Matthew Revell

Can anyone give any tips on what the cheapest way to leave virgin Media is?

Is it true that BT will charge you £120 for re-connecting your BT line?

Adam.

Virgin have ruined what used to be a great service (Im talking about the ISP side)

This latest news of even more speed throttling that has come about lately is the end of the line for me. Im jumping ship, Im paying for 20mb service and I only get at maximum 5mb between 9am to 2am. Its a complete rip-off.

I miss blueyonder, virgin should just close up shop as they give an awful service…

@51

You can get reconnected to BT for £30 up to the 30th June.

PDF here http://www.serviceview.bt.com/list/public/current/Notice08_boo/SNL21-08.pdf

Make sure you mention it when you call them on 0800 800 150.

Hope that helps

How can VM be cheap? they have hit upon the greatest scam since two jags went bullemic .
They mess up your service then keep you hanging on to their high rate call centre’s
It’s a win win as far as they are concerned.

As for comments about charges to call centres…never had a problem, 150 is a free to dial number from virgin lines any number you choose to dial from a mobile for example may be charged but by your mobile provider not virgin…Got to admit i’ve had problems with my bill having calls that were never made (even some before the installation date) but customer service has been fine. I said i wouldn’t pay a thing until it was sorted, yet to hear anything but at least i won’t be out of pocket.

Everyone has a right to cancel so i’m surprised reading people been trying for weeks. If they don’t do it the first time you can phone ofcom and let them deal with it…

As far as Sky vs Virgin goes with the tv…Sky better product, Virgin best value i think.

My XL TV price has just jumped up by £9.75 with no explanation. Can’t get through to Virgin, as all options have message saying user not logged on”.

Virgin media – broadband is the shittteeesstt thing ever and this optic crap has made NOOO differenece apart from bumping my broadband to £17 from £10 without notifying me. DO NOT USE VIRGIN always have problems with thier broadband always cuts off for a 2-6 hours it is the most pathetic company ever i they are scam their customer services is the most shittttest ever! the only thing u will get from them is a great big headache

We were supposed to have VM connected about three months ago. Don’t worry, the bills have started
arriving, but gues what……. we STILL don’t have a full service. They can’t seem to pull a new
wire to our house- typically this is no one’s fault, and no one will take responsibility. Virgin
outsource their wire pulling to the Kelly Group. Needless to say, this is a bunch of cowboys who
could not care less how much stress they are causing you. These cowboys pretended to try pulling the
wire through, only to wait until I had gone back into the house, where they quickly packed up their
stuff and did a runner. Of course this is not Virgin’s fault is it?! I have called virgin literally
hundreds of times since we first signed up, and they cannot get their act together. I get passed to
a million different departments each time, all of them promising to call me back- trust me, they won’t.
And just you try asking to be directed to the complaints department- it won’t happen.
The only consolation I have found is on this website- someone left the switchboard number (01256 752 0000)
and this number is great- no more calls to india, no more queues, and you can go straight to whichever
department or person you want. I tried it for the first time about fifteen minutes ago, and already
I have a technician coming at lunch time. Bet they can’t bloody fix it though!

I came home on Monday night to find that I have no TV – I was just plugged into the cable box (old NTL box) as recommended by a neighbour when I moved into the house 5 years ago and things have received 5 terrestrial channels without any problem. I finally found a message on one of the channels saying Virgin had switched off the analogue service and good news! wouldn’t be charging me for it any longer. A few of annoyances:
1 Why didn’t they let me know they were planning to do this?
2 They never were charging me for it – as far as I am aware when the cables were originally put in the agreement was that cable companies would provide terrestrial channels for free
3 Why could nobody at customer services tell me why my tv no longer worked? I called for two days and spoke to 6 different customer service agents (before I found the “hidden message” on my tv)
4 Why did they finally tell me I would need digital? The analogue service in my area still works.
5 After deciding to get a set top box and new aerial (expensive) they told me that taking up the free tv M package advertised would mean I lose a discount they have apparently been giving me(what discount? never explained) on my phone and broadband package which would now increase by £6 a month.

Has anybody else had this happen? I have been putting off going digital as we don’t have a lot of cash to spare. It’s an awkward time of year with Christmas coming as well, though I wouldn’t be surprised if Virgin pulled the plug on someone on Christmas eve!

Virgin Media is atrocious. Their V+ Box is forever crashing. The remote control is awful. Their broadband service, though it claims to be 10x faster, is actually now slooooooower since they, rather allegedly, upgraded me from 2MB to 10MB. It takes on average 8 seconds to load the Google page. I’m tied to a 12 month contract and, when it runs out in June, I shall celebrate leaving this heap of tripe. I may even spend my money on dog food as I’ll get a better quality of service. Booooooooo Virgin!!!!!

