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really is as bad as people say 🤣
I've been trying to get the ugly brown box they installed on the front of my house moved, I've raised it as a complaint to which they reply "I can arrange for a technician to come out..."
Me: "Yes please arrange tech"
Them: "Sorry we can't do that, you have to contact us. Click this linkg for live chat <link>"
Me: click the link, dead page, no live chat.
My fault I suppose, I knew what I was getting myself into but this has been going on since the end of December.
On the plus side it is cheaper and quicker than Vodafone.
Virgin Media are about the worst closely followed by Vodafone.
Yep- definitely the worst I’ve experienced too!
I found Voda ok to be fair.
I went through a lengthy dispute with them a few years ago. Partly regarding their sales rep lying about a promised broadband price plan I was lured into, which I totally evidenced through emails. Took a few months, but got my money back in the end.
Bizarrely, it was with the help of third party arbitrators that they recommended... I still use them for broadband as it works so well for our heavy video conferencing/streaming usage, but they're a despicable company.
literally had to raise a customer complaint to even get them to let me leave them
then they wanted to arrange collection of their kit..they didnt turn up
and then moaned at me for it and added loads to the bill.. then they sent out packaging so i could send the kit back... they doubled up on that....
I skipped to get vodafone... thats how bad VM had become
We moved house mid September. Existing Virgin customer, house had a Virgin broadband connection. Quick phone call and got the engineer to come and set things up in a few days. Everything set up fine. Then ask for the TV connection to be moved. Engineer came back a few days later. All the kit renewed. Nice installation.
I guess it depends where you live. We're in Stafford. Things tend to work here. Evri, Yodel, all good. And I can ride to the good bits of Cannock Chase in 10 minutes with only a bit of road.
Just for balance.
I left VM 6 months ago to Now TV - I had the same experience with VM that Deet mentions. But that is down here in Surrey where many things work well but VM “customer service” is still crap.
And I can be on the Surrey Hills in 3 mins. Just for balance.
People forget that despite being called Virgin they are basically still NTHell...
Strangely @BillOddie when they were NTL in our part of the world they were good to deal with. When the bearded one took over (or his brand riding minions) they went downhill fast. Another one of the "we don't do contention, we do traffic shaping" mob. Superb 3 was the end as far as I was concerned and I left. They managed to offer a better deal one day after my cooling off period with Zen ended!
really is as bad as people say
Variable. And depends what the subject is. Upgrading? Giving them money? They’re your best mate.
Wanting something? Make sure you have a flask of tea and a lot of patience.
Leaving them? Limited scope for negotiation in recent years. And then both tardy and demanding in recovering equipment.
Phoning they exhort you to use webchat yet using webchat they inevitably tell you whatever it is can only be resolved over the phone. Useless and frustrating.
After having broadband with Nynex, NTL, and VM over the past 20+ years I’m disappointed to say that I would not recommend them.
Early days with BRSK but the experience is significantly better all round.
I found Voda ok to be fair.
Just wait till they **** something up...
We moved house mid September. Existing Virgin customer, house had a Virgin broadband connection. Quick phone call and got the engineer to come and set things up in a few days. Everything set up fine. Then ask for the TV connection to be moved. Engineer came back a few days later. All the kit renewed. Nice installation.
I guess it depends where you live. We’re in Stafford. Things tend to work here. Evri, Yodel, all good. And I can ride to the good bits of Cannock Chase in 10 minutes with only a bit of road.
Just for balance.
Double check your contract online. I had exactly the same experience moving about 18 months ago, even confirmed on the phone at the time that my existing contact would come with me unchanged. 8 months later and my deal runs out, so I call up to renegotiate… “oh no sir, you’ve got another 14 months on your contract, didn’t you see in the emails we sent you?”
I hadn’t received any emails, as they had managed to merge the previous owner of this houses account and mine, keeping his email address. I could even see all his old bills. Took many hours on the phone to unpick the mess, and then even when they confirmed they had sorted it and cancelled the contract they hadn’t, so another month later I had to go through it all again. They even called me a liar when I was insisting that they could cancel my services that day as my new FTTP connection was up and running “but you can’t have 2 connections to the same house”
They are a joke, don’t give them a penny of your money.
