problems with vm

Problems from Twitter...

Virgin media cable Internet. What apile of shit. Anyone else withproblems?

6 April 2010, 1:19 pm

@LeeMcKenzieF1 virgin media forthe win, the red bull of broadbandwithout the reliability problems.

5 April 2010, 5:41 am

RT @weirdshanghai:CarPhoneWareHouse&Virgin Mediasourced HTC DESIRES have dataproblems.Can't connect3G/EDGE/GPRS data. Reflash togeneric firmware fixes all

4 April 2010, 7:21 pm

CarPhoneWareHouse&Virgin Mediasourced HTC DESIRES have dataproblems.Can't connect3G/EDGE/GPRS data. Reflash togeneric firmware fixes all

4 April 2010, 7:04 pm

Anybody else having problems witha slow Internet or is it just down tobeing stuck with cuntish VirginMedia? And yes, I made up that word

1 April 2010, 2:28 pm

Greetings! This site is not intended to be somewhere you can get help - it's a site where you can bitch about the problems you'rehaving or have had with Virgin.

This site will only ever consist of one page - a single testament to dissatisfaction with Virgin Media! Please share your story - anyproblems contact [email protected].

Any ideas on how we can make this site better? Let us know!

Needless to say, this site has NO affiliation with any Virgin company!

Thanks to everyone who has left their story and those especially to those who follow up and continue to help the site grow!

Why could I be bothered to make this site?

click here to leave your story

I run a very similar site at http://www.avoidvirginmedia.co.uk/virgin-media-review/8/

Good job with the site. Good to see the positive frustration!

» Story by Avoid Virgin Media, UK on 07th April 2010

Virgin Media, where do i begin with these fucktards? internet goes off at least 50 times a day so i have tokeep running downstairs (3 story house, i’m on the top floor, internets on the bottom floor) and its pissingme off quite frank, we phoned up and they say ‘sorry mr. robson but the fair use policy gives everyone fairusage’ and i’m like right, but you got to understand were a propper family, theres 5 kids and 2 adults all ofus kids have a laptop and i like to use my ps3 online and my mother and her boyfriend like to use theinternet on the wii for iPlayer and whatnot. and they still use the fair use for the excuse. they are ridiculous,tiscali’s no good either to be fair. from what ive heard, O2 has to be the best, apparently they couldnt give2 flying fucks if we download or use loads of internet in mass attacks. Virgin Media are a bunch of tossers,waiting for customers to phone up so they cna sell you a higher broadband package so you dont keepcutting off. i thought i was the only one, turns out i’m joined by alot of other people. the customer service onthe page should be called customer hate, they are ridiculous.

» Story by JR, UK, Sunderland on 06th April 2010

Virgin media really the worse customer service, not at all reliabale. They are all liers. I just wonder whynoone has taken any legal action against these leeches yet? Apasrt from all the problems mentionedabove, Virgin media charges premium rates for customer service, that too for their unhelpful answers.WhyWhy Why Why Virgin? It’s the most rubbish crap I have ever seen.

Problems with Virgin - Show your dissatisfaction with Virgin Media! http://www.problemswithvirgin.co.uk/

1 of 22 08/04/2010 13:22

» Story by Kalpana, Dudley on 31st March 2010

Since the very first day I switched to o2 (and my broadband speed shot up the line maximum instantly), thefew small problems I’ve experienced with o2 have been rectified with the least fuss I’ve ever had from anycompany. However, I do not suggest for a second O2 have no dissatisfied customers. I am sure thereare numerous examples of people equally irritated by O2, as I am by Virgin. Nevertheless you seem toslightly disillusioned as to how much these businesses ‘care’, when you suggest they should not receive fullthroated lambasting of their brand.

The reality is public scrutiny and extreme shouts of dissatisfaction and disapproval are the only ‘right’ wayto bring about change. I’ve worked in telecomms customer service myself and am fully well aware of thelimitations placed on staff. Staff are asked to divert and deflect legitimate complaints about a genuinelypoor service. The fact is these businesses exist to satisfy shareholders and nothing more. If we do nothingwe give rise to monopolies and organisations such as the BBC who stand beyond reproach guarded by aGovernmental shield.

I completely agree that there are steps that can ease the misery and indeed there is no excuse for illmanners but there are occasions in life, every now and then, when extreme blunt ignorance and stupiditymust be met with a tirade of abuse - if for no other reason than therapy. These people are professionals,they are paid and if they don’t care for what they are doing the ‘democracy’ to which you refer, allows themthe right to choose alternative employment.

Furthermore, if indeed this small minority of people is causing horrific damage to Virgin’s brand, as yousuggest it might, then I welcome any discussion with Virgin for which they are entirely welcome to contacteach person on the list and resolve the various problems. Have they done this? No. Ergo, do Virgin careabout this website or indeed these customers? No.

My answer about O2 is entirely honest and I would recommend, heartily, anybody who has experienced theincompetence of Virgin to try them.

» Story by Administrator, UK on 30th March 2010

In response to Admin. Yes, I agree, a 6 month battle with a company is very exhausting to say the least, butas the saying goes, “Two wrongs don’t make a right”

I have been through battles with other companies, so I do know how you must have been feeling, but I amnot holding grudges towards them. As mentioned I am from a customer service background, and thedeleted post was hopefully to be used in order to reduce much negativity to all concerned.

Your point with having called 3 times to speak to a different person each time, being given conflictinginformation is very unfortunate and this was one of the points in my post, get the name and location of theperson whom you are speaking with. I make a point of giving my name and number to any of mycustomers who may need to get back to me regarding the raised issue, now it may not be possible forVirgin Media to give a direct number, this is why obtaining their location is paramount.

I honestly do not feel ignored, this is your site, which you pay for, therefore are entitled to have on it whatyou wish, I assumed that living in a democracy a post with some helpful information would be welcomed.

You had your issues back in 2007, have you (please answer honestly) had any issues with O2 (if you’re stillwith them)

» Story by ITK, on 30th March 2010

In response to a removed post by ITK (InTheKnow)…

Civility can be somewhat eroded after 6 months of problems as I’m sure you’ll agree. One of the realissues I had was phoning 3 times in a row and being given completely conflicting information. One ends upfeeling ignored. Which is possibly how you might feel having your very well written and informative postremoved for no good reason, as has happened.

» Story by Administrator, UK on 29th March 2010

I was suppose to be connected on 9th March 2010. They got the tv working but I had no broadband untiltoday (25th March). It lasted all of 2 hours before broadband and tv went down. The service has beenworse than I ever could have expected. Absolute crap so far!

» Story by Mick Dean, South London on 25th March 2010

Signed with Virgin a week ago. TV worked ok in the afternoon. Continuously fighting with random remoteand pop-up messages in the evening. It is just too infuriating when you try to focus on the programme.Called the customer care and threatened to terminate the contract. They came rather quickly and installed


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another TV box that has the same random pattern. Reminds the quality of awful Virgin trains. We all shouldterminate our contracts with immediate effect.

» Story by Kirill Horoshenkov, Ilkley on 24th March 2010

In a word virgin are the most useless excuse for a company u can get.

» Story by p, birmingham on 23rd March 2010

My complaint is about the poor customer service and more particularly, the far better value offers that arebeing made to new customers, with no attempt to reward existing customers. It pales into insignicanceagainst the many complaints I have read on this post , so I won’t expand further, other than to say : Iadmired Sir Richard Branson and how he challenged the vision of grey haired men , wearing suits, ties andbowler hats. I am really dissapointed to discovered that ( like myself) so many people have become sofrustrated by their dealings with Virgin’s customer service personnel, that they feel compelled to vent theirfrustration on this blog. I would much rather be a ‘happy Virgin customer’ & I had thought that Richard’sbusiness vision would have included the management practices needed to keep his customers happy. Itsnot rocket science! Ps. Im sure somebody from Virgin will be monitoring this site , please pass themessage to Sir Richard

» Story by Lesley, Lancashire on 23rd March 2010

I’ve been with Virgin/NTL for over 10 years and have never had the service I pay for. Their staff are rude,unhelpful and trained in just wearing the customer down. My complaints are numerous but the last straw hasbeen discovering that I have been paying for 10 mb broadband and not received it. After hours of being puton hold on the phone (seriously, hours) my husband succeed in getting a refund agreed - 2 months ago.Still no refund (nearly £200) then no service last week - they disconnected and would not say why!!!!! Noteven barely legal! And THEY owe ME money!This week the internet is mega slow - still no 10mb - I think this is deliberate so they can avoid paying themoney owed and I’m not wishing to seem paranoid but I believe they want me to take my serviceelsewhere. And the crazy part is we are paying them to be rude, dishonest, illegal, distressing and crap.anyway we are switching to BT.

» Story by Sheila, Bournemouth on 18th March 2010

Had Virgin TV, Broadband, Landline for 6 years and 2 x mobile phones for over a year and the servicehasn’t been that bad until about 6 months ago. Virgin on demand stopped working ages ago - in order towatch it I have to turn tv and virgin box on and then unplug box - not a major pain in the arse but frustrating. It also has a tendancy to keep turning your programme over and not let you turn it back for ages whichannoys the shit out of me when you have just got really interested in a programme and are fighting with anunresponsive remote! I also hate the fact that many of us work stupid hours and rely on catch up tv towatch our fave programmes - then out of the blue they decide to piss us off and not record episodenumber 9 when you have watched the first 8 on catch up - WTF is that all about? Broadbands crap alsoand keeps booting me out of various sites but can’t diagnose a problem. Mobile phones are cookies formy sons and maybe not the best of choice but both are knackered and can’t be replaced lol! All in all Ihaven’t got a clue why I am paying for any of this, never mind recommending virgin to any of my mates orfamily - all of us with virgin have a problem. Maybe Mr Branson could email me from Neckar Island andgive me a £10 discount off a £1,000 flight with virgin airways - but then, probably not, might hurt his bankbalance!