Have had no phone line for 2 weeks now. 5 technicians been round all saying they can’t mend the fault – it needs a pull through. Can’t get hold of anyone to talk to, area manager was supposed to call me back but hasn’t and have been asking for name of Managing director but no-one will give it to me. Cancelled contract today – Virgin are an absolute shambles!

I used to work for the tehn Telewest in Atercliffe Sheffield.

For those of you trying to get through to the call centres if you are in the Q for this particular one – expect to wait. Short staffed, cannot retain staff, poor management structure, long hours, crap pay – slave drive environment, expect you to handle upwards of 14+ call per hour with 100% resolution and if you don’t make teh grade, you get bullied out of your employement.

Pity the customer or the employee? Eitehr way, both get a raw deal from Virgin.

virgin media have constant service issues, lots of down time and poor speed (like 60-70% less speed than advertised) plus they send nasty solicitors letters to p2p file sharers (as seen on watchdog). im leaving them asap. In last few years they have gone from one of the best to one of the worst, thanks Richard.

WHat a shambles. Changed to Virgin/Blueyonder/cable several months ago. WHen the wretched broadband is working it is fine. Main trouble is one can never be sure that it is working. Some emails arrive, while for no apparent reason others do not – or arrive the following day. I run a business and this is simply not good enough. I need to be sure my emails are getting through. Many thanks for the helpful number – looks like I will be needing that cancellation line very shortly. This morning is the fourth time in the last couple of months that emails have been erratic.

Well for the last month the TV service for NW3 in London has been worsethan useless with more than 6 breaks in service. At the moment they are still suffering from service breaks almost comtinually for the last 2 days. No help supplied by the helpline either. You ring the helpline and they give you no help at all.

Virgin have ruined TW good work, the service i signed up for was “unlimeted” since then fup has just gone worse along with customer service.

I left them 2 months ago and got “BE” broadband, excellent speeds and no hassle and decent customer service

Virgin are ripping you of, i for one feel much better leaving them… so does my wallet.

geee guys all this stress for a dam broadband i have VM the c.service is just out of order and the quality is just bull… i pay for a speed that said it will be 10 mb and what i get not even 1 mb!!!!!! this is been going for the last 7 months …i stayed so long coz i couldn’t bother to stay hours on the phone but now 2009 and so fed up cancelling now. PLZ who ever is reading this DON’t get VIRGIN MEDIA they are bunchs of liars!!

They have quite a good little scam going there. I phoned up to cancel their service and spoke to some girl in a call centre. She told me that I couldn’t cancel until some engineer had come round. Now, what kind or rubbish is that. She told me I you can’t cancel and I told her that I would not be paying anymore for there crappy service.
What happened next was a month later I get a bill in as they have not recieved their next months payment. Well, were they pissed off about that and threatened to cut me off. I had already got SKY installed. I told them to carry on cutting me off as I tried but had failed in the past to do this. Then came the scam. They tried to charge me for the month after the date that I had cancelled. Then the letters started. Imagine if they did this to a few thousand inocent victims and managed to get away with it. How much money would they be robbing them of. Is Virgin media really that bad, that this how they need to make there money.

Where to begin! I orginially joined under an agreement of the
first 3 months being free (hurray).They never sent me any
documentation at all. No contrat, no confirmation details,
nothing! Ok. Then, I came home from work one day and they had
terminated everything! No tv, phone or broad band. So I called up
and they say that my ‘free’ introductory period is completely free
except for the 33.85 I have to pay a month… Will someone
explain the definition of ‘FREE’ to these people.
Then they really let the cat out of the bag when they admitted
that they had lost all of my bank details… name, address,
date of birth, phone number, sort code, account number, bank name,
everything. LOST?! Where! How?! Now I am desperatley trying to
leave and they are trying to charge me nearly £300 for the
pleasure of a disgusting service! Please can someone give me some
advise on how to get out of this situation?

I can 100% symperthize with everybody who has posted on this website, as I have unfortunately also been stung by the dreaded VIRGIN MEDIA SH*TE !!!!

Over the last 12 mths I have had no end of problems ranging from them saying I owed £242.57p, then the next day it was £137.75p, then it was upto £212.58p when finally I made a payment of £75.00p and my services were restored. The next episode was me updating to the 10mgb broadband line and receiving a free wireless router only to discover that the my computers software wasnt supported by the wireless router !! If they would have stated this from the start I wouldnt have had to buy a new computer.

More recently though I have paid a bill via bank transfer through a Fast Payment Service which send the money the same day. We sent the money from a barclays bank account which landed in Virgins HSBC account the same day. Six days later and they are saying they still havent received the payment and cant re-install my services.