On a technical level, since moving to a “slower” FTTP connection our internet is much faster, more stable and a significantly lower latency.
really is as bad as people say
absolutely the worst we’ve ever dealt with.
My oh set up the Broadband and tv with them. Turns out because in the nineties her dad set her Virgin email address up for her, she had no admin rights over the setup, despite her being the bill payer and it being a totally different address. Even changing her email address didn’t work.
It took hours on the phone to them to not sort it out.
There was an extra bill for a phone number she didn’t ask for and loads of other cock ups I can’t even remember.
In the end she cancelled it all. We went back to Sky and the mobile phones will be changed too as the reception isn’t great where we live and we want nothing more to do with them.
They showed up today. Well, the "internal install" guys turned up, who are unable to move the box outside (obviously) because that's not their thing, they deal with getting the cable inside from the Omni Box and connecting the modem etc. Apparently they rolled their eyes, took some photos and are getting their boss to organise the right people to come.
They'll "be in touch".
Why did they install it in the wrong place in the first place? Are they obliged to relocate it at all?
My VM "ugly brown box" is where the cable comes out of the floor. It's a termination point, I can't imagine it being particularly trivial to move. Maybe that's why you're getting the runaround.
Because the original guy doesn’t know what “The study window on the left hand side of the house, behind the van” means is the only reason I can think of.
I wasn’t in, they phoned and said they’re at my house and was I happy to have them install the cable, to which I said yes and we agreed where the box would be fitted - on the wall infront of the study. This didn’t happen.
The guy that came to do the internal install agreed it was in a bad place and fitted a second box in the right place and a temporary cable up and over my front door between the 2 boxes and said he’d arrange to have the original box removed and cable run under the block paving.
So yes they agree they’re happy to move it, just seem incapable to do so.
Right, makes sense.
It'd be easier to have the house demolished and rebuilt, so the brown box is in the correct place in my opinion. I'm fairly certain Virgin Media customer care is managed by the Vogons.
Sooo.... someone turned up last Friday, as arranged (yay!) but they couldn't do the work (boo!) as they were from the internal installation team and not the outside works team.
So on it goes!
Not looking forward to the attempt at contact later after receiving a letter stating they're putting the package up by £15pcm. Increased costs apparently. Not in customer service, that's for sure.
The increase is from 1st April, so maybe it's their attempt at a wind-up. They're comical enough with the reliability, so it'd be no surprise.
Not looking forward to the attempt at contact later after receiving a letter stating they’re putting the package up by £15pcm. Increased costs apparently. Not in customer service, that’s for sure.
They did that with me (£69 going up to £83 for 100mbps BB, MixIt TV, weekend calls), I cancelled my contract, retentions called me, I said I wasn't interested in any offers, I was going. A few days later I got an email offering 250mbps BB, MaxIt TV (so additional channels) and a slightly improved weekend calls package (not that it matters as we don't use the house phone at all). All this was offered for £44 a month fixed for 18 months on an 18 month contract. I decided to stay to avoid the hassle of moving providers (which would also have meant digging up the garden as it would have been on a 'full fibre' service which is a different connection).
That's very helpful, as it's the direction I'm thinking of going. I've got exactly the same cable digging issue, so fingers crossed.
Are you sure the fibre is buried? My parents house it is on the same poles as the phone lines. Ours is buried, but we are in a new build, so it was done at the point of construction.
It's dug in here. Neighbours had their cable cut by a fencing contractor driving a post hole digger clean through. To be fair it was very close to the surface and not protected, so dug in by light definition.
Are you sure the fibre is buried? My parents house it is on the same poles as the phone lines. Ours is buried, but we are in a new build, so it was done at the point of construction.
In our case yes - the original fibre to the box (on the OpenReach network) comes up the side of our house under a path and they dug across our garden to connect us to that network. The new one (full fibre to the house with CityFibre) comes up in a different place - they dug it all in in 2021 - so they would have to dig right across our garden.
We don't actually have any phone lines where we live which I find surprising as it was built in the mid-80s - it has always been cabled underground.