» Story by Lisa, Middlesbrough on 17th March 2010

I have been with Virgin Media for 6 months. I opted for them as my father had been a customer for yearsand had no problems (unitl he recently found they had reduced their package prices by 50% and this hadnot been passed onto him and he has been paying DOUBLE for 4 months!).I on the other hand in the 6 months I have been with them have had to have a new set top box as the firstbroke within 6 weeks, 3 different landline numbers due to the first one resulting in myself and my partnerreceiving up to 10 phonecalls per day from social services, courts and child service agencies for otherpeople, the second up to 3 calls a day from debt collecting agencies, all for people who had previously hadthe number.By month 3 I had also had to get a new modem. Both the set top box and the modem are on a unit thatdoes not get touched therefore not going to have been damaged by ourselves! As compensation we weregiven 2 months free tv package upgrade which they failed to stop and billed us for and the person oncustomer services was the most rude insolent individual I have had the misfortune to speak with, basicallysaid was my own fault for not saying I didnt want to continue with it! It turns out I should have received aphonecall but unfortunately this didnt happen.

I just hope someone reads this and it stops them from having all the problems I have. I can honestly say in


3 of 22 08/04/2010 13:22

the 6 months that I have had Virgin, I have only had all my services up and running at the same time for only4 of these months. I think it is a disgrace. I am currently attempting to cancel my contract which in itself is anightmare. I feel I should not have to give full 28 days notice or pay a leaving fee as I have had such a badexperience.

» Story by naomi, widnes on 17th March 2010

If Virgin can’t organise a decent broadband service on Earth, what happens when they get into space?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C_IAZBqY9I

» Story by Micheal, Buckinghamshire on 16th March 2010

Well i’m a little mad to say the least.... I ordered the VIP package thinking im going to get it all and ive gotnothing. The order went though fine took my payment ect ect setup direct debit all the normal thing. then puton a 2 week waiting list for installation. i wasnt to happy about the wait but hay they must be busy right? SoTodays the day of the install, ive got my phone line, my broadband and my V+. phone and BB work brill butthe V+ box is playing up (less than 4 hours) so i rang customer services very helpful person told me the boxis faulty (i am a very accepting person) and need to be replace on monday the 15th march 2010. well thatsfine with me i said, out of 4000 V+ box’s made theres bound to be a duff brand new one out there… i mustof got it. Now we’re at 6 hours after install and my Broadband has stopped working and i now have no TVchannel. so i rang customer service’s a 2rd time only to tell me ive been cut off because i havent paid mybill...... i said to “Agent” how can i miss my bill payment.... it’s only been installed 6 hours ago. i was then puton hold whilst “agent” checked. i was then informed that because i am a new customer my credit limit is£150 and that the only way to restore my services is to pay the £220 i owe them over the phone today, ifnot my account will remain without service.... im now looking for them to remove there equipment from myhouse and cancel under the distance selling act 2000.

» Story by Hilly, Portsmouth on 12th March 2010

Before moving house 3 weeks ago, I call virgin to advise them and request they do a “moving house”install. Gave them my new address and was told it shouldn’t be a problem, however they would only be ableto book an engineer 3 weeks from the time. I advised as an IT Consultant, this would make things verydifficult and I would need it done asap. I found this strange as a new install only had a 3-5 day wait. Thecustomer nonservice advisor, said my account would be placed on priorty. Needless to say, this neverhappen. Engineer arrived today, walked around a little said he couldn’t do the install due to virgin neverbeen used on the house and that I would need to book a “construction install”, which at best would be afurther 2 weeks! I advised this would be impossible, and he would need to make it happen today. He thencalled his supervisor, told me the supervisor would be in touch and then left. Afew minutes later, thesupervisor arrive at my door. Told me the same thing, construction install. At best, he advised he could runa cable from the nextdoor properties “virgin key”. However I would need to ask them first and call virgin tocome in tomorrow. He then left.

I called Virgins (House Moved department), relayed the above and was put on hold. Only to be pushedback in the q. After 10-15min wait, someone answered(technical support). I replayed the above again. Wastold to hold. Again being pushed back in the q for a further 20 mins. Again a voice answered(Sales),relayed the above. Put on hold for a further 25mins. Girl returned telling me this isn’t her issue. Advised sheneed to find someone who could help me. I asked for a manager. Put on hold for 5mins. A makevoice(Sales Supervisor). He told me that this wasn’t his department, however he will sort this mess and callme @ 8pm. 8:35pm, still no call. I called Virgin - House Moves Closed, Complaints Closed and SupportClosed. I press for new Sales. Relay the above yet again, Customer NoService advisor says he can’t help,as it’s not a customer service issue!!!!! Give me a number to call first thing in the morning.

I have since found the UK complaints line, where u can speak to an English person 01256 752000. I shallbe using this first thing in the morning!

» Story by JFerreira, London on 12th March 2010

Used to be with Virgin previously but picture quality was poor and the system constantly froze or crashedso I moved from Virgin to Sky HD last year but after experiencing problems with Sky (TV kept cutting out toa blue screen, menu was slow, I hate the box office system and I’m restricted to slow internet through Skyusing BT infrastructure) I decided to move back to Virgin in the hope that things had improved.

Ordered up the V+ HD box, 20MB Broadband and Telephone and the engineer arrived four days ago asscheduled and all was well....then it happened....

Firstly, they didn’t keep my same telephone as requested - this is used for business (fortunately, my SKYcontract isn’t finished yet so I can keep it plugged in there until it’s sorted).

Secondly, my internet was showing speeds of 19MB until today when it has now dropped to a regular 4MB


4 of 22 08/04/2010 13:22

from 5pm right through until now at midnight.

Thirdly, worst of all my box won’t record anymore and we lost all our recordings and scheduled recordings.My gf is raging as we’ve missed all our programs. Nothing will record, the remote constantly refuses towork, the box freezes, the channel information decides to pop up and remain for about 10 mins coveringhalf the screen, the on-demand seems to be down about 50% of the time and then the bloody Virgin boxmute activate despite the volume controls not being useable accordingly to the engineer. You can’t turn themute off because those buttons don’t work with my TV!!!

I have rebooted about 20 times tonight and after many attempts of trying to contact their customer service(waited 15 mins each time before giving up) I was hung up on. Have now been told the first engineer thatcan come out will be on Saturday (in four days!!!) despite there being at least two engineers who livearound the corner from me as I can see their vans parked at night. So we’ve got sod all tv for four moredays now and all this within three days! What a total disgrace.

Funny how the installations number gets you through straight away yet the technical help takes forever toconnect. Absolutely disgusting service.

My Sky dish and cables are still where they are posied to be reactived and I can still reverse mycancellation...oh yeah, I haven’t sent my Virgin contract in yet. If it wasn’t for slow internet of Sky I’d havenever moved. I do like the movies on demand but then Blockbusters is a 5 min drive away.

I really would have thought things would have improved since two years ago. To be fair the picture quality isdefinitely better, you can operate three channels with Virgin instead of two with Sky and the menu (when itworks) is far more responsive than my Sky although my mate’s Sky is just as responsive and the technicalhelp manager was actually very considerate so it’s not all bad. Maybe it’s just teething problems but it stillrings alarm bells from my previous time with them.

Fingers crossed everything gets fixed up because this time round the gloves are off and I’ve got noproblem with getting an engineer out every weekend on time and a half at their expense.

» Story by Graham, Glasgow on 10th March 2010

I’m plagued by unwanted calls from India trying to sell me stuff. It’s been particularly bad this year buttoday I got eight calls in four hours. The last one was aggressive, the caller did not appreciate I put downthe phone on her and rang back immediately. I know once it’s midday these calls start. The TPS doesn’tcover this and after today I wonder in Virgin is selling our telephone numbers in India?

» Story by A Jones, Swansea on 08th March 2010

i came in at around midniught put the tv on and all i could get was a movie i already own on dvd when i triedto change the channel i couldnt i`ve tried several times to reboot the godamm box to9 no avail its a bag ofcrap all i can suggest is you find a freeview box that gives you a good selection of channels then fuck virginright off for the corporate money grabbing wankers they are

l

» Story by dave, nottingham on 06th March 2010

I’ve just moved up to the 20mb service after being on 10mb for donkeys years and since then whenever i’mon the internet every so often my browser hangs (as in i click on a page and nowt happens) then if i wait 20seconds or so and try again it miraculous loads no problem, even does it with google however its not myactual internet browser thats hanging because when the internet stops responding i can still access myrouter settings through the browser. Its as if my actual connection is lost for 10-20 seconds. this happensvery frequently. Another thing that really annoys me is the fact that they are blatantly ripping every singleone of us off. We pay them a certain amount of money a month for say 20mb broadband and from such atime in the morning to such a time in the evening they cap the download speeds to maybe a quarter of whatwe should be getting to help with the traffic. Now correct me if i’m wrong but if you went into a pub and paidfor a pint of lager but only received half a pint and was told its to help make the lager last longer for the restof the customers would you be happy and accept that.....If you want to cancel your contract withing the 12month period then surely we could say to the customer service i want to cancel my contract because i’mpaying you so much money a month for 20mb broadband and 50% of the month your only giving me halfthat speed due to throttling so therefore you are not providing me with the service i’m paying you for...notproviding the service your paying for is a breach of contract therefore you have every right to cancel acontract without any penalties.

» Story by Alan, Liverpool on 04th March 2010

To Brian at Preston: you have my full sympathy mate. What a shocking story, especially the way they’vetreated you after putting you at risk.


5 of 22 08/04/2010 13:22

Good luck with pursuing them, I hope you win. I’d suggest contacting Branson direct - but of course part ofthe way he operates is to be uncontactable to mere humans like us. The bloke thinks he’s special. All I canfind online is:

Sir Richard Branson’s Office,Virgin Management Ltd,120, Campden Hill Road,London, W8 7AR.

Once again, good luck.

Also - to everyone else, let’s print out this entire website and post it to Branson at the above address. Hemight stumble across a sheet and bother to read it.

