Virgin Media
My cable company changed its name to Virgin Media, today.
So far, the results appear to be:
- The new brand’s website is a horrible confusion between selling the service and the kind of portal that fuelled the dot-com boom.
- The old telewest.co.uk site doesn’t even redirect, it just times out (which they announced would happen for six days, apparently).
- The Guardian’s media section reports that they’re targeting customers who’ll pay upwards of ?1,000 per year.
- The rebrand has been an excuse to raise prices – e.g. the ?10 per month for 12 months broadband offer for new customers, set to expire on 28.02.07, has mysteriously become a ?14.99 offer.
As a customer, I don’t care; there’s plenty of competition and, despite assertions to the contrary in their annual report, I don’t feel enough loyalty to the Virgin brand that I won’t look elsewhere. In fact, I’d have left two years ago if it wasn’t for their increasingly desperate discounting, each time I rang to cancel.
What I do find interesting, though, is how un-Virgin the rebrand has been. The Virgin brand is crafted to represent quality, value and a sense of mutual “fighting the big guy” fuzziness with the customer. Instead, the same old annoyances remain – the TV EPG is slow, the previously good Telewest customer service has been reduced to NTL’s poor level, the award-winning Virgin Mobile customer service is hard to gauge because their staff are so rarely able to access customer data, there’s no way to know if you have voicemail without dialling 1571 to check, the phone tariffs remind me of the 1980s, and now the, once faultless, broadband service is choppy.
So, should I give them a chance before stamping on the rebrand? No, because then it’s not a rebrand, it’s just a name change, and that would be meaningless.
I hate to talk about bows on turds, because that would be vulgar. And perhaps the big press conference later today will hold some surprises; but I doubt it. The website’s up and the customers have been informed of the various price rises.
Cable in the UK – what a wasted opportunity. I’d love to be proved wrong.
Update: telewest.co.uk does redirect now and it’s the online billing service that’s offline for six days.
CHECK OUT THIS SITE FOR INTERNET COMPLAINTS:
OTELEO
The Telecommunications Ombudsman
Otelo is a free, independent ombudsman service to resolve disputes between consumers and telephone and internet service providers throughout the UK.
http://www.otelo.org.uk/
Virgin Media !!!!! WHAT A JOKE COMPANY
Told me they were refunding the ?5 a month they were charging me for non-direct debit payment as I complained. No one could tell me what was involved. Im currently waiting to speak to them about not refunding it as it still shows on my bill.. 39 minutes and given up counting..
Oh yeah.. I spent 6 hours on the phone with them over 3 weeks ago.. over 6 hours !! Losing the will to live – got hung up on too !!
If BT hadnt messed me about and turned up when they were supposed to then I wouldnt be having this problem, complained and complained and got no where. Phoned Ofcom who gave me an 0800 number for ‘high complaints unit’ at bt – had to wait 13 minutes for them, and what a joke they were too.
Blamed Virgin Media for not allowing my number to be ported, funny how they changed my appointment at exactly the same minute I finally got through. Virgin Media say they only had one request for my number to be ported and it was no problem, now who is lying.. someone is !
You would have thought that a telecommunications company had the facility of recording calls !! NOOOO.. not all of them anyway.
So when youre given wrong information, who is at fault, as they cannot prove it was them.
These people are a jokem and I tell you the customer service is Britain is absolutely diabolical !! These companies are too big to worry about what they lose, when they make so much money
**************IF A COMPANY IS TAKING YOUR MONEY WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION, PHONE YOUR BANK – HERES THE INFO********************
If they are taking it by direct debit , cancel the direct debit with you bank, tell your bank how much they have taken (how many payments) without your permission and the bank will claim it back under the Direct Debit Indemnity Scheme (which is a guarantee that comes with all direct debits that are setup)
If they are taking it using a continuous authorisation (i.e. monthly payment on your debit or credit card) ring your bank and tell them to put the payments into dispute. If the payments have been taken incorrectly they will give you the money back and claim it back from the company.
Now then, cancelling your card will not work, your bank should keep an eye on your account and claim back any that are taken from then on… however if your bank is not as good as mine, then you will need to keep an eye on your account and ring them each time one debits.
Good luck !!
Virgin Media, BT – Waste of time, shame I dont have the choice of another company !!
If I could afford to get rid of the phone and use my mobile I would, but family does not permit unfortunately !!
