Virgin Media review: Poor service! 21

My cable box broke down i was it would take 4 days to fix it after being passed to 4 different departments. I had lost my temper and canceled my contract with them. They call this service, i can think of more fitting words to call them.

Even though I have always paid my monthly subscription to virgin media through direct debt, I have received two letters through a debt collecting company working on behalf of Virgin. I have sent letters to Virgin which are not responded to, I have spoke to operators who promise to deal with my complaint, and get back to me, who never do. I e-mail and I am told I will be contacted which I am not. I am now left in a constant worry to these debt collectors turning up or blacklisting me, even though I have always paid my bills. And I have all the statements to prove so. I am afraid to disconnect as Virgin will then charge to do so, even though I have done nothing wrong other than to pay by direct debt.

We have not yet received a cheque that was promised to us in May 2007 as Virgin were still requesting the direct debit through our bankers. It is now August and after numerous telephone calls and promises from Claire, Mohsin and David to name but a few we are still waiting. The last promise we had was today so we will wait and see. I don't think that you would have waited this long for me to pay you. I have been kept hanging on the telephone for ages after asking to speak to a supervisor or manager of the accounts dept. They are always in meetings or unavailable so back to customer services who keep promising my cheque but we know we are being fobbed off hoping we will go away. The service that we have received is appalling and not what we would expect from a company that is owned by such a media figure as Richard Branson. I wonder what he would think of the service given by his employees.

My dad unfortunately had the TV and Telephone "service" installed 2 months ago and it STILL doesn't work properly. As he had a heart attack last year I became concerned at the stress this companies "service" was having on him so had my name put on the account so I could deal with it for him. Now I think i am going to have a heart attack! They are absolutely appalling. I thought NTL were bad but Virgin really take the biscuit. You get passed around for literally hours to get a resolution and the reason for this is that the staff don't have the ability to communicate with each other.

Did you know they don't even have the ability to call a certain call center! So even if you do get a name of someone who MIGHT be able to help there isn't a sole who could put you through. In fact the call centers in India cant even email the UK... Oi Richard Branson this is 2007 and you own a media company! Your staff cant communicate with each other you moppet, SORT IT OUT.

Morally its disgusting that my dad is put in this situation. Ive tried all day to get hold of Lorraine Doyle, a customer service manager in Wythenshaw, who promised she would be able to call me if someone emailed her from a UK call center but hasn't! They refuse to even provide an email address for me to contact her and they call it customer service. It should be called Customer Avoidance, its not too much to ask, I just want to be able to contact the same person I spoke to on Tuesday. The thing is they make their jobs harder by doing this, it makes us angry and holds up the call que, I would have sorted this hours ago if Lorraine just gave me a contact. I hope we can export Richard Branson to the moon because he is useless to any of us here. Just more heart ache (or attacks!).

I have now decided to get the whole system taken out to help my dad's situation so he never has to deal with this pathetic company ever again... the hold time is over 20 minutes! WISH ME LUCK!

I signed up to NTL and my broadband was fine at 2mb (17.99 a month) but since it has changed to viorgin media my broadband speed has been terrible. At first i thought it was my pc so i bought some software to speed it up (24.99) this did nothing to help, after asking a friend to check my pc he ran a speed test on my broadband and found my connection to be 0.85mb. He asked me how long its been like this, to which i replied about 2 and a half months. On his advice i contacted virgin who said they would call back but didn't, i called them again about a week later was told the same again and guess what... yep nothing. It seems that all the big companies (regardless of what they sell) are above the rights of the consumer, this is what really angers me, the government don't do anything about keeping them in order, as long as they pay their tax nothing gets said. I am hoping something comes from this complaints board, i will be canceling my contract with virgin and i hope they try to take me to court as i am sure ill have thousands of other complaints from other virgin customers to use to my advantage.