» Story by Dave, London on 03rd March 2010

Yay, had Sky+ HD installed this morning, and up to now the box appears to be perfectly compatible with

our light bulbs (see my message below)

» Story by Damian, Nottingham on 23rd February 2010

What have i done, joined virgin in Jan to get away from talk talk,virgin promised to cancel my talk talk andkeep my number, 6 weeks later and im now paying virgin and talk talk. I have phoned 6 times and e mailedvirgin but no joy, they dont know why i have no phone line with them?? My latest conversation with themyesterday actually brought on chest pain i was that worked up, surely u can stop payments to them if theyare not fullfilling their part of the deal? I am seriously thinking of having no phone, broadband or tv, after talktalk and now virgin it seems they are all crap.

» Story by glen, manchester on 20th February 2010

Moved into a flat in Leicester. Was told virgin media was the cable provider. Its rubbish, constantbreakdowns, limited choices, and virtualy impossible to get rid of because of the location and my limitedbudget. Not only that I resent contributing money to Richard Branson as he seems such a twerp.

» Story by sid, leicester on 19th February 2010

I would like to add to my last message that I was not at home when the engineer called around, I was atwork. If I was at home I would not have accepted this excuse, and I will be phoning them after work toarrange for my TV package to be cancelled. I’ll stick with them for the broadband until BT can offer a betterservice in our area, but will go to Sky for the TV I think. Maybe their boxes will work with our super-

radioactive lightbulbs

» Story by Damian, Nottingham on 19th February 2010

Hmmm, problems with our V+ box now to add to all the previous issues. It’s very unresponsive, press theleft and right buttons to scroll through channels, then sit back for about 10-20 seconds whilst it thinks aboutit, before flicking through about 20 channels at once. On Demand keeps crashing. Also we get thisannoying box popup every night saying something on the lines of “your remote is being updated, pleasedon’t use the remote. Press ok to close this message”. How do we press ok without using the remote? Andif we try it doesn’t work, we have to wait 20 seconds with this box obscuring the screen.

The only reason I’ve stuck with them after all the previous problems is because I found out BT can onlysupply up to 2.4mb broadband in our area. But I called them last night about this problem asking how muchit would be for just broadband and telephone, they asked me to be patient whilst they looked into theissues, and sent an engineer out today.

So (to my surprise) the engineer came out as promised, and the reason for our problems - our lightbulbs.That’s right, our lightbulbs are interfering with the signal from our remote control. Nevermind the fact thatthe signal is obviously getting to the box as the commands are being queued up (they’re not going to bequeued up on the remote are they!!). So what they are basically saying is either don’t use your tv when it’sdark outside, or don’t switch your lights on when you want to watch the TV.

Superb! Well worth the £100+ we pay them every month for XL TV, + sports and movies, + telephone, +XL Broadband.


I have been seperated from my wife since early 2009 and following the discovery that she had fleeced over£1000 from my bank account I closed the account and transferred all the direct debits to my new girlfriendsaccount into which I had my wages paid.


6 of 22 08/04/2010 13:22

We contacted Virgin and explained the whole story and asked for advice on continuing the payments fromthat account. We then requested that they change the billing address to that of my parents so that I couldmonitor how much each monthly bill was and how many phone calls were being used. Yes I was still payingthe bills!!!Virgin guaranteed that the address had been changed and that all correspondence would go to my parent’saddress. I have received bills there however they also sent a letter to my ex-wifes address containing mynew girlfriend’s bank account details. A clear breach of the Data Protection Act. This caused massiveproblems for us both with threatening phone calls and texts and threats that I would not be able to see mychild.We contacted Virgin and spoke to a department manager who advised us that one of the staff had failed toadhere to all the processes and procedures put in place to prevent this and fully admitted that they hadindeed committed the offence. She then tried to fob us off with a free month! We obviously refused this.After numerous calls to Virgin, trying to speak to the Complaints Department, We managed to speak tosomeone. Again, we had to explain the whole story and they said that they would call back.I then received another abusive, irate call from my ex-wife, saying that she had been contacted by Virginand spoken to about the complaint! Again, this caused further reprocussions. This was in November. Shetried to stop me from seeing my child at Christmas.After more calls and e-mails in an attempt to speak with someone from the Complaints Department atHead Office, a manager contacted us and wanted to know the full story. Again, I had to relay the tail to himto which he replied that the problem was far too severe for him to deal with and that it was necessarry toescalate it to Virgin’s Legal Department.The manager also advised us that we should never have been allowed to set up a direct debit from anotheraccount in the first place and that we had been wrongly advised by the advisor. He went onto say that weshould change the password to the account and that he was cancelling the direct debit at their end and thatwe should cancel it at the bank and carry on paying each month by debit card over the phone. His reasonfor this was that if my ex-wife contacted them and didn’t know the password or how the bill was payed, shewould not be able to speak to anyone about the account. He then assured us that this would prevent anymore problems.A few weeks later, after he had failed to re-contact us as he had said he would, we contacted Virgin again,only to be told that the case had been closed.Obviously we were not being fobbed off again as there had clearly been a blatent breach of tha DataProtection Act.We managed to contact him again some weeks later and again after numerous calls. At this point I mustsay that we were paying on time every month. He advised us that the case had not been closed and that itwas still being escalated to the Legal Department and that we should expect a call soon.On 16th February 2010, I received another abusive text from my ex-wife stating that she had just beencontacted by Virgin Media and had discussed mine and my girlfriend’s complaint and had told them whatshe actually thought of us. (Not very nice but incredibly colourful!!!)I went to speak to my girlfriend and found her in a distressed state and speaking to Virgin Media. I couldhear the male on the other end of the phone saying that Virgin had done nothing wrong in passing on thebank details and speaking to my ex-wife about the complaint!I was then made aware that the call had been taken over by a woman who started to shout at my girlfriend,saying that it had nothing to do with her and that she didn’t even know why she was speaking to her.At this point I took over the call and she introduced herself as Sandra Hillan, Customer Service Manager. Itried to get a word in edgeways but, every time I spoke, she talked over me. She said that i was the one atfault and that I had no right paying for a service to a house in which I wasn’t living. I tried to explain that Ihad a responsibility to my child and that was why I was still paying to which she replied that I had beenadvised in November that I had no right. When I said that this was not the case she shouted down thephone “Don’t you dare call me a liar!”As you can probably imagine, after being spoken to like something that she had stood in, I said to her thather attitude and that of her organisation was disgusting and that she had no right to speak about mycomplaint, which incidentally wasn’t with my ex-wife, with her. To this she admitted that it was her who hadspoken to my ex and then stated that, and I quote; “My company are not interested in your tooing andfroing!”I said to her “I beg you’re pardon. How dare you try and comment about my private life!” to which shestated that she was not prepared to discuss the account with me any further and hung up.This nasty, self opinionated bitch was speaking to me like dirt and was actually shouting down the phone atme. She and Virgin Media have committed a criminal offence in the breach and have caused and fuelledmassive problems for both me and my girlfriend.I am absolutely disgusted in the way we have been treated and I am now pursuing alternative avenues inmy fight for justice.I’m sorry that this has been a bit long winded but I need to get it off my chest.Virgin Media are SHIT and they stink.Thank you.

» Story by Brian, Preston on 18th February 2010

My virgin media system insists on hanging at key points any show......


7 of 22 08/04/2010 13:22

Very annoying.....

And how come all the programmes show the the same adverts at the same time????? Swop channels andall you get are the same adverts at the same time!

Your playing me!!!!!!! virgin and not very well...........

Sky looks more attractive every day!!!

Come on give me more Bang for my buck a 60 min show = 40 min + 20 adverts

Don’t give me a break! its taking the P.....

» Story by Bob Hoy, South Tyneside on 18th February 2010

An IT engineer with over 15 years experience. Got fibre optics connection with an old blue box ntl modem.Wanted wireless. They sent a D-link wireless modem. Question old technology but was told nothing hadchanged. Plugged in the new wireless modem.Crap connection with first laptop.Sat on modem but still crap connection.Changed channels but still crap.Tried 3 other laptops. Changed channels.Sitting next to wireless modem, and poor performance!!...this is a fibre optic connection, 10mb, yetwirelesly it performs like a 56k dial up!!Have rebuilt one laptop to test and still shite conn!!Not happy!

» Story by disgruntled with VM wifi, Folkestone on 17th February 2010

You’ve got to laugh haven’t you - they offer very, very, very, very poor customer services, have broadbandthat keeps falling over, yet today I get a letter saying they are increasing their prices!! But they somehow intheir letter manage to try and make it feel like good news.

How about freeze ALL of your prices until you’ve sorted out your problems.


I have a Virgin Active Gym membership. I can get Virgin Vouchers through an offer I have but they haverecently stopped accepting them. Not completely though, I can use them to purchase other things that Idon’t already pay for i.e. anything but my membership.

I was putting them towards my membership subs but even though Virgin still have the money because it is aVirgin Voucher however Virgin Active must have decided they are loosing a couple of pounds by doingthis.

I can understand this as Virgin are on a tight budget being backed by one of the richest men in the world anall that, so they need to inconvenience and bleed their customers dry for every penny they can.

» Story by CK, Manchester on 03rd February 2010

Thankyou thankyou guys..I was nearly seduced into signing up to a Virgin package..having read all yourproblems Im making a run for the hills! x

» Story by Beth, croxley green on 30th January 2010

for three nights running now my 50 meg broadband goes between 430pm and 5pm and doesnt come backon untill 11pm,when i have got through to them its someone in india no offence the guy doing a job but theline is crap and i dont understand what he says and there is bugger all they can do,37 quid a month for thisbb great when working but coming to unreliable now,might go for the bt option only 10meg but i bet itworks,just totally fed up now with porr customer services take our money and sod you mate!!!!!

