Feb 08
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.
February 9th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
They’ve broken the blueyonder debian mirror too.. Ah well time to change again.
February 10th, 2007 at 1:01 am
But remember.
Cable, if you can you should.
But in all seriousness, cable is still better than ADSL.
February 17th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
I work for the old telewest company /now virgin medai and can advise we have had to do a lot of extra training to satisfy the virgin name every companies will have things to work on otherwise they wouldn’t be human we are doing the very best we can and are very excited as a company to become part of one of the most sucessful companies in the world
February 21st, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Is it me, or is the new Virgin Media logo based on a red Pringle?
February 21st, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Hear hear!
I too was mightily peeved when the debian mirror disappeared! Pulling services is not good customer service any way you look at it.
And why is my broadband suddenly maxing out at 256Kib downstream? Some monkey in engineeering probably set it up wrong.
In my opinion rebranding is a total fallacy. The managment get a hard-on because it will generate X much new leads. Unfortunately it alienates all existing customers. Unless you’re in a booming market, new is not greater than existing so net result is the passing on of costs of this mis-management to the sorry sods who remain in spite of being treated like dirt. I did it to my clients, O2 did it to me, now Virgin Media are doing it.
Why not leave things alone that aren’t broken, keep the brand that everyone is loyal to and just market the same/new service under the new brand for the new leads? Oh no the PHBs wouldn’t have that - we need SYNERGY!
Ever wondered why the “New Customers Only” mickey take advert is so effective? Because it’s so TRUE!
February 22nd, 2007 at 6:20 pm
I cancelled my landline (with ntl) three months ago, they are still billing me!, have tried to contact Virgin Media to sort this out….
Guess what? Customer services is down due to a “technical fault” samo samo i guess.
Is no use phoning NTL,s number on the bill btw ,Why is that? , so no-one to talk to.
I,m off to SKY, that is if i can ever contact anyone to cancell my contract!
February 24th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
In fairness though, didnt the indian callcenter catch fire on the 22nd? I believe this is why you couldnt get hold of a customer services person to deal with your problems.
February 27th, 2007 at 11:07 am
I call them NTHell. I have clocked up 17 hours since Novemeber trying to sort out a problem phone line. Only to be advised that a crackle on the line was ok, even though you couldn’t hear what was being said!!!!! Now I’m dealing with Virgin same crackle same waiting time.
February 27th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
I signed on up 20 Feb for the VirginMedia VIP package at the Bromley Virgin store. Supposed to be installed 27 Feb. Heard no more. Nobody turned up. I took the day off work. They lost my order. Then spent well over an hour on the phone trying to sort it out. Package had changed and also had to now pay for call waiiting and caller display which I was told was included in the VIP package. Now they cannot install until 24 March nearly a month away. Have been with Virgin Net for nearly 10 years. Wasted a day off work and hours trying to sort this out - had enough. Feel I cannot trust or rely on VirginMedia and cancelled. Be wary nobody seems to know what is going on. To think that I was prepared to spend over a grand a year with them!
March 1st, 2007 at 2:21 am
ive been a telewest/ntl/virginmedia customer for 5 years now and cannot believe whats happening at the moment first off we lost 3 channels the box,jettix,crime and investigation within days of of the company rebranding to virginmedia with not even a letter to explain the changes now we have lost skyone,skynews, skysports news so that is 6 channels all within the first month of virginmedia great start EH! i`m coming to the conclusion that i dont like this company very much any more so i think that it is time to move on its a pity because like the footnote says Cable in the UK - what a wasted opportunity do i believe that branson can sort this company out i think he can but the road is going to be very very long they are going to lose a lot of customers in the short term
March 1st, 2007 at 1:36 pm
ive been with telewest now virgin media for 10yr no problems so far i do expect some teething trouble but im sure richard branson will sort it out,
March 1st, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Ive been billed for 3 premium rate numbers all on 27th Jan when both of us were out! V M is doing nothing to help us except sending out an engineer that I have to wait in for from 12-6pm on sat and if he finds no fault I get charged for the pleasure!!!
Anyone else had this?