NTL/Virgin Mdia – 50 minutes and still not counting !!!!! haha
Too bad Channel 119 isn’t working anymore. It says “push the red button”.Yeah,right. Push it and nothing happens. I emailed them to complain and they said it may take 5 days to respond as they are “a little busier than normal”. I can imagine they are. At least I watched the OLD episodes of “The Closer” before the service decided to take a permanent lunchbreak. Who knows if it will ever work again?
I’ve been an NTL subscriber since they took over from the original Cable provider for our area.. Diamond Cable..
Unlike most posting here, i have always received excellent service..
On the day before SKY ONE was taken off.. i was upgraded to receive the DTV to go on the 3 for ?30 offer..The order was done online, through the existing customer link..
Total extra cost per month for me was 45p to add the DTV.. (as it was ordered online.. installation charges were free) plus i received extra deductions from my bill..
The engineer who called round, explained in full about the card, the box, the channels, the extra channels i can receive to watch episode after episode of programs that would be stored for me.. and explained that these channels would be added to in the future..
Received my bill.. total charges for February? just over ?11.. most of that was phone calls that I have to make in the daytime as I work from home..so, with discounts including the ?5 for paying by Direct Debit..i’m actually on a better deal than I was because I had the basic Sky Package..
Where I live, the line can only have 1 meg broadband until 2012 when it gets upgraded.. I’m on 2 meg broadband with Virgin Media, at no extra cost to me..
I have just read all the above comments, and most haven’t understood what really happened about Sky One, Sky News etc that were taken off air by SKY.
SKY has also stated they are to take off the SKY channels from Freeview, and replace them with pay channels.
To me, Freeview should be just that.. Free to view channels.. Once Top Up TV was allowed to place their channels on Freeview, the door was opened for SKY..
A couple of days before the SKY Channels were taken away from Virgin Media, SKY ran adverts on certain SKY Channels, clearly stating that SKY would very shortly be the only way to be able to view SKY ONE, and SKY SPORTS..
Latest on this… OFCOM are to investigate SKY’s actions..
Before I forget.. you’ll need to get a BT phoneline installed to receive SKY PHONE and SKY BROADBAND.. for which BT will charge you extra for the line.. if it needs updating.. YOU pay.. NOT SKY..
Been with ntl for 3 years & received an ok service,unti l virgin media took over.
Now customer services abysmal the deal i had a deal in place to pay ?30 a
a month has vanished into thin air & no one seems able to help.
( When someone finally answers)
if you ask me Branson & murdoch are both to blame. (should be a double act)
Correct me if i’am wrong did branson not throw his rattle out of his pram when
his bid to run the lottery was rejected.
I Will be waiting to if this gets resolved if not am off but not to sky either.
vergin media products have realy gone downhill,broadband at half speed in the evening,shody telephone bill only shows itemised calls,as for customer help thats taking longer to get through,i am waiting to hear from them about a sereous complaint i made about my payment which they do automaticaly every month to my barclays vessa card vergin media charge me an extra ?5.00 now ,was ?4.00 this is where dishonesty comes into it ,i have been in touch with barclaycard vessa and i asked them what amount they are charging vergin media for the privalage and i das told ?00.00 absolutely nothing i would say even if they charged?1.00 thats more than enough for a person to punch inn my card numbers which could take half a minute ,this goes to all big companys like vergin media,and any other company that charge in simelar manner,you are just taking the biscuet ,i have been with telewest from the start on and off,a company like yourselfs have really degraded yourselfs over the years,i bet credit card payments get to vergin media quicker than a direct debit,i am waiting a reply from them,or even take this matter in court that will get theire back side mooving to give me an answer to my complaint please join me in the quest to stop big companys getting away with this just because they can.i have termenated my service by e mail which is exactly the way vergin media took over.
ahhhhhh after yet another hour on the phone to ask why money has come out 2 weeks early now i have just had my bill in and thay are charging me 4.00 for a copy bill for january that i still have not got. not even the first one ,on hold for 16 mins and now being told they will ring me back as there systems have gone down ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
martin
i worked for telewest until recently and i can tell you that the organisation is totally utterly shit. no one knows there heads from there asses. there is so much conflicting information and advice given to customers and low level employees
i worked for the technical suppport department in liverpools albert dock. THE MOANING CUSTOMERS ARE ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON
Been on the phone now for 59 mins, got to 50 mins earlier but other phone died (battery’s went flat) as since Monday this is my 11th call to try and cancel Virgin Shambles. worst customer service in the country
I have just changed to sky, I have all digital channels, free faster broadband now with free virus protection and free evening and weekend landline calls! Customer service is good. Ditch Virgin as I can’t think of one reason to stay. Waste of money and no value! Sky has blitzed it out of the water!