» Story by dave, plymouth on 28th January 2010

My internet is 20mb, it was all fine no problems, perfect connection pretty good ping, very nicedownloading speed until one night when i was talkin on skype with my bro suddenly, i got 7 second voicedelay i was like wtf.... thought it was his internet but nooooo. Checked my ping. Went from 34 to 2800 i waslike what the fu*k?!?! i mean seriously what the hell am i paying for. if it would happen once but nooo, so farit happened like 4 times and the ping stayed over 2000 for few hours each time. any game i try to play, ican try but i either get kicked cuz of too high ping or i just leave because its pointless. my friend that livesabout 300 meters away from me has 2mb broadband (i have 20) he’s fine and my ping goes crazy. WHATTHE HELL


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» Story by Cloud, Nottinghamshire on 27th January 2010

So where to begin…

I have 50mb broadband and some other phone and tv packages which i rarely use. I only got the phone lineas it made the broadband cheaper and I may get one in future.For 2-3 months speeds were great. Good ping, downloads, internet, gaming all lovely.8th January 2010 - Broadband cuts off - Ring virgin. All will be well tomorrow. Do some modem resets11th Jan -Broadband slow, cuts off, fluctuating speed - I’ll set it for you....wait...ok sorted. Do a reset and itwill be fixed. Offered £10 credit.13th Jan - Same issue - More resetting of modem/router...Virgin admit issue their end. Resolution date16th Jan. Offerd £15 credit.16th Jan - problem persists - Given ticket number for fault. Told resolution 21st Jan.21st Jan - advisor informs me ticket was fixed 15thJan(day before they gave me ticket number). Will beresolved 22nd Jan. New ticket number issued.21st Jan - Problem still persists - Speed fluctuating (usually 50k or so...sure they said 50mb maybe i read itwrong). Offered £30 credit.22nd Jan - Bill arrives for full price of service. Ring again. Given new resolution date of 22nd March due to‘over utilisation etc’. HEAD EXPLODES! I GO MAD...threaten to cancel. Passe dto customer relationsguy. Promises call back on Tuesday 26th Jan.26th Jan - Speak to customer relations specialist. Tells me network over utilized in area. People takingadvantage of service. I reply i’its unlimited, arent they just using what their paying for?’, NO. we will sortthem out. In the meantime im sorry. 22nd March resolution date. Gone to ‘EDGE PLANNING’ team.(SERIOUSLY!?!?! where do they go to learn to make this stuff up???) In the meantime have a nice day.Ring back in a week and we may have more information. New ticket issued.Can you ring me back i have no landline? - reply - No i won’t be here, I will try and get the guy to ring you.Currently - Looking for a different provider and then will tell Virgin to shove their 12mth contract up theirasses and cut off my Direct debit.

I am utterly astounded by the varied and colourful excuses for the terrible service. One person tells u ‘over-utilization’, the next says he shoudnt of said that its wrong.So I am now left in the position of having a shit service for minimum of 2 and half months. No streaming nodownloads, no online gaming and a skint proffesional poker playing housemate who really aint happy.

KEEP AWAY!! Terrible terrible terrible service. My old 4mb BT line kicked its asse, 3 yrs on that servicewith no problems. ( in the same town about 500 yards away)

» Story by Stuart, Loughborough on 26th January 2010

I moved into a flat in November 2009, I had no BT line and could not afford the £120 Sky/BT charge to geta line put in, So i contacted Virgin media, They gave me my installation date and i went ahead with it,I waited in allday, Nobody turned up, So i rang them loads of time and finally got through to an Englishperson, The Indian’s advice was please turn the equipment off for 2 minutes? I have told her several timesthe i have no equipment, it didnt turn up!!It finally arrives a week later? But no engineer to set it up for me? Rang them again they tell me i need toinstall it myself, Ok so i empty, The self title “box of trick’s” and the leads are about 50cms long? I rangthem wanting a longer lead, but get told it will cost me? forget it i hung up,Got it all set up and surprise it didnt work? rang them again, We need to send an engineer out to switch iton by the green box across the street, Good God, How long will this take, about 5 days, Mandeep replied,FFS was my reply.Finally i did get it working, On demand wasnt working and no program information could be displayed, Iturned it off and on several times, Had to ring them again, They send a bloke out a week later the V-boxwas faulty?Right, Thank God it all works now,Here’s the best bit, a week before Christmas i get my first bill, £169?For 10mb broadband, Phone and sports TV package,Rang them again, We charge you 2 months in advance? I complained, As a good will gesture we willdiscount you £5 off this bill?Forget it, I am getting BT put in tomorrow but am tied with Virgin for the next 10 months, I’ll see them incourt, I aint paying for this garbage, No way Pedro, I someone from Virgin who called me today.My advice is dont ever go to Virgin avoid it like the plague, Ive asked them to wxplain the bill and they cant,They are terrible, Keep away!!!!

» Story by Matt, Darlington, Co Durham. on 25th January 2010

omg,we really thought we were being clever switching to virgin for the 50 mb, we had sky and regularly got12mb for a tenner a month, we never got 50mb so dropped to 20mb we never get it and (its usually 2mb)and we pay 35 quid a month for it,also my phone never stops ringing and its never for us,and tonite wevehad three calls from people saying we rang them,and we havent touched the phone,virgin lie lie and lie


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again and then bill you for it,

stay with sky!!!!!virgin lie!!!!.

» Story by becky, castleford on 23rd January 2010

My word where do I start! I’ve always had problems from day one with Virgin media (formerly known asNTL), but desperate customer service tactics and a lack of genuine will to leave always persuaded me tostay, until now. Since November 2009 my 10mb internet has basically become worse than my old dial-up,as in my local area the Virgin server can’t cope with the demand of so many customers using it at once.During the day my internet is decent, but in the evening it dies a quick death because the local server isunable to provide a decent bandwidth. Now I have phoned Virgin TWENTY odd times regarding this sinceNovember, only for some stroppy customer agents from India to not understand what I’ve said, then to goon and annoy me further by going through pointless connection routines even though the notes on thesystem blatantly says it’s an internal Virgin media fault! But the ultimate mick take happened overChristmas, a manager promised me the issue would be fixed before the Christmas holidays as in hiswords: ‘Our Engineers are days away from solving the problem’. It’s now January the 22nd, and since thenI’ve had lie after lie from their pointless call center in India. This week I threatened to leave, then suddenlyan engineer arrived at my door with a new cable modem. I thought this was the end of my internet suffering,but alas he tested my equipment and told me what I’ve already known: It’s a Virgin media server problem inmy local area! To make matters even far worse, when he phoned his operations department, NO JOBWAS EVER RAISED for my broadband! They only started work on it today, even though I havecomplained about it from November last year! Lastly I phoned Virgin today in uncontrollable rage saying Iwant either my money back or to cut my services immediately, what happened? Yes you guessed it,another pointless call agent from India telling me six times to hold on for two minutes, only then to bepassed on to a manager called Victor who insulted me because I was shouting at him! I logged a complaintagainst him and the company, and now am in the process of looking for another provider!

» Story by Joe, London on 22nd January 2010

A letter to Branson’s acolytes:

Dear Virgin Media,It was with great regret that we first were forced to accept your broadband due to there being no B.T.telephone line in our residence – we had heard tales of the uselessness of your company’s customerservice, unexplained Internet outages and installation issues. However we swallowed our disappointmentand signed up for the advertised “XL” package for £25 per month.

We arranged delivery for the 2nd October however on the previous day we received a text messageapprising us that it was not to be delivered that week. After calling the helpline (from a mobile as of coursewe have no landline) for twenty minutes and having our first experience of the robotic Scottish woman andher stroke-inducing cheeriness after one has endured varying lengths of hold ‘music’ we were told that therewas nothing on our account to suggest delivery was delayed. Thus with bated breath we made time fromour busy lecture schedules to make sure someone was in all day to await the arrival of the package.

Needless to say, nothing arrived. Finally at 6 p.m. we were informed by another grammatically flawed textmessage that nothing was to be forthcoming that day. Delivery was rescheduled for Monday 5th. Again westayed in during the requisite hours and were pleased to have a box appear. Thinking our travails were overwe rejoiced fulvidly. However in the box was no letter informing us of our contractual obligations or theneed to “activate” our connection. Also it referred unhelpfully to our “Netgear product” when everything inthe box was prominently labelled “D-Link”. This resulted in three days of the wrong lights appearing on themodem and router; when nothing else worked we were forced to call the helpline quoted on the letter.

This was for “our friends at Netgear” and resulted in an hour on hold and then the call was dropped fromNetgear’s end. The next day we called Netgear again and was passed through numerous subcontinent callcentres until it was finally understood that we owned no Netgear product and wanted to find the Virgin helpnumber. We were put through to D-Link’s helpline, who eventually gave us the Virgin number.

After a long recuperation period, we called the Virgin number. Three times. On each occasion we enduredthe husky robotic woman’s vacuous “O.K.! Installation it is! I’ll put you through...” only to find our calldropped after ten minutes each time. We hasten to add on each occasion the call was from a mobile thathad full signal reception at the top of the house, so the fault was not at our end. We finally got through afteranother twenty minutes on Wednesday 7th and found someone who not only spoke English but informed uswe had to activate our modem, the fact of which we were totally oblivious to because of the paucity ofintroductory documentation. He was able to give us a “temporary” connection that he said would requireanother call to a different number to gain a full and permanent connection.

Pleased though we were at finding someone with a modicum of sense and ability, we made it known wewere dissatisfied with the service we had so far received. ‘Rob’ thus passed us on to Mark Martin who was


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immensely helpful, providing a welcome element of cheerfulness in the swamp of Virgin Media’s failures.

He noted down all our complaints to that point and said he would pass us through to “Quickstart” (a moreglaring misnomer we have rarely come across). He registered us, providing the administrative informationthat should have been in our package or an accompanying letter. We had until that point somehow survivedwithout an account number; account or any record on ‘the system’. He said there was a long call queue andit would take up to twenty minutes for us to be seen. He recommended to call later in the evening when theywould be less busy. We can understand why there are so many calls to this joke of a customer servicesystem, but not why it took us (after another “twenty minute” warning from robo-Scot, who by this time wasbecoming decidedly too husky for us to cope with – is there a limit on the post-coital Branson cigarettesshe can smoke?) AN HOUR AND FORTY-FIVE MINUTES to not get through. Thinking of the monstermobile bill we had to hang up.