March 1st, 2007 at 1:38 pm
I am a Telewest (now Virgin Media) customer who has two phone lines that have been down since the 14th of February and which as a result of apparent vandalism of a network box will not be repaired until the 23rd of March at the earliest.
Such things happen and although this seems an extraordinary length of time to get a repair done; this is not my main reason for anger and frustration with the company.
When the phone lines went done, I discovered to my horror that the “free” voice mail service on both lines remained in place, although there is absolutely no way for me to access any of the messages left, and they shall be dumped long before I shall ever have that access.
Initially I asked if this voice mail could be cut off and a message be provided that the lines were faulty. I explained that having callers think they were leaving me messages that I did not respond to could seriously damage my income and career.
Apparently the company has no provision for such a message to be given. UNBELIEVABLE and irresponsible!
My request for the service to be cut off was initially completely ignored. After over a week I was then told on several occasions that it would be cut off within 24 hours, but it wasn’t.
I could only contact Virgin Media via my Pay As You Go mobile costing me about ?4 a go to reach them (sometimes to only be told no one was available to speak with me) and never ringing me back. I also trued to use their website email contact which seemed to be ignored initially. I also wrote them a recorded delivery letter which remains totally ignored. I strongly suspect that Virgin Media might have been leaving messages for me on the inaccessible voice mail I was complaining about, but they will neither confirm nor deny this.
As of this last Monday, they finally did apparently cut off the voice mail, although a customer services manager assures me this order is still “pending.” However what has replaced the voice mail on both lines is a permanent engaged tone. This same manager says this is a general network problem for all phones in the area. This is not listed on their service status reports on their website, nor is it true for my neighbours who are customers and have no problem with their service at all.
Virgin Media appears not to care or see any problem with there being a permanently engaged tone on my lines nor do they seem to care this might be very frustrating to callers and damaging to our reputations and work.
Throughout I have tried to get Virgin Media to share with me both their complaints procedure and their ADR (alternative dispute resolution) alternatives, which I understand they are required to offer under their license as a telecoms operator. I have either been ignored or told they just don?t exist.
As I actually work in the field of ADR myself, I have found out independently that Telewest is a member of the CISAS redress scheme that Chartered Institute of Arbitrators runs for complaints that aren’t resolved by the company. It’s a free independent adjudication scheme and I have a right to use it and they have a duty to inform me of this.
I shall be contacting CISAS myself.
March 1st, 2007 at 1:46 pm
I believe Richard Branson does not know the importance of sky’s basic channels I believe things are no better under the Virgin name, Since Bransons takeover all they have done is remove our channels without asking the end consumer how important these channels are to them. Rather than harp on about how they have spent 20 million on advertising (with the most annoying Uma Thurmam) perhaps they should have spent that money on ensuring that we the customer still receives the channels we was getting 30 days ago. I shall be canceling my subscription as soon as I can get past the 30 min plus wait for cancellations.
March 1st, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Changed to virgin media for digital t.v. recently - WHAT A MISTAKE - not only did i have to listen to the engineer eff and blind the whole time he was there, but i attemped to watch my d.v.d. only to find the batteries had been removed and placed in virgin controller - CANT VIRGIN AFFORD TWO LITTLE BATTERIES.
Then what happened - oh yeah !!!!!!!! sky 1 gone - after telling virgin that was the only reason i was coming to them.
They breached any contract i may have with them so i`m off!!!!!!!!!!
March 1st, 2007 at 3:06 pm
For well over 2 weeks we have been unable to receive incoming calls. Obviously it took a few days for us to realise this as we had no trouble making calls ourselves. The Virgin man could not come for a few days but arrived 19th February to tell us after a few minutes that it was a BT problem - we had changed from BT about 5 years ago and retained that number. They said that BT had made the number redundant instead of transferring it (after all this time?)
It would be fixed in a matter of hours. Nothing happened. We got another Virgin engineer out Tuesday this week - 27th. He spent no time with us just said BT was at fault and left - should be okay in a day or so. He said then that it was up to us to get something fixed - not a Virgin problem!! Still no joy - help!