virgin media are in 3 parts, what used to be ntl- cable, telewest and virgin.net-adsl bb down a bt landline.
the cable side-what used to be ntl services have stayed the same!!! absolutely rediculous, my services have been d.c for a week down to a ‘glitch’ apparantly, its so disgusting…
i HATE sky, but i may rather pay the extra to go with them and the bt landine and everything SOON if they keep treating me as a customer like this!
however the adsl side -originally virgin.net- customer services have been awarded 3 years in a row…, why cant the ntl/telewest side be TRAINED like those ….
rebrand they need a re-cap!
yes virginmedia non cable are quite good, its such a shame!
Been on phone today for hours, tried varioius different numbers, only number I can get through on is the sales team for new customers and he said he couldnt help but I should be able to get through easily..what a joke !
Just cancelled my direct debit to them , don’t know what else to do, was only going to cancel my tv but now so pissed off my get rid of everything, I’ve been with them over 10 years too.
Utter hopeless. !
BRIEFLY.A short history.
1) Seven years ago after a row with BT over double charging, I changed to NTL. A good package, fast installation of cable, they even did a dedicated line for our computer. Established very friendly contact with the accounts manager who helped us with any problems FAST.
2) TV went digital 4 years ago, we also went broadband fast and efficient installation, clear and helpful explanations about packages. Very happy.
3) Virgin Media landed from outer space without warning, trouble, trouble,trouble, a) Decided to convert upstairs TV to digital (top box) and cable.
b) First phone call transferred six times to try and get the Technical support, failed, requested a manager. Returned phone call from a woman appeared helpful and tried to get us connected to Technical services, she failed, due to account error. She said that our installations for telephone, broadband and digital top box could not be found, but accounts showed we had paid monthly by direct debit. She needed to contact technical services to find out which would take 24 hours, she arranged to phone us back Monday morning between 8pm and 12 midday, or Tuesday same time.
c) Sunday evening discovered that all programmes had ceased other thab BBC 1,2,ITV 1, Channel 4, Channel 5, oh and one channel advertising the delights and cleverness of virgin media, the rest had disappered into the ether leaving a message, “Unsubscribed Channel not included in your current subscription” ?
in excess of 500 programmes. After having a near heart attack and double temper trantrum tried to access virgin media, closed for weekend.
d) Monday early morning phoned and asked to speak to the female manager we had spoken to before, were put onto a man, Tony Scott from Customer care who said he was not a manager, but the person we had spoken to previously was not a manager, she was based at the Scottish call centre. I told him all that had happened,he got on to technical support and said that it had been a very rare fault that had occured and that we would be put on the list for correction but it would be 3 weeks before that would happen because of the work load they had. I did not know then although I questioned it, could it be that all these people waitng had the same problem which he denied. But since reading all the complaints on Matthew Revell’s web site, they must have been! He did say that I would be refunded all the fees on my next direct debit. He said we could contact him again but we would have to ask the person we spoke to to send him an e.mail to contact us which would take 24 hours. Which century does Virgin Media come from?
FINAL STEP!
We will had over all evidence and complaints to the Media Ombudsman.
I advise all the bloggers on this web site to do the same.
Ann Blairman
Ntl was alraedy a unprofessional company but since Virgin;s take over its got worse.
I feel Richard Branson should stick to music and planes, and even virgin airlines is gone down the tube.
I have since gone back to good old B.T and will stay with them even if I have to pay a bit extra atleast their customer service sorts out any problems.
Calling Ntl?virgin costs and they keep you waiting upto an hour.
Richard Branson If you read this than please give it to a managemant company to run or sell it on, its not your cup of tea.
Stop messing about with Sky. unless you are planning to make your own programmes.
Your time is up, retire somewhere.
I’ve been a Telewest broadband customer for around four years now, and recieved my bill notifications by e-mail. I’ve always paid the bills the same day I got the e-mail though, via the Telewest website.