Since it was by now 11.30 p.m. we can only imagine what personal hells others were going through on thatnight, forced to listen to the same FOUR songs down a ‘phone line whether one chose “classical”, “dance”,“indie”, “rock”, “grunge” and no option for NONE OF THE ABOVE. Is there anyone who enjoys listening to‘grunge’ on their mobile telephone for above twenty seconds? Why is there some joker at VirginHeadquarters who in some taxonomy accident decided Lady GaGa was suitable for the “classical”channel? Could we not opt for silence? Exhausted we tried again in the early morning to get some senseout of someone and finally succeeded. With surprisingly little fuss we were connected and had thisconfirmed by some tests. Unfortunately we could see no difference in our connection speed.Having paid for a 20Mb line we expected to see some drop in speed at certain times of the day or if all fiveof us in our house were online at the same time. However we were unprepared for having less than 1Mb ofdownload speed verified with numerous tests when only one of us was online at half past nine at night.

We feel it is not unjust of us to say that we should only be paying for 1/20 of our current bill if that is all thatis going to be given to just one of us, during off-peak hours. If the infrastructure cannot cope with this theservice should not be offered until certain upgrades have been made. Speeds since then have been wildlyfluctuating; one of us took half an hour to load the hotmail webpage at 8.30 a.m while at 4 a.m. there havebeen speeds upwards of 25Mb/s.

This is frankly appalling and our displeasure has been exacerbated by the baffling nature of our first billwhich says we owe £40. This includes £25 ‘advance payment’ which we were given no intimation wouldoccur. Not even in the small print of the website agreement was it made clear we would have to pay morethan the £25 per month charge for the broadband.

We are expectant of both an apology and a substantial rebate for our time, money and effort spenttelephoning numerous companies from a mobile ‘phone from which 0800 numbers are not toll-free, purelybecause of the incompetence of your staff in packing boxes; and had to acquaint ourselves with the innerworkings of the account system to make sure we had all the numbers we were entitled to. None of this wasour responsibility and it was all done so we could give your company money for a service that now seemspatchy at best. We hope this letter makes clear our displeasure with the service and ‘customer service’ wewere forced to undergo, with the notable exceptions of Mark Martin and Rob.

» Story by Sheff, Sheffield on 21st January 2010

Also having this incredibly annoying internet outages at completely random times for the past two days.Been with Virgin since the Blueyonder days bad enough they shaft old customers on their pricing schemes(I pay nearly double a new customer would in their first year for the same package) but to screw with the netaswell? god it really does take the piss.

» Story by Stefan Bancroft, Bristol on 21st January 2010

My internet connection has gone back to the old trick of going off regularly for no apparent reason. I havejust the sync light flashing on the modem. So, I unplug the modem, including the coaxial cable, leave it for30 seconds and plug it back in. Do the same with the wireless router, and reboot my laptop. Nothing. So Iphone them up, a few seconds after I give them my password the lights start flashing, EVERY TIME! Whatexactly are they doing their end to get it working - they are obviously disconnecting me for some reasonand then having to click a button to get me back online. They claim they do nothing, so it’s just coincidencethen that as soon as you get into my account it starts working again?

» Story by Damian, Nottingham on 20th January 2010

Ok started with virgin in sept 2009. was told install would be sep 10th took day off work noone turned up.prev told on 9th that this was all arranged between 8-1pm next day. sat came 1.10pm no virgin geezer. rangvirgin. “sorry sir your virgin is not due to be installed till 27th sept”...after speaking to 5 diff people managedto get £200 credit. Next decided to upgrade to VIP as was paying 95 pound for current package with lotsof boxes. Virgin said fine we can install straight upgrade. They did not explain i would need to pay anothermonth upfront again.....another complaint was made still pending no upgrade done....


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Today virgin service goes down as fault in area. 3 phone calls. first you have exceeded your credit limit“pay £40 to get reconnected” this was not poss as paid my bill...got cut off...second phone call “you haveexceeded your credit limit pay £5” got cut off next call “sorry mr rowe a fault in your area your have notbeen cut off its a fault” ok so it takes 3 phone calls to find that out and 1 hour of my life on the phone tounskilled and un knowledeable people....to say the least a third complaint will be made...virgin are acomplete joke!!!!!!!!!!

» Story by Matt, Bristol on 20th January 2010

Yep… would be quicker and less frustrating to travel to the homes of the people who have been makingwebsites (and view them on their screens) than trying to access them via Virgin broadband this week. It’sjust dire. In five years with ntl, I never had this problem. After Virgin took over, direness is the new standard.

» Story by Mike, London on 20th January 2010

Have been a loyal virgin.net account holder for 3 years and after all those months of paying through thenose for rubbish speed broadband they dont even have the decency to cancel my account. Transferred toSky on 30th OCTOBER LAST year and i’m still being charged!!!!!! I cant cancel the payment as I used mycard and cannot get into “my virgin.net” account area to stop it. The customer services people told me i’mliable for payments until line is taken over but Sky definately used the MAC code as they were able to setup my broadband (which has been fantastic btw). Virgin said they have’t used the code as when its used itautomatically cancels the account but DUH! of course Sky must have used it - I HAVE A CONNECTION!!!AAAAAGH! Sky have been fabby about the whole thing and have sent as much info as they could toforward to virgin. Still waiting for my refund though...................

» Story by Ann, Kilmarnock on 19th January 2010

virgin are shit. im on a 10mg line and most of the time get a connection of 0.5 - 1 mg.The thing is im at work full time so only get to use the internet during these “peak hours” and find this veryfrustrating. From what ive read the customer service is really bad so im not going to waste my time withthem. im seriously considering cancelling my contract, they are ripping us off!!

» Story by john, croydon on 19th January 2010

I just need to get this off my chest.

Broadband has been down all this weekend. Television service has become so bad it’s almost hystericallyfunny. No interactive Saturday or Sunday until this evening. We foolishly settled down to watch “Wallender”via the BBC iPlayer. After a VERY slow startup, we got into the programme, only to be thrown off with an “on demand currently unavailable” message after 49 minutes. So we restarted and fast forwarded to watchthe remaining 40 minutes. At 1hour 14minutes, the picture froze solid and wouldn’t respond to thecontroller. So we re-started and fast forwarded again to this point - but the bloody thing just kept fastforwarding to 1hour 18minutes, when of course, it crashed again. It’s a good job I’ve just read the book,otherwise I’d never know who the murderer was.

So - on the Virgin Media website to suggest a few improvements to the service. But guess what? Everysingle feedback screen is just a plain, blank, white space.

I’m not even going to attempt a phone call to India. That way madness lies.

I shall go the bed now and have a good cry.

» Story by John M, Northampton East on 18th January 2010

“High Utilisation”, “Rebuilding the network” the two phrases I constantly hear from the phone support and ithas been bad for quite a while.

Come the evenings or weekends (when most are at home), a 50Mb service can drop to speeds of 1-2Mbwith latency as high as 154ms!

Why do they lock us in a contract if they know full well we are in a high utilisation area? During the day theconnection is incredible and I praise the network; however the frustration that comes when the sun goesdown in unbearable.

If you live in the Surbiton/Kingston area - I would stay away from Virgin until they finally do “rebuild thenetwork”

» Story by Gareth, Surbiton, Surrey on 18th January 2010

Northampton broadband down most of Sunday 17th Jan 2010.


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Today speed very slow, unusable. Technican cannot get access to tools to see if there is a problem. Doesthat mean there’s a problem? who knows.

» Story by SJP, Northampton on 18th January 2010

Bit annoyed today - internet not worked all day - I turned modem off and left it for several housr and madeno difference. Now at 9.15pm I have internet but now my tele unit for virgin box having no effect on boxatall. no station changing and no sound adjusting also stuck on interactive !!!!!!! etting qite cross now!!!!!

» Story by Jan Healy, Northamptonshire on 17th January 2010

Completely agree with Voidy! Excact same problem, 50mb internet cuts out 10-15 times a day! Had theengineers over twice and the first one said, and i quote “I think there just was a loose cable” im not a selfproclaimed master of internet/PC but i ive been around PC my whole life and i KNOW a loose cable wasntthe problem. The other engineer was nice and told me that Virgin have major problems with their relays inCardiff. So unless they sort their shit out. Its NOT worth it.

» Story by Student, Swansea on 08th January 2010

Been checking the internet connection speeds I’m getting. When I connect, Windows messanger comes upwith a little speach bubble that tells me what I’m getting: 1.4 Mbs or whatever. It used to always state thesame speed but this changed about a year ago after the goverment said it was going to put pressure onservice providers to supply the connection speeds people were paying for.OK, so then it started coming up with faster speeds and everything looked good. But those lying Virginfuckers are pulling a fast one: press Control/Alt/Delete, click on the Networking tab and then click on theVirgin Net adaptor name at the bottom. I’ve checked mine and it doesn’t matter what connection speedVirgin boast via the speach bubble, the Network Utilisation percentage is always low enough to ensure thatthe connection speed is never more than 280 Mbs - which is unusable. Sometimes the percentage is lower,sometimes higher - but it always multiplies out to give the same, rip-off-low, connection speedThat speach bubble statement when I connect is a downright cynical lie - no doubt thought up by smugVirgin bastards having a good snigger at the thought of conning the public who they figure won’t know anybetter.

» Story by Steve, Leicester on 07th January 2010

@ Matt, Hampshire - same happened to me. After constant problems with the standard tv boxes, theyfinally agreed to send me a FREE V+ box. Then I got told I had to pay, kept being billed for it, then foundout they’d extended my contract by between 12 and 24 months (they couldn’t make up their minds which).

I complained, saying I didn’t sign anything to say I wanted a new contract, and wasn’t even advised I’d havea new contract, so I was told I wouldn’t be held to this, and that a note would be put onto the system toconfirm this. I then phoned to cancel and was told I couldn’t as I was still in contract (for 24 months). Finallythey found the note to say I wouldn’t be held to the contract and told me the guy who did this was facingserious disciplinary action as he shouldn’t have told me that, but that because I’d been told this then Iwouldn’t be held to it.

After a load more billing problems I finally spoke to someone in the Chief Executives Office who agreed tolet me out of my contract with immediate affect and no penalties (current contract isn’t actually up until theend of this month, and all this happened around October/November).

