening court action. Virgins bill is £131 origanally the debt collectors wanted £251 now its gone up to £331 ( not £316 as stated up above!).
May 4th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
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
May 11th, 2008 at 7:56 am
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.
May 14th, 2008 at 10:26 am
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.
May 21st, 2008 at 5:45 pm
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.
May 31st, 2008 at 11:19 am
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.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
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!!!!!
June 6th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
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.
June 15th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
It’s not just Virgin Media that’s a problem – Virgintrains are too!
June 24th, 2008 at 11:05 am
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!!!!
June 24th, 2008 at 11:06 am
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
June 27th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
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
August 19th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
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.
August 20th, 2008 at 1:51 am
sick of losing my net page
and sick of trying to get answers
August 20th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
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!
September 1st, 2008 at 11:29 am
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…
October 10th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
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.
October 30th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
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
November 18th, 2008 at 11:35 am
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 !
January 17th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
I’ve been a customer of the various incarnations of Virgin Media for about 12 years. Then today they cut my service without any warning. Woke up today and found a call from the collections team to call them urgently. I then found they’d cut the phone service and internet because my balance was more than £200. I have a direct debit which pays the bills. With any other supplier that’s the arrangement irrespective of the balance. I spoke to a lady in the customer care team, she was apologetic and spoke to the collections team. The message came back ‘Sorry, this is company policy, nothing we can do about it’. So I had to pay half the outstanding balance there and then with my debit card to get the service back. This is appalling beyond words. This means to safeguard my service on (we are high users with all the different services) I’m going to have to check my balance daily, which is a little tedious. They offered the address of the complaints department but I’m not having this issue smothered there – I wonder if anyone has the contact details of the office of Neil Birkett the Managing Director?
January 26th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Our on demand has not been working for almost a week. My mum has kept phoning and they keep lying (saying they will call back and changing their stories etc.). They had originally said it was a problem in the area and would be fixed by 4pm on Saturday (it is now Monday evening) and when my mum phoned tonight they told her it wasn’t an area fault at all but one with our box.
The thing is, we have two boxes and both are not working and we have just spoken to our next door neighbours and our neighbours across the road and none of theirs are working.
What the hell is wrong with these people?! Why can’t they just tell the truth?
Argh. Good luck guys. Keep at ‘em.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:00 am
AN UTTER JOKE!!! five months ago i changed to one of their “budles” and every month since they are charging me over the top – im sure the billing department are paid on how much over they charge you? think of a number multiply it by itself and issue it as a bill? well my friends i am about to cancel my standing order with the bank – and watch out Sir”Dick” because a small claims court summons is on its way to you. To underestermate me is to overestermate yourself
February 21st, 2009 at 12:11 am
I have read through all of the above and will be sending identicle letters to every contact detail above.
I couldn’t possibly go into the details of every problem I have had since virgin took over from telewest but I have experienced almost everything listed above at some point or another. My personal favourite for comedy value alone was recieving a letter after I complained my phone line wasn’t working. The letter stated that a member of their team had tried to call me regarding my notification of a fault with my telephone line but they were unable to reach me (no sh*t sherlock) so could I contact them on the above number. Several hours stood in a phone box later I eventually got an engineer to sort the problem. They had disconnected my number and given it to someone else. I also had my broadband discionnected not long after when my neighbour got installed, then charged for other peoples phone calls and internet usage. This has since been resolved after many more hours of back and forth phone calls and more than a few grey hairs.
Time and again I have been pushed from pillar to post speaking to incompitent monkeys across the globe, being hung up on, suffering accusations beyond belief and now I can’t help but wonder why I have done this to myself. Never in my life have I been so insulted by anyone or anything and yet these idiots expect me to give them money?! My current problems include internet speed and annonymous call barring. I won’t bore you with details but lets just say I am going to be leaving Virgin and I suggest others do the same. If you are lucky enough to have something fixed it’s just a matter of time before something else goes wrong and the lies, accusations and hours of wasted time talking to idiots who have no idea what you’re saying.
Thanks for allowing me to rant. I feel slightly better having read that I am not alone.
March 2nd, 2009 at 8:21 pm
I wish I had seen this forum ages ago.
Had to sign up for the full package as my company paid broadband was pulled.
Firstly they never turned up on the day they were meant to install despite ringing them 5 times for confirmation that I was being visited on the day only to be told at 8:30PM that a note had been put on the system at 9:30 AM that morning that they would not be calling – so lied to constantly – never turned up the next day after confirming they would. Rearranged another visit 10 days later. The engineer turned up with half his kit broken and not replaced, fitted new box and started to leave. I stopped him as broadband wasn’t yet connected.Went trhougha further 5 modems until the line finally went live…..3 days later ..line dead! Do the diagnostics and ring Virgin. Engineer booked for 2 days later. “days later arrives and I get a phone call from customer services that a local fault has been found and rectified, my broadband is working and engineer cancelled. I have to explain to her that it is NOT fixed and I still want the engineer to attend, to which she replies that I will have to arrange another date as it is policy that the engineer is automatically cancelled!!
To cut a long long story short, I have since spent numerous hours on phone calls to customer services etc and have been told I will get refund for installation and wireless router and someone would call me back (Have you heard that one before?!) about compenastaion as I had taken 4 days off work.
Does anyne know if I have a chance of taking them to the small claims court for this?? and could I cancel the whole contract as they have not provided the services?
Good luck all.
James
July 16th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Having read the comments above, if you think Virgin are bad, try dealing with talktalk customer services……………they are on another planet altogether as non of the advisors speak any known earth language!
September 1st, 2009 at 12:10 pm
I have spent the last 6 weeks stupidly trying to set up with virgin media and the last 3 weeks trying to leave them. They could not set up any service whatsoever as they kept forgetting to order the equiptment (still hasn’t arrived after 4 attempts).
Problem now is that I can leave them because I need my MAC key and they keep saying they will order it for me, then a week later tell me that it has not been ordered.
Anyone know how to leave them before even being set up, and / or how to sue them?
November 21st, 2009 at 3:58 pm
OMG!!! I am not alone! Say Im not like virgin media? No, I hate virgin media – I really cannot believe that some one can run this company without any shame!!!
December 6th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Virgin Media’s on demand service is extremely poor. Often the service is unavailable or cuts out in the middle of shows or films that I have paid for. This necessitates either a lengthy telephone call to one of their service centres or a visit from one of their technicians to switch or fix the box. I’ve had to call-out technicians three times in as many months to fix faults with the on demand service – on the last occasion the technician told me that the service was so poor that he would never consider installing Virgin Media services in his own home – when their customer serviced representatives complain about the poor quality of the service you know something is REALLY wrong…
December 15th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
I have joined Virgin media in sept 2009, I thought they are best service providers but I am having very tough time with virgin customer service. None of virgin services are working from 4 weeks and they told me to wait 3 more weeks for technician to solve this problem. They are not even letting me to cancel the contract. They would say that I will receive call in 48 hours but they never call. I don’t advice virgin media for anyone.
February 12th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Virgin just cancelled the installation the evening before it was due for the 3rd time! that is 3 days off work for nothing and I am now scheduled for 9 March. i going bto go back to BT but I am also going to eventually get Virgin to install and then cancel within 28 days so that i make it as painful as possible. have also managed to get the Chief Execs email so he will be getting a few messages from me. I really, really hate them
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