This morning I received a letter from Virgin media stating “we still haven’t recieved a payment that covers your outstanding balance. This means we’ve added a late payment charge of ?10 to your account”.
This would be fine, except I never received a bill from them this month!! Hence the reason I haven’t paid it!! It seems strange that under Telewest I never incurred one single late fee. However, in the same month Telewest change to Virgin, the first communication I have from them is a late fee charge!!!
Why even send me a letter charging me a ?10 late fee?? Why not send a pre-emptive letter stating they haven’t received payment and unless the bill is paid within a few days they’ll charge a late fee? Oh yes, that would entail actually taking the customer into consideration wouldn’t it?!!
Sounds like it’s pointless contacting customer services by phone, so I’ll try e-mailing them. If not I’ll be taking my business elsewhere!!!
Overnight they’ve become a total joke, and I refuse to be the punchline..
virgin stink. call centre’s?…hello anyone there? reminds me of the holsten pills complaint line you know the one with the dusty phone in the empty room?
big big mistake branson.
took out a telewest contract Jan.06. 3 for?40,phone,tv and internet. how is it only new customers get mobile phones in thier packages and existing customers (it seems) get nothing. surely looking after your existing customers is just as important as recruiting new, now that Virgin have taken over. Channels have disappeared but nothing in return. Free phone would be a start. Also, does anybody no how to get Virgin to cancel the non-direct debit payment charge ??? wat a rip-off.not my fault i have no provision for DD payments.
earlier post update(penalty for credit card payment complaint)still waiting for a reply to 2 over the phone complaint for overcharging ,and 1 e mail to vergin media a notice of disconection after not hearing about 2 first complaints,still nothing,also e mailed watchdog updating them about this complaint and the overcharging penalty for paying by credit card,lost channels,broadband slower in the evening,the only thing that works ok is the phone but thats even with inacurate bill,its just not good enogh how the hell can companys conduct buiseness like this is beyond me,i will be ringing on monday to termenate my services with vergin media on monday i do feel sorry for the person thats going to answer my phone call,will update this post next week,watchdog peplied to my e mail the same evening its a shame vergin media cant do the same,dont blame your customers when you go bust its your own doing .i cant see even barclaycard vessa too impresed about vergin media charging ?5.00 per credit card transaction when barclay card vessa dont charge them a penny,this problem effects barclaycard vessa too people wont pay bills with credit cards.
I have been with ntl from almost the start had just the tv & phone at 1st then got internet with them about 6-7 yars ago when they 1st did dial up. we moved to the broadband with them too. The tv over th past few years had been getting worse adn wosre till inteh end you could not actually watch anything anymore from start to finsh without it going wrong, so 3 years ago we moved to Sky for our tv with every intention that as and when we would move the rest of our sevices to. A year ago we had enough and moved pur phone services to BT and for 3 months NTL mucked up and charged me still for my phone line, as they mucked up they gave me my broadband for ?10 a month instead of the ?17.99 i was paying for 6months. i am only about 4 months in and just had my 5th months bill and now after a year + of telling them that the broadband box still does not work properly that they will not fix, sky now offer me the same for my boardband for just ?5 a month i decided to go to them. I have been trying to contact them since the begining of march 1st tot tell them that the braodband box was crap and then to tell them i wanted to cancel but after 30 min + each time in waiting and not getting through having to put the phone down to deal with my young family that wont wait around while i hang on to the phone all day. 2 weeks later of trying i email them a complaint begging for someone to call me, i got nothing but and automated email, i waited a week and tried to call and eventually email again askig whay i had not been called or given any response. i sent the 1st email on the 10th march the replay finally came on the 26th of march by email saying that i would get my disconnection on the 9th of April. After my last payment i had already gone about cancelling my DD with them to now get a bill for a month over my disconnection date + a fee of ?5 as i had cancell my DD. When calling them WOOHOO I actually got through after 8 mins only she did not want to speak to me so was put on hold again for another 28 mins only to be told that no one reads the emails and how most people are on hold for at least 45 mins before they speak to anyone so i should of just staying on the line back in the begining of march when i wanted to speak to someone. There is nothing they can do but will give me back the ?5 next month after i have paid out for a month extra and a fee this month then they will go about refunding me. same old story as when i cancelled the phone with them they cant get anything right.
HOW is it and internet provider can not use email properly? Even when they are telling you to email them on there website or on the phone lines.