Unfortunately the maximum speed I can get on non-cable broadband around here is 2.6mb, as oppose tothe 20mb I get now, and therefore I’m kind of stuck with the rubbish service. Strange thing is I decided toget Sky Sports and Movies added to my package (I wasn’t thinking straight that day), but it didn’t doanything to my contract, I can still leave immediately if I wish, so will see how it goes over the next coupleof months. Any more problems and I’ll probably have to accept a reduction in broadband speed and goelsewhere.

This really is the problem though - with regards to broadband speeds there really isn’t anyone who cancompete with Virgin Media. If other providers could offer similar speeds (20mb+) (which I know some doadvertise this, but it’s not available in many places), then Virgin Media would have to improve theircustomer services to keep customers.

» Story by Damian, Nottingham on 02nd January 2010

Ok Ive just spoken to Virgin and now they are saying they will only wave the tv cancellation charge???. This is a joke! I have to pay £120 to cancel a joint service that isnt fully working. May I suggest to anyonereading this that they do not make any changes to their contract as it will refresh to another 12 months!(apparently) I have ask them to prove where I agreed to this new contract as I didnt sign anything and theyhave no recording of the phone call.


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Please, please do not use this provider.

» Story by Matt, Hampshire on 30th December 2009

I have just ordered SKY after Virgin failing to provide ANY tv service for another month. The funny part isi’m going to have the same Broadband speed but now with HD tv at a much lower cost. Not even sure whyI didnt do this sooner. This isn’t credit to SKY; this just goes to show what happens when a company cantprovide the basic service they offer.Oh and they are waving the cancellation cost, damn right they are :D

» Story by Matt, Hampshire on 30th December 2009

Had problems since Boxing Day with TV breaking up and Broadband cutting out .

Rang the so called help line and was fobbed off with yes they are aware of a problem and are currentlyworking on it !! Rang about 5 times now and have being offered £6 compensation so far .

Will seriously think about switching to Sky !!

» Story by Honestmarkov, Birmingham Cotteridge on 27th December 2009

yet again i have lost tv and broadband, broadband back on but the tv continues to break up. Second timethis month, and everytime it rains the phone fails. sky plus has some good offers for the tV so havechanged to them and gone to bT for broadband and fone, all done within 20 minutes on line today, skyinstalled thisd Thursday and broadban shortly after total saving £40 a month.Dont tolerate it!

» Story by Mis Sold, northfield on 27th December 2009

Been with Virgin for about a decade; joined them when they were still NTL. Their broadband (cable, notADSL) is virtually unusable. It stays connected all day - if it’s not in use. But try to use it for ANYTHING,just viewing any ordinary website, BBC News, eBay, or whatever, it will get as far as a few kilobytes andthen drop the connection with only half the page downloaded. Then you must wait a couple of minutes for itto reconnect. It has been this way for at least TWELVE (12) MONTHS!

@Stephen Buckley: I like your idea of a mass cancellation day, choose a day and organise all disgruntledcustomers to cancel their contracts on that day. Or just phone the BBC’s Watchdog; several Virginemployees have walked out, too, saying the company is completely dysfunctional. And they still advertisespeeds that they know won’t be attained and woo unsuspecting new customers with bald faced lies abouthow good their service is.

» Story by Mat, Wokingham on 23rd December 2009

Have been with virgin media for around four months now on their 10mb pacackage,all was fine until thecrash on dec 3rd, since then we can only get tv and broadband between 11am and 5pm when we loseeverything apart from telephone,151 is a waste of time...we have had two engineers out to ‘fix’ the problemonly for it to go down again around 5pm,numerous calls to customer services explaining what time it go’sdown only to be told they can only give me a 12-4 callout,what good is that to me when i have been told byboth engineers that they need to see the problem before the can sort it? I should never have leftsky....................

» Story by stacey, tipton,dudley on 22nd December 2009

just had a bill come through with £106 worth of on demand in 10 days. this is an absolute joke as we havenever even used the on demand!!!my girlfriend rang them up from her mothers house with me present(sonobody was at my house) and asked for an explaination for the bill. the reply was we will get back to you in24h? plus they said that at that present time somebody was watching alan carr on our subscription! hasanybody else had this problem?

» Story by ash, npton on 15th December 2009

I swear to god, if i reset that modem one more f****ng time im going to kill a man. My network in my houseis simple. 4 people using the internet for communications and 1 user for online gaming. noone uses P2Psoftware, noone does too much downloading. Virgin media is driving me mad.50 meg is balls… and we will be getting our money back due to a breach of contract on virgins side.Thanks virgin for wasting my time, my flat mates time, and everyone else in Swansea and other citites whoare having a horrible time trying to connect using your shite 50 meg connection. absolute w***ers.~~~Voidy~~~

» Story by Voidy, Swansea on 13th December 2009


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Hi Me and my fiance and mate moved into our flat in july 2009 we phoned virgin media up 3 days beforemoving into our new place at 1st i was going to put it in my name because my fiance had it at her old placeand they messed her around well i went threw the registration part then they see if i can get it well it tookthem 10 mins to figure out and then the person came back on the phone and said you can recieve virginmedia but you have to pay 130 deposit!!!! thats the 1st bit of bull i had then we we got it installed theenginers came out about 10.30am which is good in a way because it was ealry well anyway they lookaround the place looking for some box or wire they need to install it well what the problem was, was that thewire they needed was hanging out the wall and we live on the second floor of a block of masonettes its notthat high i could of done it myself they both come bk in and say we have a problem we need to ring ourmanager to see if its safe to climb the ladder to put the wire threw the wall i was a bit peed because wewaiting 2 weeks for it to get installed to be told we might have to wait longer because they had to climb aladder well cut the story short my fiance went outside and asked them where the wire was it was reachingdistance all they needed was a broom and someone to connect whatever they needed to put threw the walland job done but they couldn’t be botherd so they sent there area manager out who did it in 3 mins with myhelp then he had to go and get another 2 people out to finish the install what a mess!!!!

Anyway got it done we had the small package at 1st then we decided to ring up and see what otherpackages they had and we decided to go meduim yep fine be done 24 hours i then ask how much the billwill be this month the woman on the phone went 90.00 i was confused and asked why they didn’t tell us thatwe had to pay a month and a month in advance for the service plus a month for the meduim package so isaid no thats not right so i got put threw to someone else who was helpful and said they havent added the30.00 discount for being new customers still the bill is 60.00 what a load of bull

I have plenty of complaints about virgin media we might go sky once the contract runs out hope virginmedia goes out of business money grabbing bastards!!!!!.

» Story by Ashley, Shoeburyness southend on 11th December 2009

Is VM still using the old cable ? erm, i think they are,It’s defo not fiber optic lol, Erskine is behind the timesas it is, i too am paying for 20mb, but have never got over 4mb. Been and old NTL customer forover25years, and ever since VM took over, we’ve been getting nowhere. So! when will they actually do theupgrade and give us what we are paying for? Richard Brandsons doing well with our money, he’s the onebreaking contracts here, not the customers.

» Story by Molly, Erskine on 10th December 2009

Inconstant broadband service delivering far below expectations, seems to be affecting a lot of users rightnow due to high “utilisation”. Called and was lied to by the staff claiming “no problems at virgins end” Calledagain a few days later to be told it was a fault at their end and a fix wasn’t expected until the other side ofChristmas. Luckily been with them for over a year so I’ve given my 30 days notice and moving to sky.

I can accept problems, but not being lied to!

This is only the most recent chapter in my virgin bad memories book, promised engineers not turning upetc etc

I will discourage anyone from using a Virgin Media service for years to come!

» Story by Reza, Plymouth on 09th December 2009

Feed up with no phone,is it a miracle to provide one in these modern times.No phone since 3/12/09

» Story by steve, solihull on 09th December 2009

I am getting fed up with paying £37 for 20mb broadband but when i do bandwidth test i am only getting upto5mb i think they are conning us all i have never had 20mb. I think they are **** i have to get rid of them.

» Story by Me, Somwhere in Britain on 06th December 2009

Hi, Before i start sorry about the spelling mistakes from earlier. Any way we have just had the tecy turn upand by amazement he has fixed the issues. After checking the box he discovered that the cable which waschanged was wired up back to front so the signal wasn’t getting through. He has fixed this and we now haveall our channels and our broad band speed has doubled. So we are back to normal for abit, however imsure it will break down quite soon.

» Story by simon radnedge, Bristol on 06th December 2009

Its been weeks since we lost over half our channels. Today i sit in wait for yet another tec who proberlywont do anything just like the one last week. He told me that we need a new cable however when i told him


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we had a new cable just a couple of months ago he started to argue saying no we didn’t. It didn’t seem tomatter to hm that i was presant when the cable was laid he insisted that we have a new cable. He couldn’tdo it as it wasn’t his job, so he told me that he would arrange everything. I went away on bisness on Fridayto find it had noot been done. I phoned the customer service number agian wiated for 50 mins until theyanswered to find out that the tec guy had informed them that he had fixed our problem by changing the cardwhich he did not. Yet agian the arguement started because the virgin person insisted that he did. The techad not bothered to inform them of the cable.

» Story by simon radnedge, Bristol on 06th December 2009

fed up with virgin bband as i keep losing my virgin home page… it keeps saying bad error. whenever i clickon a seperate virgin site to try and fix the problem, this also gives out the bad error message.have phoned them several times and only once did someone solve it. now i phone and if i can understandthe “assistance” they tell me its another local problem and an engineer will fix it within a few days.........rubbish!!!I want another supplier that will give me free landline calls, broadband and digi tv for £60 or less. any ideasfolks

» Story by shaun, swindon on 04th December 2009

Well here we go again 4/12/09 at 11.37. At 11.15 we have lost our vigin tv again. This is not good enoughonly been with virgin 2 months after switching from BT I am begining to wonder if I made the right choice

» Story by ruthlou, solihull on 04th December 2009

I finally got through to Customer support this afternoon and they told me that many people have no powerwhatsoever to their digi boxes and they dont know why.. Technician needs to see the box and first chanceis Monday 7th !!

» Story by LT, Walsall on 03rd December 2009

Just got through to the 151 tech support number and was told anybody in Birmingham, London, Midlandsand anyone with a TS postcode; they have identified the fault, their engineers are working on the problemnow and usual service should be resumed by 8pm tonight, 03/12.

