¶ Today was the one day I needed to work from home. Before opening my laptop, I checked the post. In it was a bill from Virgin Media. A rather large bill. This was partly due to my having my moved house recently and Virgin Media’s consequent requirement to bundle up two months of bills into one. It was also due to an incorrect charge of £75 for installing a V+ Box I already had. So I phoned up Customer Care who agreed the charge was wrong and arranged to credit next month’s bill with the £75.
So I opened my laptop and found I had no internet connection. After rebooting everything as per Virgin Media’s instructions I was still without broadband, so back on the phone I went. Technical Support told me my account has been suspended due to lack of payment. Not pleasant. I was passed to Customer Care who passed me to Accounts who passed me to Credit Control. Finally someone managed to explain to me that my services had been suspended because my account had gone over its credit limit. Which was more than Customer Care did the first time I phoned – no mention of a suspended account then.
I explained that the reason my account had gone over its credit limit (note I had not been made aware such a limit existed) was due entirely to an incorrect charge and Virgin Media’s inflexible billing system. But of course it is me the customer who suffers the inconvenience of having my broadband suspended and the indignity of being told I hadn’t paid for my service.
One would think a courteous phone call to arrange payment before suspending my services might have saved everyone a lot of time and hassle.
I have been a loyal cable customer since before Virgin Media existed – before NTL even, happily paying for a raft of services by direct debit every single month. I’ve had plenty of bad experiences with both companies over the years, but the way I have been treated this time is particularly ridiculous and insulting. Can someone give me one good reason why I shouldn’t head straight to Sky (apart from Rupert Murdoch).
Comments
1
I would go straight to Sky. I had been a Telewest customer for 5 years before Virgin took over. Funny thing is when I originally had my Telewest package installed, the “engineer” told me after he had finished that this was “poor man’s Sky”, which left me a little deflated about choosing them. Moved house and Virgin said I couldn’t take my account with me, I would have to start again. My new house was only ever going to be for 6 months. But I had to sign up for 12 months with Virgin. I knew that there might be a small admin charge for finishing early, but I was flabergasted to get a £191 bill, that’s £30 per month to Virgin, for nothing! After this, I will boycott anything with the Virgin name on it.
2
coincidence reading this – 20mins on the phone to them today to cancel my account* will be looking for new ISP in the coming days.
3
That’s really annoying. I had a similar experience in the past when I moved to another flat and after lots of such situations wanted to change my phone company. When I told them I want to change they first told me that I had not only to pay to get telephone mainlines but also to pay for quitting them and this charge was much higher than the one for getting them. Furthermore they also wanted to block my number I wanted to adopt to my new phone company.
4
Sounds EXACTLY like how Comcast runs their business in the US. At least you can voice your frustrations in a World-wide format on your blog. You should post a link to their website so trackbacks can find you and eventually someone from their company will see your post too.
Best of luck.
Catherine, the redhead blogger
5
Unfortunately Sky and Tiscali are just as bad. (Oh Tiscali – just makes me shudder to think of them. I hate them so much after what they have done to me. Takes too long to explain here, but after gross overcharging for faults they caused, they have a support line that is a premium ish call rate and you often wait over 20 minutes just to get connected to them. Argh… Your blog post ruined my day making me think about them :)
6
I’d just get it over and done with and leave ASAP. Like other commenters, I was a happy Telewest customer before Virgin took over, and they progressively messed with their billing and service until I gave up. I’m with BT for phone and O2 for broadband now.
7
My sympathies, but somehow I’m not surprised. It might be Virgin, but large-company customer service sucks from my experience. Luckily the only problem I’ve had with NTL / Virgin since 2001 was the initial botched install – I dread having a problem though.
Virgin are not in my good books for another reason though – any other existing customers had the spam leaflet offering new customers interweb / phone for less than you, the loyal long-time customer, pay now? Asshats. How do you tackle that?
8
“Virgin are not in my good books for another reason though – any other existing customers had the spam leaflet offering new customers interweb / phone for less than you, the loyal long-time customer, pay now? ”
ooh don’t get me started on this one. And the way they told me that existing customers were not allowed the free WiFi, that’s just for new ones. Grrr.
9
Around the time that Telewest purchased Eurobell, I was having their phone service installed in my flat in Devon. I was gobsmacked to turn around to find a policeman arresting one of the installers in my flat! They never gave me a decent explanation as to what the arrest was for… I realise this happened long before Virgin purchased Telewest, but it still leaves a sour taste.
Virgin has already said that they don’t agree with net neutrality.
Then there’s Virgin’s are they, aren’t they problems with Phorm…
I’d avoid Virgin like the plague – they appear to be an awful company who are rapidly getting worse.
10
I’ve got to agree with all the bad things everyone has to say about Virgin. After being a happy Telewest customer for years things went down hill when Virgin took over… If something was wrong you had to wait on hold for ages to speak to a call center where they couldn’t/ wouldn’t help you or agree there was a fault, they just had to proceed step by step through a script telling you really obvious things to try and couldn’t even skip a few stages… I eventually quit and went back to BT (as I needed to since no other broadband company would operate without a landline). And I have to say that I’ve been totally impressed with BT. They answer the phone quickly and genuinely try and fix any problems… I did have some problems with the line but they sent out engineers immediately and kept me up to date with what was going on… A breath of fresh air after the Virgin “service”!
11
I could have written this blog post myself. Virgin Media were regularly cutting off my broadband for lack of payment for a while there, when I was sure I was paying them by direct debit. Turned out that they were only direct debiting part of my account (we have land line and TV with them too), the Broadband bill was being sent to an email address I didn’t even know existed (an NTL address I think).
The last couple of years have been scattered with issues with Virgin Media. Annoyingly, every time we call with an issue they tell us that we’re not a customer because they can’t find us on their databases (we moved house not long after NTL became Virgin and this screwed everything up).
My personal favourite was when they sent someone around to pick up our set top box (not sure why). My husband gave it to them (I was away) and when I called to find out when we were getting one back, they denied having picked it up and advised us to go to the police station and report it stolen and to claim the £200 that they were going to charge us for a new set top box back on our home and contents insurance. Fortunately, when I finally got to speak to a supervisor they realised that it was their man who had picked it up and that the police report wasn’t necessary. They then told me the earliest the could get out with a new box was in a fortnight. Seriously. Gah!
12
Go directly to Sky, if you pass Go collect £200 (check quidco for cashback when signing up to sky).
I’ve no experience of Virgin Media but everyone I know that’s been with them has ended up leaving due to poor service and excessive prices.
I’ve been with Sky for months and the only time they’ve ever discussed my account is to offer me cheaper movies. So far I’m happy with Sky, but then I’ve yet to have any problems.
Jack
13
“Virgin are not in my good books for another reason on though – any other existing customers had the spam leaflet offering new customers interweb / phone for less than you, the loyal long-time customer, pay now? ”
ooh don’t get me started on this one. And the way they told me that existing customers were not allowed the free WiFi, that’s just for new ones. Grrr.
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