Takes them over 2 weeks to reply to an email but even then dont do as the email asks.
That they cant pick up a phone though they are in phone provider!
DO NOT USE VM THE SERVICE IS DISGUSTING
I have Sky TV and the old Virgin.net Broadband.
Wanted to know how much it would cost me to get Virgin TV now that they were all one big happy company.
I spoke to about 16 people, made about 4 calls, got transferred to countless departments and couldn’t find anyone with the ability to tell me.
What a great advert for Sky and what a great case study in taking a product to market, making a big fanfare about it and then giving the customer a horrific experience.
There is a fine line between providing poor customer service, and then taking the p..ss, and today is the day when my family says goodbye and good riddance to Virgin Media.
Their first attempt at losing me as a customer was to bring me a HD box, install it, leave, and not tell me that the very important lead that makes it work had not been fitted, because they had forgotten it. It took several hours talking to Customer Services to work out why it wasn’t working. No apology given.
Their second attempt was a few weeks ago when I asked them to install a second telephone line. I informed Customers Services that we lived in a second floor flat and they would need the correct equipment (i.e. longer ladders) to do the job. I took a day of work and waited for them to arrive. They arrived without ladders. Strangley enough, a friend of ours who is familiar with the company bet us ?10 they wouldn’t do the job!!
We rearranged a second visit to do the job. Another day off work. THREE WEEKS LATER, they turned up again……WITHOUT LADDERS. They went away promising that someone would ring us and sort it out within the hour……..No one did. We cancelled the 2nd line…..NO APOLOGY.
Their third and final attempt was today, when they wrongly advised us on a phone package that cost us an additional ?50-00 on our bill. They refused point blank to sort out the problem, apparantly they can no longer deal with such problems by phone….we have to write!!??
We have now cancelled out Virgin Media Services.
Just in case anyone from Virgin Media is reading this – A/C No 014971401 has now left the building.
I WONDER HOW MUCH VIRGIN PAID FOR THOSE CUSTOMER SERVICE AWARDS THAT THEY HAVE RECEIVED 3 YEARS RUNNING?
MY ADVICE IS TO JUST CANCEL DIRECT DEBIT TO VM .I HAVE BEEN WITH TELEWEST FOR YEARS WITH NO PROBLEMS .THEN VIRGIN TAKE OVER.TELEPORT REPLAY HAS BEEN DOWN FOR 3 DAYS THEN WHEN YOU RING THEM YOU JUST GET MESSED AROUND .PEOPLE NEED TO STAND UP TO BRANSON .VIRGIN MEDIA SUCK.
I have been a cable customer from the beginning. I was glad when NTL was taken over and expected much from Virgin Media. Particularly I wanted the opportunity to record the few good documentaries that are still produced by BBC and Channel 4 and always broadcast at 9pm. This started very well and there was a great deal on the catch up TV channel. This has completely dried up. All yesterday and the day before the message was ‘Sorry there are no programmes available’.
I have tried to contact Virgin Media but there is no way they allow e-mails. I decided to ring 150 and got a nice lady who said she knew nothing about the problem and could not pass on the message. I hope they read this and begin to honour the promises they made in their glossy leaflets .
I have two set top boxes a telephone and pay over ?75 a month for the privilege.
Richard Branson I hope you read this!
No phone line for 3 weeks, should have been transferred from BT to VM.
Total balls up. Sockets dead, faults couldn’t find a phone account for us.
2 phone calls and 1 letter to RICHARD BRANSON later, still no phone service, no replies. Betya I’m being charged for this.
As I can’t make free calls to them on my mobile, I am no longer prepared to ring them and listen to music for 20 mins. They can F.O.
I will be ringing my local radio station on Tuesday who do a consumer complaint phone in and let them deal with it. Lee said VM suck and he’s right. I wish I’d listen to my gut instinct and stayed with BT.
My NTL tv set top box was collected by telewest last year, Virgin is still chraging me for it [or trying to] for 2 weeks now my phone has been out, the junction box was vandalised, with the phone out, and virgin’s internet site not working for me,I
dont know when the ‘phone will be back, most of my letters get a reply, then ‘they’ just forget about it. what a crap company no point in going to sky, its even more exspencive, having to pay for a bt line as well.Christ, what is it with England????????