March 1st, 2007 at 3:07 pm
I signed up to NTL/Virgin Media in December for the Broadband, Telephone and Tv PACKAGE. I am halfway through series 3 of Lost and series 6 of 24 and well and truly p*ss?d off that since Sky One has been removed from my PACKAGE I will be unable to contiue watching them. After a 40 min wait getting through to Virgin today to cacel my PACKAGE I am told that they have only broken their agreement to me on the Tv subscription and therefore I have to keep the Broadband and telephone line (which sky can provide for me for free!)
How come it is ok for them to break their contract to me without any notice and I now have to accept 2 individual subscriptions instead of the original PACKAGE I purchased?
Lets hope that bungy cord fails next time you jump out of a plane Mr Branson.
March 1st, 2007 at 4:48 pm
well i guess were all on about how good virgin media is iv been on hold hold for 49 mins and told to go and get trancferd to another line only for them to hang up on me well peeeeeed of as im a scifi buff and all i watch is sky one well im trying to go on the 2 for ?20 pack now for my bb and phone but canot get threw to them sort it out branson because i think your gona loos a lot of coustomers in the next few weeks but i do see skys point ov view ntl were paying lets say 30 mill a year for the services and teliwest say paying the same thats sky making ?60 mill a year now they mearged they still only wana pay 30 what would you say i know what id say o well cya ppl
March 1st, 2007 at 9:13 pm
well after a few hours they rang me back im now on 2 for ?20 phone and broadband 2 meg plus i get some tv channels plus the ?14.99 call plan all for ?20 a month so not a bad deal for me and they done same for my m8 next door they now gwet everything for ?50 it was ?85 so there happy to
March 1st, 2007 at 9:15 pm
well i tried to get one, get them all. I only wanted basic TV, not the films or sport but was told no phone with us no go, everything or nothing. The only reason i have no phone with them is because when i wanted the pack they said yeah fine, then 3 weeks later with me chasing them, was told they had no capacity to give me the phone, just as my bb was to expire on adsl. l went back to my original provider homecall ( fab customer service so far) and stopped my disconnection, and dropped the price of 8meg down to 6.50/mnth by re-signing for a year. Well I am glad I can get sky unlike some poor people in listed buildings as there would be no digital tv for me as freeview dont work here. The company needs a kick up the pants. come back ntl!! What amazes me is at the minute you would think that they would want any customer with the sky exodus going on. Maybe the ASA should take a look at their website aswell as the waffle on there is just that 100% proof, and maybe they should look at why they were still advertising you would get sky one etc when they knew you wouldn’t! Richard - bully boy tactics may not be on when it is aimed towards making people leave you to go to sky , so why make us leave our current phone provider to take some of your services.
March 1st, 2007 at 10:14 pm
I Have been customer for telewest for last 7 years, what a bad choice i made i’m planning to leave now because their customer servise is going down !! I tried to contact them three times last week and each time i had to hold the phone for half an hour then put it down because no one was there to pick the phone up.
March 1st, 2007 at 10:25 pm
I have been with Telewest for five years and they are the worst company i have ever seen. Their customer service is poor, i tried to contact them but no one was there to answer the phone, i emailed to them and explained what i wanted, gues what for five days i have not received either an email or call back.
March 2nd, 2007 at 1:11 pm
I am disgusted at the way they have gone about this rebrand, the most important people to them should be the excisting customer and they have not even thought about us at all! i am livid.
What also anoys me is that they are advertising this all singing dancing virgin channel where you can watch a few episodes of some old programmes and that its free for 3 months!? erm so what? we had that anyway with teleport life!!! and now we cant get sky sports news which is a free view channel!?
total rip off
i think i will be leaving too
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:56 pm
The whole Telewest/NTL and now Virgin Media takeover is a shambles.
I was a happy customer with Telewest for two years until we moved house in December to a non-Telewest area. While ringing round to compare new suppliers, I was DUPED into signing to NTL by the promise that I could keep my blueyonder.co.uk email address (?we are part of the same company now?). I was also offered an NTL cable/broadband deal a few quid cheaper than Telewest (because I was a “valued customer”).