On the other side of the coin though, my mate (from Acocks Green) phoned them up this morning and theytold him then that service would be restored by Midday!

I’ve always been pleased with the service I’ve received from Virgin (Been a customer for 12 months+ now)but this is really starting to grate. Same problems yesterday and it took them over 3 hours just to get arecorded message on the helpline to inform that they were aware of the problem. Scoured the virginmediawebsite too and not one iota of information. Incredibly poor customer service.

Give me my money back Branson!

» Story by Phat Harris, Selly Oak, B'ham on 03rd December 2009

I hear you all!! Their customer service is the worst I have ever experienced, they cannot continue to act likethis surely??? Poor technical service, insulting customer service, but happy enough to take your money andlaugh!!!

SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!!!!

» Story by Jeff, Cheshire on 03rd December 2009

Picture froze 2nd Dec around 5.30pm, then a few channels available. Couple hours later no channels andthen all power went out on digi box.Cant access service status on VM site as there is a fault!Tried ringing but unusual high volume of calls and taking approx 20 mins to answer so have e mailed.Anyone else lost all power to the digi box ?

» Story by LT, Walsall on 03rd December 2009

Virgin Media Broadband went down at approx 5.45pm. Tried to call the help line but it was impossible asthey were extremely busy. The upshot is that at 8.45 3rd December 2009 we are still without our virginmedia broadband therefore have no TV. Could someone confirm what the fault is and when the problem will be rectified.

» Story by Mr & Mrs T Helm, Kings Heath, birmingham on 03rd December 2009


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Looks as though it’s a midlands problem, although my internet is still on.Last time I remember this happening, they adjusted the bill for each day it was down. Hardly compensationthough is it ?‘’We’re not charging you for the service you haven’t received’’

» Story by George, Brum on 03rd December 2009

my tv only is off but my mom has lost tv n internet since yesterday n cant get thru to virgin at all

» Story by sue, bham on 03rd December 2009

Moved to virgin from sky on promise of fast broadband and better TV package. Bugger me, why did Ibother. Only had the bloody set up for a month and am on first name terms with half the call center staff.Iceing on the cake last night. No TV all night. Trying to work from home this morning. No TV still and nowno phone or broadband either. Had to come into office. Worst of all, no information from Virgin. I amrunning back to sky as fast as I can.

Virgin. What a bunch a cowboys…

» Story by Tez, Birmingham on 03rd December 2009

No TV in Wolves either, went off last night, still not working.

» Story by J, Wolverhampton on 03rd December 2009

My virgin has been off since yesterday and the problem has not been resolved, that’s both the tv andinternet. Everytime I phone they say they have a technician in the area but have yet to see him as I liveopposite the exchabge box.

» Story by T, Middlesbrough on 02nd December 2009

i also have no tv service today. will be contacting virgin as soon as they want to take calls again and nothave a high volume of calls and asking for compensation. when i have had sevice down in the past theyhave refunded me for the time i was without service.

» Story by Jenny, Birmingham on 02nd December 2009

I must admit this is the first time I’ve had problems with Virgin tonight (02.12.09) totally no channels at all. Iwas hoping to watch the football tonight.... How come there is no mention @ Virgin media & when you callthem there’s a recordered message. I hope we get compensation but I bet we won’t.Maybe it’s time for SKY HD?

» Story by Jack The Biscuit, Birmingham on 02nd December 2009

We must all decide as a nation whether to allow this company to keep messing us about like this. Cant getservice tonight, try to call and told by recording that there is a high demand so call back later( now theres asuprise ). Web site gives no apology or info about the outage. Poor communication skills of the customerservice reps on the phone.The goverment must now step in and sort this poor excuse for a company out. Richard branson needs tohang his head in shame and sort his house out, but guess what, he dont care, he has got your money andthe monopoly on the media scene. He is making a mockery of us all who subscribe to his service. Pleasebbc watchdog do a feature on virginmedia, there are many of us who can tell you our horror stories, itwould make good television ( provided they have sorted the problems out ).So people the answer is Email watchdog at the BBC and let them know, we have nothing to lose and ifenough of us do it, then who knows Mr Branson may take a broom to his house, sweep it clean and blowaway the crud thats affecting us.

» Story by Anon, dudley on 02nd December 2009

Final update (I hope) on my most recent issues with Virgin Media.

This issue has now been resolved after an admin from an internet forum sent my details through tosomeone in the Chief Executives Office at Virgin Media. I got a call the next day from someone quitesenior, who at first argued that I did owe the money, but finally admitted defeat due to them being unable toprovide the information to show I owed the money. I’ve now got written confirmation that the (noneexistent) outstanding amounts from 2005/06 have now been cleared from the system, and I will no longerbe chased for them.

It took longer than it should have done to resolve the issues, which should never have arisen in the first


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place. but at least they’ve done the right thing in the end.

» Story by Damian, Nottingham on 30th November 2009

A warning to those who have Cable systems form Virgin, Their telephone calls are easily monitored byradio within a half mile radius.Any crook who wants to can monitor and record conversations , and therby obtain credit card details whengoods are being odred by phone, also any holiday arrangements will inform crooks when properties areunattended!!!

BE WARNED

» Story by Dave, Hayling Island on 27th November 2009

Im a keen Halo 3 player and i rely on my connection to make sure i dont get BS’d all the time. Now recentlyi have been dropping red bar (which means that i cant connect to people or my connection is failing) and icant play what so ever for like 5 mins in a game :(

Then i ring them and they are all tools they say everything i already know. i really do hate virgin media witha passion

» Story by Stephen, Newcastle on 26th November 2009

Having billing problems with Virgin - complain to BBC Watchdog here --> http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog. I’ve just sent a complaint regarding my ongoing billing issues, the more the merrier.

» Story by Damian, Nottingham on 22nd November 2009

I had been with diamond cable then ntl and finally Virgin (Shite) Media.

I consider myself a loyal customer until I rung up one day like a twat, for a simple request ‘enable callerdisplay’, then was talked into upgrading my broadband as well. At no point did they tell you you’re locked infor another year contract.

Shortly after my phone line became terrible and was hardly able to hear anything. Engineer came out totallyuninterested “might be bit of damp in the cable” then said “don’t use the phone in the rain and if you ring upfor another callout you will be charged”, said engineer then pissed off without doing anything apart fromwiggle the outside box about.Absolute bollocks, so now wanting to leave I found myself stuck with a shitty company I no longer wantedto be with.

Virgin DONT look after existing customers, not bothering to upgrade equipment as the years go by(old NTlkit),quite happy taking your £60 month. Well finally my contract ran out and I was chomping at the bit toleave and I did.Went to Bt for land line and got half price broadband with O2 as I use their mobile, TV I went for a humax9300 freeview tuner, a fantastic bit of kit. So am now paying £21 month rather than £60 month with virginfor a truly shite service.Ah I feel better now thanks for listening J

P.s

AVOID VIRGIN MEDIA

» Story by Richard, UK on 22nd November 2009

Biggest pile of shite I’ve ever subscribed to. Funnily enough, made worse because the company I work forpays my BB connection which for too long made me too lazy to get angry enough to change to someoneelse.But change I will because the connection is so crap it barely works anymore. And it gets worse and worsewith each passing month. Constantly dropping connections (in fact I’m going to have to copy this textbefore posting, because the bastard connection will probably drop out as I post and lose what I’ve written)and a speed that is now unusable for any normal internet use.Virgin’s BB has made me associate the virgin name with crap. If there was a Virgin toilet paper out there Imight use it because shite is what I associate with the name Virgin.I’ll now avoid everything Virgin and tell everyone I know to do the same. If they can pass off this shit as aBB service then who knows what the state of their trains’ and planes’ maintenance must be, As a companythey obviously have no quality control or audit process.I’m definitely not short of money so I didn’t sign up to Virgin to get the cheapest; I just thought they mightbe the most straightforward and honest. Well, looks like I was wrong!My advice to anyone considering anything with the Virgin name on it is don’t go anywhere near it. The


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owner seems to have no interest in how he makes his money and whether or not he makes it honestly. Hejust wants to spend it on adventure stunts. What a pity Steve Fosset’s final flight had an empty spare seat.His good friend Richard should’ve been with him.

» Story by Dave, Leicester on 21st November 2009

I know some people have said they cannot get out of contracts. I would say if you want ,then keep goodrecords of the problems, dates times etc and then terminate by formal letter ,alleging that they havebreached their side of the contract. I doubt they could win in court if you have good cause and goodevidence that they failed to fulfil their side of contract.

» Story by Kia, Woking, Surrey on 19th November 2009

Ive been using VirginMedia cable internet (10mb) and phone for around 7 months now and am mostlyhappy ,excepting that on occassions they have had outages of the phone a few times only the internet. The problem I had with them in the beginning was some foreign call centre sales person selling me thepackage at extremely good price and then I was getting billed for a higher rate, Eventually I got that back. Now I pay £28 a month for 10mb Internet, phone and free national and local calls 24/7 . Not bad really.Score out of 10 I would say maybe an 7 or 8.

» Story by Kia, Woking, Surrey on 19th November 2009

Another update to my issues.

I sent an email to Virgin Media a couple of days ago asking why they keep trying to extort money out of methat they are not owed. I got a phone call today from a guy at Virgin Media to talk to me about it.

He insists the cost of the V+ box has now been properly credited back to me, so I won’t be billed for itagain. I won’t hold my breath. I asked him if I could get out of my contract before January, he said Icouldn’t. I therefore told him I’ll be leaving at the end of January to go to Sky. He then asked whether it wasjust due to the billing issues, to which I responded with a list of issues going back to when I joined them.

One of these issues was that in 2008, they set debt collectors on me for an outstanding balance at myprevious address from 2005. However, I cleared this balance in November 2005 so that I could get theservices installed at my new address (they actually cancelled the engineer due to the outstanding balance,but didn’t tell me). I paid it, and got it installed. All sorted, or so I thought.