Like previous postings I had also been with NTL for what seems like an eternity, phone, TV and originally dial up. I changed to their broadband connection in December 2002. Whenever the monthly bills have arrived, I have to admit that I don’t scrutinize them – I check the amount being charged for calls and look at the summary sheet for the total amount due, but that’s about it. Its a case of making sure the money is in the bank to cover the DD.
Having recently received my first Virgin Media bill, I happen to look at it more carefully and noticed a charge for a second line. As we only have one telephone in the house I decided to give them a call…
First I waited for 45 mins in a queue for customer services, who after I had explained my query told me that I was being charged for my dial up connection. He then transferred me to “Disconnections” and a 35 min wait in that queue. This chap told me that my dial up line had never been cancelled. ( I have a copy of the letter I sent to them on 21.12.2002 confirming my telephone call of the same day, and that an internal request had been put through to disconnect the line.)He also told me that I would need to speak to Customer Services regarding the overpayment so transferred me back. After 50 minutes I spoke to someone who said I needed to write in for the refund.
I sent a letter off on 16th March and have heard nothing back. For over 4 years they have been charging me ?11.00 for a line I don’t have. I take some of the blame for not spotting it sooner, but after sending the letter back in Dec 02 I never gave it another thought.
Does anyone have any ideas what else I can do to get my money back?
So lets see where we all are in six months.
Sky only have rights to this seasons series and guess where they will be soon.
Sky dont fix telephone lines, broadband lines, but BT OPENREACH will but guess who pays if not their fault.
OOH and dont forget to take out your insurance on that reconditioned box they give you when it breaks after 12 months
Erm… 2007 right?
Why cant we still get Caller Display in Salford? Virgin sort it out before you sink!
Virgin media address’Virgin media,
diamond plaza
daleside road
nottongham
ng2 3gg
Gillian Hodgson,
virgin media
concorde business park
wythenshawe
manchester
m22 0ba
Trevor Elliot,
as above.
Janet Byrne,
customer care advisor,
concorde business park
etc.,
Darren Wilce,
head office,
NTL house,
bartley wood business park
hook
hampshire
rg27 9upRyan Pursey
virgin media
PO BOX 333
matrix court
swansea
SA7 9BB
I see my first email has been edited oh well………..
I am writing this on behalf of my 89 year old father who has been a customer of NTL for many years. He pays by d/d for the full tv package (xl). In addition he also pays for an additional cable set top box for his bedroom. Since Virgin Media have now taken over from NTL he couldn’t understand why he was unable to access the movie channels as he had previously done through NTL. He was also extremely disappointed that some of the Sky programmes have been removed.
It now transpires that he has to have a pin number to access the movie channels. I managed to phone Virgin, who were very helpful. I was given a pin number for my father. I sat with him for almost 2 hours going through the rigmarole of pressing the “red” button, entering the pin number, pressing the red button again…etc etc. Unfortunately my father was unable to enter his pin number correctly and at the third attempt the box went into lock-out.
I was informed by Virgin that I needed to unplug the set top box and leave it off for 15 minutes to allow itself to re-set. To unplug the set top box is no easy feat for me having to bend down to get at the plug let alone for an 89 year old pensioner.
I am at a loss as to why he just cannot go directly to the movie channels, that he subscribes to, without all this messing around. He doesn’t need to have a parental control on his TV so he can watch a movie. He also doesn’t need all the kids programmes/cartoons or MTV.. etcetera music channels that unfortunately come with his package.
He was that frustrated and annoyed with having to enter a pin number for each movie channel that he gave up in the end. I am disgusted with this new idea of entering pin numbers. I am sure my father is not the only pensioner out there who finds it difficult to operate this new pin system. Many pensioners, I am sure, enjoy watching television and don’t need the hassle, they just want to switch on and watch programmes.
I shall be persuading my father to change to Sky, ASAP. What a big let down Virgin Media has been.
I’m a telewest cable customer who’s just been changed to virgin media. I’ve just been given the new look tv guide. The old guide had a pleasant blue background that was very easy to read. The new guide is black with glaring white lettering that’s hard to read and miserable to look at. What I want to know is who designs these things. I’m a website designer and I can tell you no-one likes black backgrounds as they’re depressing to look after a while and the glare from the high contrast makes it hard to read the text.
I wish they’d do some market research before they make these changes then they wouldn’t change something that was good for something that’s alot worse.