NTL duly installed in the new place. It wasn?t until the engineer had gone and I was flicking through the brochure that I found a sheet of paper that I should have been asked to sign to confirm that he had given me a demo of NTL TV, NTL replay (or whatever it?s called) and Broadband.
Each of the three boxes had been ticked and he had signed on my behalf ? even though he did not give me a demo of any of them.
It turns out I can?t keep my blueyonder.co.uk email address ? couldn?t even access it to let people know it wasn?t available anymore. It?s just disappeared into outer space. No explanation, no apology ? I was just told I was ?misinformed? initially.
When my NTL bill arrived, I was charged ?20 more a month than Telewest. It?s taken two months and endless phone calls to get them to agree to bring the price down to what they originally offered.
When I moved from Telewest to NTL, I had to sign up to a new contract (despite them being ?part of the same company?). I negotiated it down to six months from the 12 months they were insisting I sign, but that still means I?ve got another four months before I can cancel the contract.
Now we?ve lost Sky One, Sky Sports News and Sky News as well, I’ve had enough.
Wish I’d stuck to my original idea, gone back to BT Broadband and got a Sky dish put up on the roof!
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:53 am
We signed up to NTL nearly 4 years ago to get cheaper phone, broadbend & tv. All without wires & satelite dishes attached to our property. No real problems at all during our time with NTL until Virgin Media came on the scene. Now there are less programmes for more money and the equipment we have is no use at all in communicating with the new system when the RED button on the NTL remote is pressed. (New Customers Only?) Sorry Richard - no deal!
March 3rd, 2007 at 7:35 pm
this company is finished there phone lines are in melt down to the cancelation line.
i have just wasted 2 hours of my life trying to cancel
March 4th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Signed up for 3 for ?30 bundle 3 weeks ago the bills arrived everything is wrong
late payment charge added wrong phone tarrif tv package wrong ,
Phoned them yesterday tried to cancel waited for 1 hour was told that their system was down and nothing could be processed, they took my number and promised to phone today Sunday i smell a rat!!
March 5th, 2007 at 9:20 am
I am not happy.
Within a few days of becoming Virgin Media, Telewest has lost several channels, why?
When I signed up for cable tv, my contract included Sky News and sky One, therefore I believe that Virgin Media is in breach of contract and will remain so until these and other channels are re-instated.
Are there any plans to compensate cable subscribers i.e. price cuts?
Instead of trying and failing to jusify the loss of channels, Virgin should be improving its service and honouring customer contracts.
March 5th, 2007 at 11:08 am
What has happened to Premier Plus. We paid our subscription at the begining of the season and were all set to watch the match on Saturday 3 March 07, switched on only to be told the next match would be on 17th. Tried to phone - office closed. Emailed - nothing. What is happening?
March 5th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
im having the same problem, they cut me off on the phone when i tried to speak to them. they told me that the premier plus.they told me that the packages were the same but charging me nearly ?25 for 5 channels. i get the family package. what do they expects us to do pay it or cancel my subscription with them, virgin is a load of b*******s and they havent a clue what they are talking about at all,im so furious with them.
March 5th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
richard branson is absolutley hopeless and a waste of time, he should of left it,stop trying to take everything over, it was fine before he butted his big nose into it and screw things up for us, its us that have to suffer the conciquences of it all.
March 5th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Ive clocked up more than 30 minutes trying to cancel, Will soon be over an hour the whole thing is getting ridiculous, They have a big history of poor customer service. I hope to cancel as soon as possible. I try again tommorow, No wonder the newspapers are saying only about 100 people are leaving them a day.
They must have just 1 person working on disconnections answering about 4 calls an hour, The rest they place on hold as hes done his quota. That gives tham about 96 disconnections per day, if their call centre was 24 hour which it is not.
As soon as they lost sky, they should have given all customers a complimentary free upgrade.
Sky one is not an issue for me although I do like it, My major reason for going to sky is the access over 300 freesat channels that are available and not available to cable due to their very limited boxes.