This company has seriously lost their way in delivering good old fashioned customer service. They operate on a basis that the customer is always wrong and if you get close to proving them wrong they put you on hold and transfer you to another dept!!

You would think that in times of a recession that they would be bending over backwards to ensure that they retain business instead of shafting decent hard working people who just want to enjoy their TV/Phone/Internet services.

If any big companies are going to go bang it couldnt happen to a better service provider than these !!!!

Strongly advise against using this company.

I am SICK and tired of Companies like virgin tying you into a contract which costs you to cancel when they dont hold up their end of the deal. A contract is between two or more parties and both have to achieve what they set out to in the first place. If they say they can provide you with a service, and then Cant, you should be able to leave your contract with no contractual obligations. Eg no need to pay Stupid Cancellation fees. I am cancelling Virgin For the Second time now. Sky Here i come. I will be paying my last Phone bill for Virgin, but they can take a run and Jump as far as their cancellation fee goes. My Direct debit will be cancelled after the last bill payment and i will fight to high heaven if they think they will get 120 Quid off me for their poor service, poor customer care and poor experience all round. I have only reconnected for 1 month now and 95% of the calls are to the Customer services Department To sort out the piss poor performance Broadband. On a 8 Meg Line, Never received more the 900Kbps. Its Bullsh*t.

Right from the word go, Virgin Media have been total rubbish. They are a deceitful, dishonest and incompetent company who shouldn’t be trusted. The so called customer service is a complete joke, and they promised me credit for bad service, but didn’t give it. When I complained, they said ‘it’s not on the system so there’s nothing we can do.’ Virgin Media have got a lot of empty promises to entice people to sign up, but basically they will say anything and lie in order to get your business. I’d love to leave Virgin Media, but the sad truth is that it would inevitably lead to months of aggravation and frustration – as it would mean having to deal with them. They will no doubt make everything as difficult as possible to leave, and I just can’t be bothered to be subjected to their moronic staff anymore. And the sad truth is that pretty much every broadband service in this country is appalling, so why go through the hassle of changing, just to be subjected to similar incompetence? Lots of people have complaints with BT, Tiscali, Sky etc when it comes to ‘Customer Service’, and they’re all as bad as each other. Apart from Virgin Media: they are the absolute pits in every respect, and in my opinion best avoided at all costs.

I have sent several emails to Virgin media requesting to disconnect my internet services, howver they have faild to reply several times. In fact being a JUST TALK customer I have already wasted over £60 of talktime on hold. Virgin media are bang out of order and seem to bill what they want. Byebye Virgin media, see you in court when you fail to recieve money requested by you. You Virgin media are the ones who are in breach of contract!

We did the same. Cancelled virgin media due to sky having more hd channels and a fantastic offer of £49 for box, free internet, free phone, free installation. Having virgin services stopped on 5th and they have billed me till the 18th. What a cheek, if i recall we paid in advance when we subscribed to virgin. When we phoned to cancel our services, they asked why we were cancelling and we said were going with sky, they didnt even try to get us to stay with them. Theres just no competition with them any more. Will have to try and sort out the overpayment charge with them, so yes who else have they overcharged.

VM has become an utter shambles of a broadband service. I had been paying £25/month for broadband with NTL for several years without complaint but then it just got worse and worse with Virgin, esp in last 6 months.

I figured eventually they were ‘choking’ my speed for most of the day/evening until after midnight – even though I’m only a light user. Download speeds were eventually worse than in 56k dial-up days!

Couldn’t get through on the phone so sent emails asking them to fix it or call me and explain the slow speeds – they didn’t reply. So after another month I left. Best thing I ever did.

Plusnet is about half the price and more than twice as fast.

VirginMedia’s advertising (which you see everywhere now in a desperate attempt to snare more unsuspecting customers) is so misleading and dishonest regarding achievable download speeds and service quality – if only folk knew what they were signing up to. OFCOM really should put a stop to it.

i think thay are on some kind of scam. i got in to debt with them in sept 2008. i owed 129.18. thay canciled my service but would not disconnect completly as i owed them money. and it came to somethink to when my unitemised calls was more than my itemised, i told then couldnt aford to pay for it and to cut me of. which thay replyed can you pay 17.00 a wk. no i said if i could pay it would not be in debt. and you are putting me futher in it as you will not disconect and that i could only aford 10per month, but thay also wanted to chager me handling charge to of 5.00 each time. anyway in december it finaly went to a debt collectin agant. and was a greed to pay 25.00 amth i thought good coz this will get me out of debt and i can get the phone disconnected proberly. not forgeting i owned 129.18. anyway to date i have payed 100.00 of debt witch then nect month was gona pay the 30.00 and leave them. So i thought. na got a bill today, to say i owe them 98.00 for feb service and 48 on out standing bill.what these have done unbeknown to me is reconnected me on feb4 without me knowing and while still in debt.. but i also made it clear to them that i wanted it dissconnected but thay have taken it on there own back to do this. i have argued with them no end today over it. and when i asked them why thay put it back on thay said it was a good will jester. so i said good will you put me in to more debt. and with them i just cant get no further forwards not a bright spark. and think thay are really takening the piss. no wonder richard branson loaded he gets it of us that are haveing trouble

I left SKY and TalkTalk 19 days ago to swap to VirginMedia. Everything was going well until 9.05am today when we lost all Broadband, all telephone except to call them and all but basic tv.

