Kafkaesque customer service

[SquidwardBound]

I have been trying to cancel my broadband for more than a month now. I appear to be caught in some sort of kafkaesque WhatsApp conversation with bloody Virgin Media. So I’m going to have a rant.

Feel free to tell me your stories of absolutely shite customer service. I wonder if there is a company who are even worse to deal with than this.

It’s going to be an essay… but let’s detail the process I’ve been through so far.

28 February

• Call virgin media. Faff through various menus etc to be told they’re oh so busy but I can use the WhatsApp service instead. Foolishly I think this will be better than just being on hold for an indefinite amount of time.
• The WhatsApp service starts with a chatbot. I should have known it was going to be a nightmare when it asked me my first name twice in 5 minutes.
• I navigate through some multiple choice menus culminating in me selecting option 4 ‘cancel my services’. The bot tells me I’ll be transferred to an agent.
• but wait… no. It needs me to give some more information. Including clarifying again that I am cancelling my broadband. I’d selected the broadband option a whole two minutes before this.
• The bot then asks me for various details of the new provider and deal etc. I answer the questions as requested.
• Then the bot asks me for details of my account. Loads of them. Including last bill amount. Date of direct debit.
• The big recaps all of the above in one handy summary. Then says it’s transferring me to an agent. Wonderful.
• Alas no though. They’re very busy but doing their best …

Stay tuned for the next instalment in SquidwardBound repeats the same information again and again and gets no closer to cancelling her broadband.

The level of detail above is important because, as you shall learn, i wi be asked for such information many, many times.

Not my experience - rang up, went through the options, spoke to someone (couldn’t remember my password so answered security questions) cancelled service - was offered a deal with chose to decline.
Sorted - 15 mins from start to finish.
Needed to extend the service by a week - did the same as above, sorted again really quickly.

Relevant to this is also that the virgin media broadband was dire. Even with mesh pods I couldn’t get it to cover the whole house. And the internet would just drop or stop working regularly in the middle of teams calls.

It wasn’t a really basic package. And when the deal ended they wants to charge over £60 a month for that.

My new internet is faster and more reliable. So that’s good news.

I’m glad it was better for you.

I was in a meeting during all this nonsense today about AI stuff.

I have concluded that it’s not improving the customer experience.

Three mobile phones! It was in my exes name but I paid the bill could I transfer it to my name? No! OK can I cancel it then? No! OK so I'm cancelling my direct debit then oh no you can't do that we will send debt collectors to your house...why? Its not my account not my phone not my phone number NOT MY PROBLEM and cancelled sent the phone to my exes house after wiping it he can deal with it

Oh God, Virgin Media. Tried to leave them about 15 yes ago when moving out of a rental flat. All over the phone at that point, seemed OK, gave notice for 2 days before moving out. They didn't show up on that day to pick up the equipment although I was in all day. Phoned them about an hour before they closed to be told I wasn't on their list of pickups, they were really sorry, could they come the next day. Agreed to that. Still no Virgin Media the next day to pick up. Called them 2 hrs before close this time. Same routine, not on the list, they don't know why. Could they come on Monday instead. I told them that was impossible as I was moving out at 12pm the next day. Then they asked if I could take the equipment to my next address so they could collect from there instead! By this time I'd had absolutely enough so told them this was not happening and it would be left on the doorstep if they hadn't collected it by the time I moved out. Amazingly they showed up by 9-30am the next day. Never gone anywhere near them since, and never will again.

I wonder if they let your ex cancel it?

Not that you should care. More curiosity than anything else. I bet he didn’t know the key details they need to verify security - like how much the bills were or when the payments were made.

Amazingly they showed up by 9-30am the next day. Never gone anywhere near them since, and never will again.

it’s remarkable really isn’t it? Goes from impossible to absolutely possible somehow.

I certainly won’t be using VM again.

I mean they’ll probably put me on a list of stroppy buggers they’ve blacklisted or something now. 🤣

I once called TV licencing to cancel my elderly relative's free TV licence after her death. Despite explaining the situation very clearly I was told by 3 separate customer service people that they would need to speak to the account holder. Each time when I reminded them that I had just told them that the account holder was dead they said they'd need to transfer me to their manager. I had a very surreal conversation with the 3rd person I spoke to, where he indicated that I could have saved us all some time by simply pretending to be my relative but didn't seem to understand that reporting my own death a few days ago might have given the game away. The 4th person I spoke to did seem to understand but said she'd need to look in to the matter and call me back. It would have been more understandable if I was asking something highly unusual but I would imagine that most free TV licences for the elderly this way, so you'd imagine that the customer service manual would cover how to deal with it.