I have been with Telewest and then Virgin Media for years. Under Telewest I had the full package plus 10MB Broadband service. Suddenly under Virgin the 10 Meg speeds disappeared and dropped with no explanation down to 2 - 5 Megs. I complained and Virgin gave me an upgrade to their VIP service and when the Broadband upgraded to 20 MB lo and behold I was getting speeds of 17 - 25 MB. This last couple of months the speeds have dropped down to 2 - 5 Meg again. Virgin told me it was the Modem, they changed the Modem but no change in speed. Today I have told them they should only be charging me for 4 MB service. Watch this space.

Since 24th of August 2007 I have had an intermittent broadband service with virgin media. As the fault transpired on the Friday before bank holiday and the broadband service line kept terminating in India rather than the UK and i wanted to talk to someone in the UK, I decided to wait until the following Tuesday to report this fault. On the 28th of August i contacted virgin media and they sent an engineer out on the 29th for a am appointment but he turned up at 1-30pm, at 8am until 1-15pm the broadband service would not connect when the engineer attended the connection was working, the engineer replaced my modem and hung around until 3pm and the service remained connected until 5-30pm when it disconnected and would not connect again.
So i telephoned the broadband service line again at 25p a minute to ask for another engineer to visit and hopefully this time one would attend whilst the fault was apparent. The engineer was again booked for the following morning he arrived at 1-pm and the service was not connected, he blamed my computer for being at fault he also contacted another engineer and he to blamed my computer for being at fault he said he could do no more and left in a huff.

I immediately took my computer to my Father house less than a mile away and plugged it into my fathers Virgin media board band modem Low and behold my computer connected to the internet and remained connected until I disconnected it 2 hours and 10 mins later. I returned home when the computer connected and left it running at my fathers house and telephoned the premium rate broadband service line again. They booked me an appoint meant for the following Monday the 3rd of September 2007. the computer still refused to connect to the internet at my home address and was not connected when the 3rd engineer attended on Monday 3rd of september 2007.

Now this engineer was reported to be at the top of his game and the best engineer they had for this area but he to could diagnose the problem. he left after about an hour in disbelief that he couldn't get the connection working he to was inclined to blame my computer, yet it worked fine around the corner at my Fathers house.

Now not knowing what was to happen next i telephoned the broadband service line and spoke with a gent from the swansea call center he said I needed a cable re-pull which is basically replacement of the cable in the street between the street cabinet and the house, ok fine something else to ponder another element of the diagnosis of the system to eliminate.

The gentleman booked the cable re-pull or at least that is what he told me and this would be done on Friday the 7th of September 2007, yes you've guessed, it never happened an engineer appeared out of the blue on Thursday the 6th of September at 2-30pm and i told him that the re-pull had been booked when the engineer tried to confirm the re-pull he was told that the call centre staff were not authorized to book a re-pull and no re-pull had been booked for friday the 7th of september 2007.

What a huge headache and it got worse not better. The engineer that attended on Thursday the 6th of September said he would book the re-pull himself as he was authorized to do this, he then left my home saying that customer services would contact me when they were ready to replace the cable in the street. On friday the 7th of september I telephoned Virgin media customer services to give them my mobile number as i could not wait in indefinitely for someone to call, i then went out and returned at 6-30pm only to find a calling card left by an engineer called Mark Dyer at 16-50pm it said I tried to fix the fault but I'll need to visit your home to complete the work. As you weren't mat home at the arranged time a ten pounds charge plus vat will be applied to your next bill, I immediately telephoned customer services and threatened to go back to BT if they billed me for a call that was not arranged. the connection to the broadband service remained disconnected except for a couple of hours on Sunday the 9th of september and again on the afternoon of the 10th of september 2007.

The service has until today 22nd of September 2007 remained off and i have been unable to reconnect. I eventually found the customer complaints phone number [protected] and spoke to a very nice lady by the name of Ms Hall who chased the cheidf engineer several times in the last 10 days or so and his name is Trevor Smith.