The problem? VM set a credit limit on my account of £60. Trouble is the monthly bill is £55 so on the first bill, despite an online joining credit of £50, with one month in arrears and one month in advance plus 3 calls made to them (using 08454541111, mistakenly given by the installation engineer who couldn’t be bothered to hang around to see if the Broadband installation had worked correctly!) the first two months bill exceeded the credit limit by £2.43…

Apparently I am not the only person affected, so that makes me feel a whole lot better *NOT*

They are resetting the credit limit which should stop this happening again… They have 18 hours left or we go back to SKY…

I have had nothing but problems with VM, from the beggining my broadband never worked, it was so slow, that it was easier to just go the library to use their internet. I spent hours on the phone to their rude staff trying to find the fault, they told me it was nothing to do with them, and it was my computer. I took my apple mac to get checked which cost me £70 and was told that there was nothing wrong with it. In between i moved house, when i rang up to change the address for my broadband no one mentioned to me that this would result in starting another 12 month contract! After more calls and being on hold for hours and call outs from engineers at £70 a time, i spoke to VM again and they told me that as they could not find the fault I could cancel my service free of charge. But this was not as simple as it sounds, after ringing up and being put on hold, put through to different departments, being told they couldnt help me, i eventually managed to cancel my accoutn with them. I ended up paying a £50 fee just to get rid of them. And i thought that was that, I am now with 02 broadband who are really good, and have been with them for 5 months. and now out of the blue i have recieved a letter from VM saying I owe them £107! and they are passing my details to a debt collector! So i called them last night and they said that they have no record of me ever ringing them!!! which is an utter lie as I must have called about 50 times last year! they have no record of me paying the £50! and that I would have to pay! there is no way that I am paying for their crappy service, I refuse to give Virgin Media another penny.

I have found your blog through shear anger and frustration with the lack of service I receive from Virgin Media. I took out the package Oct 08 and virtually every month I have had long drawn out telephone calls to try to resolve either, broadband, tv or telephone problems. What I would like to do is cancel my contract apparently I have another 5 mths to go I dont believe I am getting a service and therefore feel I should be able to leave them. Does anyone have any experience of this?

I joined Virgin Media broadband(L), TV(M) and Phone three weeks ago.
I joined over the phone speaking to a representative who I have complained about because he mis-sold the package to me.
The package mentioned in conversation was large(L) It was only a few days later when I could search their wewbsite that large, medium and extra large apply not to a package but to the different parts of the package. The rep told me that large referred to 10 meg broadband, free tv and weekends and weekdays free phone calls. On receiving my contract, guess what; large broadband, medium phone and TV, the medium phone package offering only free calls at the weekend which is not what was discusssed.
Also, I took Virgin because the cabel was already used by the previou tenant in the house and because I had cable connection already, various reductions were discussed which did not happen when the engineer came.
The TV keeps cutting out (especially in EASTENDERS) and they block numbers to cheaper phone services. Also, at no stage was I told about connection charges for phone calls.
Finally, the 28 day money back guarantee is not wnat it seems if you read the small print. You have to sign uo to discover the con.Now try getting your money back under there guarantee.

Beware Virgin Media

I am having so many problems with vm at the moment. I have had my services disconnected since febuary09 and I cant afford to pay my massive bill that they have sent me. I have been trying to pay it off gradually with what i can afford but thats not good enough for them. I have debt letters on my door almost everywaeek and they still dont seem to care I even have a personal account manager through virgin media! And she is just a waste of space! I have just written to vm to complain and have emailed them and I have just called Ofcom also so they are now aware of the situation. If I had known a year agao that this was going to happen I would of never gone with them. I am now using my built in freeview that came with my telly and I have no services from virgin media I had phone tv and broadband and I have to use a PAYG internet dongle and I can only recive incoming calls I cant even do 1571 to listen to my messages! But I can do 1471 to see who last called me! work that one out lol This is just the short version of the problems that I am having with them good luck to anyone else who has manages to leave vm with out hassel maybe you can lett the rest of us poor lot who can’t leave!