Virgin Media is using Dirty Tricks to retain customers by not letting them cancel.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:01 am
I remember over 10 years ago signing up for telewest, the amount of channels for the price was very good. I remember 5 years ago getting broadband and a fewer channels for a very good price. This year I signed up for them and I so wish I had not now. The amount of channels is near to nothing and I lost the only channel I ever watch, Sky 1. My broadband install CD had a virus in it, and for the life of me i cannot get my email to work. (I am far from a newbie, programmer for over 5 years and had a computer for 20).
Do yourself a favour, go to Sky and get their package. Richard, sorry bud, but this time your company is going down faster than that ballon you were in.
March 6th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
I have been with Telewest for five years and share the frustration!!!
As an added extra I made the mistake of ordering a product from the NTL online store. They falsly advertised the product and I am battling to get my refund…
All in all, NTL/Telewest/Vergin Media, doesn’t matter which service you use, one can’t complain about their custemer service, BECAUSE THEY DONT HAVE ANY!!!
Sky here I come…
March 6th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
phoned virgin today to see what exactly was happeneing. Took 58 mins to answer but by threatening to go to sky got my internet connection speed doubled and cut my monthly bill by 35%.There is hope…if you can get htru…
March 7th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
I have been a customer of Telewest for 10 years without any problems. Then in the space of 24 hours, the entire service disintegrates into Virgin Media. I lose channels from my package, and aged considerably whilst trying to contact the so called customer services. I have been passed from pillar to post (when I eventually managed to get a response), and cut off on each occasion. In desperation I finally got through to the accounting dept, when I threatened to withhold payment of my DDM.
I have been monitoring the comments left on the Virgin Media site, which differ somewhat from the latest articles in the newspapers. Most want a reduction in tarrif and compensation for the loss of Sky 1 etc - hardly anyone wanted an improved service, which to be honest I doubt whether Virgin could supply. The entertainment offered on their channel 119 and 120 is appalling. And as for their library of over 500 films, I’ll be damned if I pay ?2.00 or more to watch the Great Escape, The Alamo and other old films which I can get on terrestial TV for free. Other films are being charged at ?3.00 to ?3.50 - and they call this a SERVICE? A right rip off, more like. Channel 119 is showing Alias, Nip and Tuck, Little Britain etc - anything from 6 - 16 episodes of OLD series, which are well past their sell by date. There is nothing new or inventive on the channels, which leads me to believe that the Sky marketing team didn’t do their research very well. Will Heads roll? I doubt it.
My main gripe is the loss of Sky 1 - I have watched every episode of Stargate SG1 since it started, and will now be missing the final episodes as this has been pulled. No more Stargate Atlantis, The Dresden Files etc. Who is going to compensate me for missing my favourite programmes?
I am sick to death of being used as a pawn in the media game, and if Branson runs Virgin Media anything like his train service, then heaven help us all.
I don’t particularly want to switch to Sky, the Murdoch’s not being my favourite dynastic family - but they are giving the customers what they want, which is what this game is all about. Oh that and the big profits to be made.
A very unhappy customer.
March 8th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
First they dropped Fashion TV (and other channels) with no communication to their customers and now Sky One. I’m off to Sky now, much as I have mixed feeling about it. Tomorrow I will hopefully get the system installed and will be able to resume watching the programmes that I actually already paid for.
What a shambles.
March 9th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
I have just spent the day waiting for a new “V+” box from Virgin. 3 weeks ago I was told that the engineer would call between 1pm and 6pm. After waiting in from 1pm I rang Virgin at 6pm and was told that the engineer would be working until 8pm and only had 2 jobs to do before he came to me, but not to worry as the 2 other jobs would not take 2 hours to complete. The person I spoke to could not tell me why the engineer was unable to call me to tell me he would be late. Apparently, they had more jobs than expected that day!!!!! That call to Virgin lasted 17 minutes. At 7.45pm I called again. I was told that the engineer’s supervisor would call me in the morning. Due to the fact that it took 30 minutes for me to receive this information, I decided I had had enough of Virgin Media (what with losing channels and all) so I asked to be put through to someone to discuss disconnection. I was (wrongly) put through to a supervisor who told me that I could not speak to anyone regarding disconnection as that department closes at 5pm and I have to give 30 days notice anyway. The supervisor was acutally very nice becuause I explained the situation to her in full and she said that “the last twat I spoke to” (my words, not hers) would be rollocked on Monday. She said that the engineer’s supervisor will call me tomorrow and I would have this new V+ box installed tomorrow. Having been a cable customer for 15 years, I have lived through the dark, dismal days of Videotron and Cable and Wireless and I have never been treated so appalingly. At least the old companies called to let you know they were letting you down! They were also able to negotiate prices with Sky that Virgin do not seem to be able to manage. I am bitterly disappointed with Virgin. I will post again to let people know how I get on. If I am not satisfied, I will only have terrestrial TV (or Freeview) as I cannot have a minidish put on the building I live in. In the meantime, encourage your friends, neighbours and colleagues to switch to Sky if they can. I do not like Murdoch and do not buy his papers, etc, however, I feel that Branson is exploiting those who cannot have minidishes and basically ripping them off.