Mr smith promised me on the telephone last week that he would attend my home when the cable was replaced in the street on Friday the 21st of September but it took Ms hall at least three phone calls to Mr Smith to get him to contact me and each time Ms Hall telephoned Mr Smith she called me back to see if he had phoned me and much of the time the answer was no he hadn't.
Mr Smith is apparently quite an arrogant character and resented the fact that I deemed it necessary to contact customer complaints, who were just hassling him, he has since been reported to his superior for being very rude to the customer complaints staff on the telephone and promising them he would call the customer when he actually did nothing.

Anyway when he finally did call me after being chased by Ms Hill on three separate occassions on the same day he said he would be here on friday the 21st of september as I mentioned earlier. On the Friday I waited and waited and by 2pm I was getting a little worried that no-one was going to turn up so I phoned Ms Hill and asked if she would telephone Mr Smith and confirm for me when he was going to turn up, Ms Hill agreed that hmy having no contact from Mr Smith was worrying and telephoned him to check up on his arrival time, as it turned out Mr Smith has gone on holiday for two weeks, so where does that leave me? just as Ms Hill phoned me back a re-pull team arrived at my front door, I handed the phone to one of the three young lads and Ms Hill spoke to them.

All this re-pull team did was complain about being left work that should have been done by somebody else, NOT MY PROBLEM and it never has been I am just the idiot that helps to pay your wages.
They didn't want to replace the cable in the street and it took quite some arguing with them to even get them to run a new cable on the surface to the street cabinet and connected it to my house to see if there was a problem with the cable in the ground.

As it turned out the cable was not at fault and the whole matter has now been referred to the network department but no-one has told me who or when they will be in touch, as I understand it Ms Hill is on holiday now for three weeks so she is also out of the equation and she was the only person willing to chase these idiots up and kick them up the backside and get them moving.

DO NOT GET VIRGIN MEDIA UNLESS YOU WANT ALL THIS HASSLE WHEN YOUR SERVICE DEVELOPS A FAULT. as I understand it the old companies ntl and telewest broadband have been broken up into franchises and now they all have their own managers ever heard the saying to many cooks soil the broth here we have the same situation to many managers and no-one is communicating with anyone least of all the customer.

So I sit a twiddle my thumbs waiting for the network team to contact me why on earth couldn't they leave me the network teams phone number? Now 24 days on my board band is working today but at present it is difficult to detect whether or not it will be working tomorrow and it may well not be. I have been billed for my usual services this month and I am going to stop the direct debit next week at the bank I will not be forced to wait another month for the brain dead few to get their backsides into gear and sort this crap connection out.

Remember the complaints centre phone number it is:

[protected]

After trying to get connected to Virgin it didn't take that long to get through to but the sales man was the rudest I have ever come across. I know English wasn't his first language and I don't know how they speak to people where he came from but I don't expect to be spoken down to when I am trying to get an answer to a perfectly reasonable question!

vigin media sucks!

JUST THOUGHT I'D LET EVERYONE KNOW i WROTE TO MR RICHARD BRANSON TODAY 4TH OF OCT 2007 BROARDBAND STILL NOT FIXED, IN THE LAST 15 DAYS IT HAS BEEN ON FOR 2 DAYS. IM GOING TO TAKE VIRGIN MEDIA TO COURT SOON IF THEY DO NOT START TO PAY ATTENTION IN THIS MATTER.

I paid my virgin bill in september 07, after waiting nearly a week for the service to be turned on, there was a fault in my phone line. I waited nearly a week for someone to come out, and once they did. The technician could get the line back on, but had to leave a long white cable trailing across the garden. for my daughter to fall over if she plays out there.

So i had been told to wait at home and they would send someone out. So i stayed in for nearly a week, on one turned up, so i phoned them and was told they would call me back, but I received no phone call, so i called them again and on 4th oct 3weeks later they sent two men out who also could not do the job, so now i have waited two more weeks and still no call, i phoned them today 15th oct and they told me someone will be out on the 18th oct.