Virgin media are the absolute worst. I won’t go near them at all now after a similar experience.
I think companies should be fined for having customers on hold for more than 10 mins. No one has time for this sort of thing.
If they can’t respond to you in that time - then they have overreached themselves and need to staff themselves better.

Back in 2013 I was simultaneously engaged in a prolonged game of phone tennis with both BT and Nationwide Home Insurance.

BT were supposed to be coming to install internet in the (rented) flat we'd just moved into, but for some reason they couldn't find us on the system. I can't remember the entire back and forth, but it was eventually resolved by my registering the postcode of the property we were renting with Royal Mail (in fairness it was probably an illegal conversion which would explain why it wasn't in the system), at which point BT were magically able to find it.

I'd cancelled our home insurance policy with Nationwide when we'd moved in 2012 (moving every twelve months is all part of the fun of living in London in your early twenties) and subsequently started a new one, which I now wanted to transfer to the flat we'd moved into. It transpired that rather than cancelling the old policy, it had continued to run, so we'd actually been paying two home insurance policies for a year, only one of which was for the property we'd been living in.

Both situations were eventually resolved but I still break out in a cold sweat when I think of the hours I spent on the phone repeating the same details over and over again.

I make DH do all the house admin now 😬

I feel your pain OP. I had the devils own job trying to cancel with Virgin Media (we’d never actually managed to connect - house move and router they sent wouldn’t work and then couldn’t get through to anyone who would help so organised another broadband provider)

Spent hours and hours on the phone trying to cancel without success and ended up sending cancellation letter by post to the address detailed in their terms and conditions. They obviously then had no record of receiving this so referred my case to their debt collectors. Fortunately I had proof the cancellation letter was sent in accordance with their T & C’s but I had to complain to independent ombudsman to get it resolved (I’d made three complaints to Virgin Media by that point all of which were ignored) . I ultimately got £300 compensation from them. Awful organisation- would have nothing further to do with them ever
again.

It’s actually quite alarming that the system isn’t designed on the assumption that bereaved relatives will need to cancel the license. It’s really quite inhumane.

@itssquidstella definitely making it your DH’s responsibility was a good idea! Sounds awful.

This process has tried to offer me a different deal 5 times so far. Even responding with ‘I don’t want a different deal. I do not want to be a virgin media customer any longer’ deters the poor customer service advisor who is forced to stick to the absurd script.

I’m hoping that just using the complaints process might get me somewhere. I just can’t face trying to navigate through this crap any longer! There is not enough wine in the world for that.

I do feel really sorry for the advisors. It’s a really badly designed service and that is not their fault. They’re stuck trying to mitigate it and dealing with frustrated customers all day. That cannot be any fun.

Don't do this! I thought this would solve everything, but they just send invoices and refuse to talk on the phone as they've made up the requirement that you fill in a form to talk to them if you don't have a DD anymore.

I’ve put it in writing as part of their complaints process. I also have the WhatsApp transcripts which show me telling them repeatedly that I would like to cancel my broadband services - and they have acknowledged that I want to do so. It’s very clear that it’s only their absurd processes that mean they haven’t done it.

Talktalk made me rage so much I almost exploded. They were the worst ever.

Yes. This was quite a few years ago so I'd like to think it's been changed (or perhaps I was just unlucky enough to get all the worst assistants) but I can imagine that if it had been my spouse or parent who had just passed it would have been really upsetting to have to keep repeating 'but she's dead'.

It must have been. It’s terrible you had to deal with that.

My experience of TV licensing is generally dismal too. I haven’t had a TV license for about a decade. I simply don’t need one. Nonetheless, even complying with the demand that I declare my not requiring one to TV licensing, I still find that I get threatening letters about it.

Fairly recently, that included them writing to me claiming they believed I might have moved house (why? I have no idea) and threatening to visit to check up
on me unless I submitted another declaration. Just ridiculous. The letters they send are really unpleasant in tone and very clearly designed to scare people into buying an unnecessary TV license just so they don’t have to deal with this crap.