After a few arguments over this balance, I told them if they kept chasing me for it then I’d cancel all mycurrent services. That was the last I heard of it, until today. When I mentioned this issue to the guy whophoned me, he investigated and called me back to say it is still outstanding and I have to pay. However,they can’t provide bills from that time, and have only given me a basic list of payments due and paymentsmade, and an itemised list of a few calls. The payments made to not match my bank statements, whichshow I’ve paid a lot more than they claim.

Come January I’ll be off to Sky. This guy was trying to get me to stay after this - insisting I pay £100 from2005 is hardly a good way of doing this!! Epic fail on his part.


I have had it with Virgin. We are constantly having problems with loss of broadband and phone. The latestproblem is no tv for over a week. And are they bothered ? no not a bit. I have rung everyday for the lastweek, and they say it will be up again within four hours. All they are willing to refund is £10 out of mysubscription which is for XL . I cant take anymore of this and am off to a different company, but to addinsult to injury, it will cost me £90 for the pleasure of leaving Virgin. Customer service is appalling, and Iintend to make it widely known that Virgin Media sucks

» Story by Yellowpenguin, Surrey on 18th November 2009

Just to leave an update on my previous bitch about Virgin, the tech who promised to call me with anupdate, didn’t. Surprise, surprise. However, he did fix the problem, or so we thought for the one day we hadVirgin broadband.

I called again the following day after speaking to Virgin the last time I described. They had me configure therouter (very complicated and time consuming) and to my joy and relief, we finally had broadband!

Only it was slow and intermittent. My husband kept getting booted off of World of Warcraft due to a dip inconnection and his character died several times due to lag (if you’re a gamer, or know a gamer, you willknow that this is like the worst thing that can happen to them). We knew that we were not getting 50mgbroadband. In fact the free broadband that we were getting from Sky was actually faster and more reliable!(although our Sky broadband cuts off when someone calls us or we call someone, but that’s a separate


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issue).

It is now the 18th of November and I wasted another 20 mins of my life on the phone to Virgin this morningonly for them to hang up on me. My husband came home from work this evening and decided that hewould give them a ring. He too spent 20 mins listening to the same three songs over and over again onlyfor the phone to go dead as the people at Virgin terminated the call. He was very irate after this andphoned again with the intention of telling Virgin where they could shove their broadband service. He gotthrough to someone eventually who, after asking him to look at the lights on the router, said he couldn’tbelieve that someone hadn’t previously noticed that the router was not giving out a broadband signal.

Apparently they can tell if your router is not working from their end, if someone had bothered to look. Theypromise to send out a new router within the next 3-5 days. (again, I won’t hold my breath). Only time will tellif this will fix the problem forever or we will again be on the phone to the dreaded Virgin Media customerservices in the near future.

» Story by Adele, Andover, Hampshire on 18th November 2009

As an update to my previous post in September, I got so fed up with the TV box not working I finallymanaged to talk them into giving me a “free” V+ box and installation by threatening to cancel all myservices (I’m on XL for everything, so pay them a lot of money). They installed it, everything seemed finefor a change.

Then a couple of weeks later I get a letter detailing charges for the box. I phoned and complained, and theyinsisted I wouldn’t be charged, it was just a standard letter.

Then I got my bill, including a charge for the V+ box. I complained again, and they removed the chargefrom the bill.

I then got a letter welcoming me to the extended 12 month contract. I didn’t sign any contract, or agree toany contract, and wasn’t advised of a new contract. Complained yet again, and got a note put on thesystem to say I should not be held to the extended 12 months.

£69 went out of my account by direct debit as usual on 2nd November. All seemed great, until this morningI get my next bill. £134, including £59 carried over from last month, plus a £10 late payment fee. But thedirect debit went out on time? What’s this late payment fee?

I’ve just cancelled my direct debit to stop them extorting any more money out of me, and have emailedthem to advise them of this and request that they reduce all of my services to the lowest packages withimmediate affect.

Tomorrow I’ll be speaking to a supervisor to get my current bill completely written off as compensation fortheir incompetence, and to have a note put on my account to say that I will not be held to my currentcontract that runs until January. I’ll then be contacting Sky to accept their very competitive offer (not muchmore than VM, but with many more channels), and will then be cancelling my VM services from the datethat Sky install.

I’ll also be contacting BBC Watchdog and all the newspapers.


It’s Saturday today, and my Virgin Pace box went off on Thursday, I have not had the time to sort it outuntil today. So today after calling them a lot of times, I finally got through to someone who was less thanhelpful and told me they would send someone out on Wednesday. I was in absolute dis-belief.‘Wednesday!?!?!?’ I said. Unbelieveable. Not only that, but I’m going on holiday on Wednesday, so I can’teven have them come that day, so they’re coming next sunday. And I’m only getting 4 dayscompensation!!! A disgrace!

» Story by Rachael, Newcastle on 14th November 2009

Have tried twice online via Virgin Media and twice on the phone but still no delivery of the router. They haveacknowledged the order online and customer services promised to resolve the issue. Its not like im notpaying for the bloody thing - what is wrong with the company . I suppose i will take custom elsewhere.

» Story by Steve, bristol on 13th November 2009

Very simple....I am in credit with my account.....but cannot connect to the internet.....I find out 15 calls, over3 hours of total hold time & 5 weeks later that there is a problem with my wireless network which they didn’tbother to tell me! It took me to have to complain 4 times for me to eventually get through to someoneenglish who basically said “sorry Mr.Flanagan, it’s our fault, you’re part of a select number of people whowe are trying to fix, it will take a further 10 working days to fix”


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& I’m paying them £15 & mobile phone fees for this? insane

» Story by Jason Flanagan, York on 12th November 2009

I am currently trying to get virgin internet, I asked for it on the 5th September 2009, today its 11thNovember 2009. I first went to a sales person at my university and they said I could get internet using mytelephone line, to change the phone line would take one week and the internet would be up a week after thephone lines swapped over. But still I have no internet. Firstly we got a letter saying the internet will beactivated on the 28th October and we should get the router delivered to us around this time. The 28thOctober came and went with yet no router (no surprise here). Me and my flatmate have currently taken 2days off work to wait around for a router which hasn’t turned up. We have been phoning and phoning them,asking why it hasn’t turned up. Many people at the help centres have no clue what is going on and you gettransferred to many different departments. Basically we found out that they couldn’t find our flat (eventhough its in the centre of a town). Oh and they didn’t have our number so they couldn’t phone us fordirections, even though we keep giving out our damn mobile numbers to every person we phone. And evenone of them told us he couldn’t give the delivery people our number due to data protection act! Finally therouter came on Monday (9/11/09) and the delivery man said I found the flat fine. Ok so now technically theinternet should work. WRONG. They somehow in the last week have turned off our phone line and theysaid they would fix it within a week. So last night (10/11/09) we found out it had been fixed (pretty quickley!)We were all excited, plugged everything in and yet still the laptop does not find the internet...2hours later onthe phone to them (yet another evening wasted) and finally establishing turning the router on and off doesn’tmake it work, they are going to do “intrusive checks” on the phone line and it should be working within aweek. I won’t hold my breath…

» Story by Liz Dodd, London on 11th November 2009

Virgin Media charged me £20 to install their 50mg service and an engineer was supposed to come out tome on the 29th of October. At 8pm the evening before, a lady from Virgin called me and said they were atof 50 mg routers and she cancelled my installation. She promised that someone would call me with in theweek to rebook the installation.

After a week I heard nothing so I called them. Wait times to speak to an adviser were always 20 mins orover so I decided to e-mail them through their website which stated that e-mails would be responded towithin 48 hours. Three days after sending the first e-mail I sent another one telling them that their 48 hourswas long since up and I wanted a response. They e-mailed back saying that they didn’t know who I wasand couldn’t help me. (I included my name and complete address but no account number as I hadn’treceived one at that point)

I decided to call despite calls being charged at 6.85 pence a minute. I finally got through to someone andhe told me I had cancelled my installation, I said I had done no such thing and I had already paid for it sowhy would I cancel it? He eventually apologised and arranged for Virgin to be installed on the 5/11/09.

They came, they installed. Only it doesn’t work. My husband spent the whole of Saturday on the phone tothem and great expense to our phone bill. My husband is a computer geek and so got quickly frustratedwith the Indian call centre people telling him to switch the router on and off for the 100th time, like he hadn’ttried that!

The 50 mg broadband team on his 3rd call revealed that this was a known problem with them sending dataout to the exchange. They said they would call back with an update. They never did. He called again. Thistime he tried to tell them about what the technician beforehand told him. They wouldn’t listen. They wantedhim to try turning it off and on again. He was fuming!

Today 10/11/09 I called them. After being hung up on once and having a 25 minute wait, I got through to aperson who could not help me because she does not deal with the 50 mg service. She put me on hold foranother 5 minutes until a member of the 50 mg team answered.

He was very apologetic, apparently the same problem still exists and has not been fixed. He promises tolook into it and call me back, some how I doubt I shall be holding my breathe!!

All in all a very poor service.

» Story by Adele, Andover, Hampshire on 10th November 2009

Some basic research into Virgin Media reveals that they seem to have bigger things to worry about thanthousands of disgruntled customers complaining on a few websites. Check out the ‘controversy’ section inthe Virgin Media Wikipedia entry for starters. That page will also show you that Richard Branson in only ashareholder in Virgin Media - he does not own the company. I have to question his integrity when he rentsout his Virgin brand on a 30-year deal and then does nothing when that brand is so badly tarnished, andthoughts like this make me personally want to boycott ALL Virgin branded products in protest.

Complaining here will help you let of steam, but don’t be under the illusion that the big cheeses of Virgin


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Name:

Location:

Media read this page and immediately set into motion grand schemes to resolve our issues. They don’t,and they couldn’t care less.

The only way YOU are going to get any satisfaction is to immediately cancel your Virgin Media accountsand decide to NEVER deal with this company again. This company is charging us all for services they donot provide, and do not listen to us when we complain.

Let’s bring this company down.Let’s do it the simple way - by having nothing to do with it. Tell your friends about the problems you’ve had. Spread the word.Let their poor service be the very thing that destroys them.

» Story by Steve Roach, Worcester on 09th November 2009

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