I’ve tried to write to virgin but their website doesn’t let you. I wonder why? I guess they don’t want to hear your complaints.
Hi
I hated NTL and was relieved when Virgin media took over – the glossy mail shots promised a big improvement. My first mistake. A month ago I took a cold call from a VM salesperson and agreed to take up an enhanced TV/broadband/telephone package. I trust the Virgin logo you see. That was when the problems started. The engineer phoned at 8:15 in the evening of the day of the appointment to say he was too busy to fit the new TV box and telephone. I thought that was more than a bit late as he was went to come over between 12:00 and 6:00 pm. He promised I would be given a new appointment. I commented that the new service was just as bad as with NTL. Noone has contacted me to arrange a new appointment. There has been an automated response to my email letter of complaint promising action in 48 hours. No further contact has been made by them for a week now. My email said that I wanted my complaint to be dealt with by a VM manager according to the VM complaints procedure, but that was obviously ignored. Just a simple phonecall and they couild have kept me happy. They just seem to be too busy generating whiney advertising about how cruel Sky has been to them. Talk is cheap. Never mind sky -what about the customers!!
Good advice – DO NOT sign up for a new Virgin Media deal as they seem to be intent on signing people up but deafing them out when they are left waiting for a service. Maybe they just want to keep us out of the welcoming arms of sky. Be warned!!!!!
To be honest i have no problem with the service or the pages, its just the speed of the internet that bugs me, e.g i usually have 54Mbps and ‘Very Good’ Connection but now its more like 1Mps and ‘Low’
Every time i ring the help desk they come up with some excuse.
Virgin say that programmes such as Lost will be available to watch on their pay-on-demand service at 99p an episode. So, its possibly cheaper for everyone to buy the box set than pay-per-episode.
I had a refund and broadband installed for next to no extra cost, Virgin seem fine and their service is better than Sky’s. There are a few bits that they could pick up from Sky like being able to register reminders when an ad for your programme is shown but otherwise, the overall package is far superior.
As for swearing workmen, I had a polite guy install my broadband in 15 minutes.
If you programmes are on Sky One and you can no longer watch them, go outside and enjoy the sunshine, there is more to life than tv!
I am very disappointed that I can no longer access the BBC interactive service and have the choice to watch tennis, cricket snooker etc. This was available with NTL. Is this service going to be resumed – I hope so, we are paying enough!
Had NTL broadband for a few years, generally quite reliable. Sky were offerering a much cheaper broadband service so I switched a few weeks ago – a few teething problems but generally ok. I phoned Virgin to cancel my subscription, as I had been using the service for more than 12 months they assured me they would not take the next months payment on Direct Debit. They then promptly took the next months payment on Direct Debit – so if you switch make sure you cancel the payment rather than trusting Virgin.
ntl/virgin are horrendous. We found out on our latest bill charges buried for channels we don’t even get. When we phoned them we found out we have been billed for these channels since december and furthermore we arent getting them because of a fault, so we must report the fault apparently, to get channels we don’t want but are being billed for – confusing. We didn’t ask for these channels so we had no idea this had been going on until we scrutinised the changes made by the cross over between ntl and virgin which are even more confusing. We were passed from pillar to post on the phone and have still not received any joy. I am so disgusted I am pulling the plug on the tv, phone and broadband and will find another provider. We only took out the bottom range tv package on 6 december to try it out…I am thorough disgusted – their customer services wont even discuss a refund to us and insist we report a fault!
DO NOT TAKE ANY OFFERS FROM VIRGIN MEDIA IF OFFERED WHEN YOU PHONE UP TO DISCONNECT. Better still avoid all Virgin Products and Services altogether.
6 Months ago I considered switching away from Telewest/Virgin Media, on phoning up to disconnect I was offered a reasonable ‘stay with us’ deal that included a newly installed broadband. No mention of time restrictions or such-like at the time, but here 6 months later and they’ve boosted the price and dropped a significant number of channels, saying that that deal was only for a 6 month period – despite never having mentioned such previously 6 months ago.
Guess what! To leave now would involve a 6 months penalty payment as the broadband service has a minimum year long subscription requirement.
A complete CON.
ASAP my direct and extended family unit will all be moving off ALL Virgin based products and services. Penalties be dammed. Tallying up the total family based spend with Virgin products/services astounds me – NO MORE!