March 10th, 2007 at 1:37 am
picked up my ball and gone to sky
March 10th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
have been a customer of Telewest for more than10 years without any problems. Then in the space of 24 hours, the entire service disintegrates into Virgin Media. I lose channels from my package, and aged considerably whilst trying to contact the so called customer services. I have been passed from pillar to post (when I eventually managed to get a response), and cut off on each occasion. In desperation I finally got through to the accounting dept, when I threatened to withhold payment of my DDM.I would like yo cancel my subscription from the T.V
and telephone package,to take immediate effect.
March 10th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
You won’t add this to your comments. The service is pathetic. Technical Help person ignorant as to basic operation of the sytem and weak on basic English. Complaints useless. Web site fobs off. How can you expect to keep customres.
March 11th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Just in case the domain name, site design and page content don’t make this clear, I’m not Virgin Media. I’m not associated with Virgin Media, either, other than being a customer.
March 12th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
I Have been with telewest (ntl/virgin) for 15 years, and get this I wanted one of the new scientific Atlanta Cable box’s (not the ones with playback) due to the fact they have digital output, so i can run it through my surround sound system. so I rang erm , and asked And after being pushed about I got an answer “the only way you can get one is to pay ?70″. Yet all new customers get these box’s for the standard installation fee, then they post them and the user has to install themselves.
Why is it new customers reap the benefit?s and long time customers get nothing
March 12th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
We Brits love a good moan ! It seems to me that nearly all of the above are disgruntled existing customers who watch sky one, so instead of endorsing this mass exodus to Sky I will give you all a little food for thought.
TV: You will all BUY your equipment from Sky or they will give it for free as part of your new deal. this means that after a year if it goes wrong YOU will have to pay for it. If your dish moves by just a fraction and you cannot get a signal YOU will be charged for the engineer to visit. and if it rains heavily or in high winds you will not get a signal. So you could have sky one and not be able to watch it !
Broadband : You get this down a phone line which can be nearly 100 years old. your speed is dependant on how far you live from the exchange and how many are going through the exchange at any one time. If the exchange becomes full of voice data all of a sudden, will BT tell its customers you cannot get through because all of our lines are tied up with internet traffic ? OOPS why did my broadband suddenly stop ????. And did Sky ever ask you to check your BT phone line to see if it is actually capable of delivering UP TO (plenty of room to wriggle) 8 meg ? but I bet you considered buying it !
Virgin Media may be going through a rough transition, but at least it isn’t hiding what you may or may not get. You lot need to get up off the sofa and go out more, or tell me to get lost.
March 16th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
Another very peeved off Virgin Media customer. Lost all of my services apart from the phone last night and look on this site to see everybody else the same. Looks like i’m going to cancel as well because ever since Virgin took over from Telewest, everything has imploded and the good service i was getting from Telewest has gone. Can’t beleave that Branson and chums have destroyed everything in such a short time…….. Sky here i come
March 16th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
I have been a telewest customer for 4 years and moved house in Nov 06, which meant renewing my contract, I have had to cancel my contract due to personal reasons and Virgin have informed me that I have to pay for the remaining months
Can they do this?? Is there any way I can appeal against this?