So my question is if they can charge us £20 or £30. a time for late fee's, then can we claim compensation for the stress and lack of communication that they put us through. I think it should work both ways, but i am clearly angry with them!

The service of Virgin Media is terrible. Even the customer care department so unprofessional and rude. I have make a complaint to the office. I paid 20mb money and get 2mb speed...

i have had this service for nearly a year now and never had any problems but this week i have got one and its to due with the tv package i was getting most of the channals and since there as been an upgrade ive lost half of them so i ring you up and tell you about it and you tell that im not subscribed to so i have to pay and get upgreaded and dont see why i should sice ive had the channals when i signed up i think its really disgusting and i want somethinge done about it because im not happy at all

This is my second complainte and im not happy because in the first place i had lots of channles for a year and i was happy with with what iwas getting then a year after i loose most of them so i ring up and they tell me i have to pay for them and i thought that was really disgusting because i had them for a year so i left it at that . well a few weeks later i deciderd to up gread due to the channles being rubbish anyways i up gread ive been on it less then a week and ive been charged for the month so why is that also now they are adding on VAT which they never did before and i really cant belive it so i am really thinking about changin to somon eles thats alot better.

I would never recommend virgin media for their customer service the staff are so rude its unbelievable. I have only been a customer with them for 2months and they have already mucked up with taking this month's payment! When i first set up with them they were told to take thier payments on the 28th of each month but they been trying to take it on the 4th, then adding £20.00 on to the bill! very sneaky. Then when u ring the virgin team to explain you get the member's of staff that are very rude and unhelpful! I no alot of people that have ended there virgin media account and gone to sky! If virgin was to treat their customer's with respect then maybe they would'nt leave them! I can not believe the way they have treated me as a new customer! I am disgusted with the customer service i have recieved!

me brother Airtell sim card missing new activete pls malappuram. dt.thi no [protected] thirur area contact [protected] PLS help ok ?

Airtell sim card missing thi no [protected]

AHHHH god :( 5 months and am still waiting for them to fix my internet connection

Virgin Media has got to be the worse Company complaints Department ever.
I cancelled my Broadband in March they keep taking the same amount out every month since and over 20 phone calls, although they say they will refund this amount? they pressed the wrong button (so they say) and sent me a bill for this amount instead of a credit, they owe me and have even sent this to a debt recovery agent Moorcroft who are just as bad at sorting out any problems.
They now have my money and have put me on a bad debt list.
PLEASE DON'T DEAL with VIRGIN?
Brian ex Virgin

I have installed Virgin Media services in the the South London Franchise & the Surrey Franchise. The product is a good product. The delivery and support of the product is very hit and miss.
Some customers will have a good install done by very competent techs who will meet all customer requirements.Others will have very unsatifactory installs due to many circumstances.
Customers need to be aware that this is a cable product ...cable is visable, there are 2 issues, 1...cable has to be delivered to the the property from the external boundry...block paved drives are a big issue, cable cannot always be hidden, customers can always arrange to bury, hide, tack their own cable if there is an problem with cable through the front of the garden.Concrete driveways are a real no no... cut and chasing is the option but will cause delays & later cable performance problems.
2...cable in the property. Again its a cable product...cable has to be run to the point where the services are based. Customers need to clear the areas where the cable has to run. The techs doing installls are not able to clear areas for access.

Install techs work on a price job scenario, but there are no pre site surveys so a job such as a tv, broadband, telephone at one adress could take 1 hour whereas the same job at the next address could take 4 hours, the techs get the same money for each.This is why missed appointments occur, techs get too many jobs to do in a day and come early evening they just have to give up and call it a day. Dont Blame the install techs ... they are really trying to give the customers what they deserve but there is no chance with the way the company is hammering them.

cant put my name on this because they will sack me