The poor customer service level involving lengthy waits and annoying disconnects along the way for one will not me missed.
Virgin Media loses SKY One – and offers – “1p selective movie rentals” as a sweetener.
The only one I’ve so far found is the Muppet Movie.
Virgin believes the worlds full of Muppet’s perhaps! You’d certainly have to be one to stay with them. Boycott all and any Virgin based products.
SPOT ON TOM. I HAVE WORKED FOR THEM AND I CAN HONESTLY TELL YOU THAT THEY TREAT CUSTOMERS LIKE MUPPETS
You’ve worked for Virgin Media and don’t any more? So you’ve left working for them over the last 8 weeks?
I had to cancel my NTL subscription when we moved house in janaury and NTL could not provide a connection. I am now getting billed by virgin Media and threatened with court action for a connection we don’t have. It is impossible to speak to anyone in virgin with any sense. We have now subscribed to SKY and have found their customer service excellent. I wish we had changed years ago. Boycott all and any Virgin Products.
Well I thought when Virgin took over the service could possibly get no worse…how wrong can I be!!! My bills have risen from ?50ish per month up to ?177 – that is no typo they really have just sent me a bill for that amount.
I have spoke to at least 10 people in the customer services department who are none the wiser on any problems and my broadband speed is now slower than dial up – not impressed at all
Looking at changing to Sky very very soon
The new virgin system is poor and slow (not new and inovative as claimed). With NTL I could select favorites and in addition change the order of them and go through them on the channel + & – buttons. Not any more: it requires laboriously selecting favorites (It goes to your first favorite not where you are viewing.) and keying down to a favorite channel, then selecting it – very slow and labourious. If it doesn’t improve I must see the system on Sky or another.
Have been with Virgin Media since they were called Cable and Wireless; we’ve had analogue TV, digital TV, broadband since it became available in our area (ages before BT enabled their exchange) and more recently their mobile service. All I can say is that we’ve received a pretty damn good service from them here in the North West…perhaps their Manchester office has a better customer-staff ratio than others? The only time I’ve not been able to speak to someone on the phone was during an England World Cup match; I thought noone else would be calling, but obviously all the staff had decided to take their lunch break
In fact I rang them up last Sunday and got though immediately! When PCGuard – their complimentary security package – wouldn’t work with my network setup, a very nice man spent ages going through all the network troubleshooting with me!
There have been the occasional glitches, but as the VP of an internet company I know that technology does go wrong so I try to be patient with them. So apart from the odd occasion when technology has let us down the TV has always worked and the broadband has always downloaded at the advertised speed.
With the re-branding they’ve been forced to roll out a new interface and frankly I’m glad they have because its speed is finally comparable to the Sky Guide. I’m not too bothered about the loss of Sky One; I’m not a sci-fi nut, and lets face it the new episodes of The Simpsons are contrived and just plain unfunny (bring back Futurama)! In any case I could just download them off BitTorrent from our unlimited connection (and I’ve yet to see evidence of traffic shaping supposedly being trialed here). The On-Demand service is incredible, and I’m glad Virgin has finally had the sense to nationally roll out a service that simply cannot be offered via satellite!
I’m will shortly be moving into a house with 5 friends in a non-cabled area and I’m not looking forward to sharing Sky’s 2MB connection with a 40GB limit – it could get ugly!
Anyway I take the typical British position of supporting the underdog!
I have got broadband with Virgin Media I normally get charged ?10 per month,but for the month of March I was charged ?16.00,so I phoned up Virgin Media and they told me they will only take out ?10.00 and not ?16.00,so i said fine,but next month I receive my bill and find that ?16 has been taken out,I made a complaint to Virgin and they do not beleive me and they do not have me on record as phoning up Virgin Media.Iam very angry mainly because I was promised that only ?10 will be taken out and that promise was not delivered.
I recently transferred my virgin media to a new address and have had nothing but problems. So far I have been given 3 account numbers (4 if you include the old one), they offered me compensation which i accepted only to find out today that they are now trying to charge me for!!! I was left for over 2 weeks without access to the phone BBand or TV but was still expected to pay and when they did finally install it, the TV wasnt working properly, they didnt give me the info I needed to set up the BBand and they gave me a new phone number even though they had confirmed the existing one was to be transferred! Over the last 2-3 wks I have spent more than 4hrs on the phone to them – most of that on hold. AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!!!