March 18th, 2007 at 6:00 am
really nit haooy with virgin media at all. Thankfully i only get my broadband from them! Sine the changeover my broadband has gone up to ?23 a month for 1mb broaband!?!?!? They say that this is because i no longer pay through direct debit. I cancelled my direct debit a while back because i was switching banks and they have never acknoledged my requests to set it back up again! I am now paying a handling charge of ?5 per month for paying my bill in ways other than DD!
Thankfully, I have been with NTL for around 3 years and have never renewed my contract so im going to cancel and go elsewhere for my broadband!!
March 18th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Hi,
We have had two phone bills from Virgin Media (February & January) so far. Our call charges have gone up by ?13-?17 since our last Telewest bill? This seems a bit suspicious since I have been using the phone less these past few months? And whats with not itemising under 50p?? Is this even legal? If I went to Asda and they refused to give me a receipt for anything under ?1 I would not be happy!! Can I request fully itemised bills?
March 19th, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Hi there…
I signed a 3 per 30 ? contract (television, broadband and phone) with VirginMedia on 12th Februrary 2007.
On 16th and 20th February VirginMedia took 25? from my bank account each time, so I payed the installation fee two times!
I advised my areal supervisor about this mistake and He told me that He’ll solve the problem but VirginMedia never put the money back on my bank account.
VirginMedia planned with me an appointment for the installation of the equipment for television, internet and phone on 13th March but on that date nobody came or advised me.
It’ s 6 days that I’m trying to speak with your customer service to understand what’s appening but anyone is able to help me and give me an answer.
In these days I’m calling many times the areal supervisor but his behavior is totally unfair: everytime He tell me that He’ll solve the problem calling someone else and He never call me back. Other many times He close the communication untill I’m speaking with him.
He still saying me that my services are already activated but they aren’t!
On Thursday 15th March 2007 I received my first bill for the period 16th Februrary - 15th April 2007 but the services are still not activated!
I never received any modem or decoder or Cd-rom from your company, any advice about my password or PIN or any other details that I need.
At the moment I don’t have internet connection, my phone doesn’t work and my digital tv has not any signal.
CAN WE DO A LEGAL ACTION AGAINST VIRGINMEDIA ALL TOGETHER?
Good night and good luck
March 20th, 2007 at 1:09 am
I wrote / emaild and phoned to cancel my NTL Broadband connection 4 months ago as moved home.
They still taking my monies every month and without permission (I used to pay by cheque every month)
Despite writing, emailing and wasting hours trying to get thro’ to someone by phone on NTL - still no change
Have compleined to OFCOM - no joy there either. Now going down the VISA ombudsman route and will be making a claim for compensation. I’m not the only one this is happening to I see.
March 20th, 2007 at 1:23 am
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/
March 20th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
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 !!
March 20th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
NTL/Virgin Mdia - 50 minutes and still not counting !!!!! haha
March 21st, 2007 at 9:53 pm
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?
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:53 pm
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..
March 22nd, 2007 at 4:47 pm
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.
March 22nd, 2007 at 9:06 pm
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.
March 23rd, 2007 at 11:53 am
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
March 24th, 2007 at 3:36 am
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
March 24th, 2007 at 11:48 am
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
March 24th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
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!
March 25th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
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!
March 25th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
yes virginmedia non cable are quite good, its such a shame!
March 26th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
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. !
March 27th, 2007 at 8:17 am
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
March 28th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
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.
March 29th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
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..
March 29th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
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.
March 30th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
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.
March 30th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
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.
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:35 am
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
April 2nd, 2007 at 6:01 pm
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.
April 3rd, 2007 at 4:12 pm
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.
April 3rd, 2007 at 11:01 pm
I WONDER HOW MUCH VIRGIN PAID FOR THOSE CUSTOMER SERVICE AWARDS THAT THEY HAVE RECEIVED 3 YEARS RUNNING?
April 3rd, 2007 at 11:36 pm
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.
April 6th, 2007 at 6:25 am
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!
April 6th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
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.
April 7th, 2007 at 9:54 am
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????????
April 7th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
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?
April 7th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
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
April 10th, 2007 at 2:40 am
Erm… 2007 right?
Why cant we still get Caller Display in Salford? Virgin sort it out before you sink!
April 11th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
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………..
April 12th, 2007 at 11:26 am
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.
April 12th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
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.
April 12th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
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!!!!!
April 13th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
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.
April 13th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
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!
April 13th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
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!
April 13th, 2007 at 11:49 pm
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.
April 14th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
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!
April 14th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
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.
April 14th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
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.
April 14th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
SPOT ON TOM. I HAVE WORKED FOR THEM AND I CAN HONESTLY TELL YOU THAT THEY TREAT CUSTOMERS LIKE MUPPETS
April 16th, 2007 at 1:05 am
You’ve worked for Virgin Media and don’t any more? So you’ve left working for them over the last 8 weeks?
April 16th, 2007 at 6:21 am
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.
April 16th, 2007 at 10:59 am
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
April 16th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
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.
April 16th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
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!
April 16th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
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.
April 16th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
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!!!!!
April 17th, 2007 at 1:29 am
Hermes. I worked for VM when they were telewest/ntl. customer were treated like muppets then like they are now
April 17th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
We have been with NTL for approx 5 years. That was bad enough, but now Virgin have taken over, the service has totally gone down-hill.
I am typing this while I wait for a game to download……since the virgin take-over, this now seems to take forever. At least with NTL it would only take 2-3 minutes……………..so far 12 minutes and I am 45% of the way through !!!
April 17th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Well i see many of you are having problems with virgin media, firstly you say the boxes freeze up and are slow, these properly aren’t virgin media’s boxes they may be ntl:telewest boxes, virgin have redesigned their boxes and now work as fast as sky’s, also the sky movie channels and the pin protection isn’t up to virgin, sky put them pins on so as they can broadcast certified 15 and 18 movies before 9′oclock, another thing is virgin have replace the ntl:telewest server which holds all of the personal information for their customers, this means that they may have lost some information about you, if so just inform them next time you contact them.
Also teleport has ceased to air but VOD is available instead, it is exactly the same but has a better selection of shows and films, your box may not have changed to vod at the moment but as soon as the mini guide changes colour to black and it says virgin instead of telewest you wil be able to access it.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:39 am
Ever since Virgin Media took over from Telewest - my broadband connection has been absolutely dire. I had near 5 years of top notch service from Blueyonder. Rarely a problem, the few I did have were swiftly rectified.
Of late I’ve had no end of connection drops, slow-downs that make me wish I was using dial up, and many hours of angst. Upon calling Technical Support I was told that there wasn’t much they could do as my Modem seemed fine. At this point the “Techical support” I was speaking to asked me if I’d like him to call the “Tech’s to see if the servers were alright” which quite honestly made me blink Funnily enough this was the seond time I had called, the first time I was on hold an hour and pretty much hung up on.
I will attempt to solve the problem once more. If it is not worked out in some way I’m switching service. I also expect a refund for the 4mbps broadband I haven’t been getting for nearly a month.
April 18th, 2007 at 6:48 am
i hoped things would improve under virgin but they are worse,tv box dont work properly,poor customer service,asked to change phone number all they did was turn it off,broadband waste of time emails never work properly.
wrote to sir branson no reply.gave up ringing them kept on hold for hours.the staff dont know what or how to do anything !!!
managers dont ring you back. i suggest mr branson cuts his losses and flies out of the country before this company ruins him !!!!!!
April 18th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
I contacted customer service with full intention to cancel and head to Talk /Talk phone & Broadband package.
Customer Service fell over bacwards to price match.
I not Get phone XL and $ meg BB for 26.50.
Thats a Bargin.
Bueni
April 19th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
The reduction in internet browsing speed may be caused by Virgin Media’s removal of the transparent proxy servers which have been in place since the broadband service was first introduced and people have complained about non-stop. You are now accessing files directly across the internet, and not from Virgin’s nice fast proxy servers!
April 19th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
What moron at VM thinks it’s an upgrade for the sort facility to be removed from the TV Guide and Favourites list.?
April 20th, 2007 at 11:04 am
I’ve been a very h