Virgin Media made me howl and cry down the phone

[AnyoneRememberMooncat]

Last weekend I spent 50 mins on the phone to renegotiate my contract which was coming to an end. I ended up agreeing to a telephone package I didn't really want (which I think the agent would get comission on) as it was the best price to get my broadband.

The next day I phoned up and spent another 50 minutes to cancel the package. The new agent put alot of pressure on me to sign up to something else I didn't want but I said no. I got a cancellation number to ensure the telephone contact was not going through.

I was so stressed out that I went into my virgin media account and was seriously thinking about leaving them because of the awful service. It takes ages to speak to anyone and when you do they are foreign so difficult to understand. Then they put you under huge pressure to sign up to something 'new' so they get commission and say you can't sign up to the same thing you already have.

In my virgin media account - I was offered a deal to stay on my same service at the same price. Great. Signed up to this. Got contract by email. Job done. Honestly felt ill at all the stress to basically keep the same service at the same price.

Today got phone adaptors through post and though WTF.

Went into my virgin media account which last weekend was showing the new contract I took out myself for broadband only at £29 per month.
Now my account is showing the telephone package the first agent 'sold' me.

Tried to call them - wait time horrific.
Tried to webchat them - wait time 57 minutes
In desperation phoned the I am moving house number and got through to someone british. I lied and said I was moving house (to my mums house which I have inherited) so I could get away from Virgin. I figured it was easier to do this and just go with someone else.

The man was nice and helpful (and british) and said all I had to do was give them proof of my new address to show I was moving there. At this point I burst into tears and howled down the phone. I admitted to lying and explained why.

I had a flashback to the movie 'The Firm' where Tom Cruise joins a law firm for a great job at a great package and then realised nobody is allowed to leave the firm alive.

Anyway the helpful moving house dept man has contacted IT to get everything sorted (hopefully) and has given me his ID number so I can refer to the phone call we had.

VIRGIN MEDIA - YOU ARE A FUCKING DISGRACE! (Helpful man James not counted in this)

One that speaks clear English, the same as if I was in Spain and would expect clear Spanish.

I wish even clear speakers would slow down a bit, it's not a race

What's the point of being in Customer Service if you can't help the customer?

I managed to cancel my virgin media contract last year… they tried to keep us, obviously. I told them they literally couldn’t pay me to remain their customer 😂

I wont say who I worked for but this is all very familiar. I left eventually in disgust. The amount of work the bean counters tried to pass over to India and the Phippines and any country where labour was cheap was truly shocking. It was done for one reason. MONEY…

Customers hated it. The cultural differences and quite frankly the complicated contracts which were horribly complex. It was a perfect storm.

When I left virgin media, they just put the account in my dads name and he was unwittingly paying for it ( he had his own account)

I took them to the ombudsman and they said they couldn’t talk about the account with me as I wasn’t the account holder. I’d informed them a few months previous that he was dead. The ombudsman agreed with me that’s he was dead GDPR didn’t count and I got all the money back

I don’t yet have this issue but completely understand. I know what the other poster is implying but it’s incorrect.

They really are a useless company . I kept getting monthly texts telling me what my mobile bill was except it wasn’t my bill as I’ve never been with virgin and have had my mobile number since mobiles were available . I tried to stop them online - got nowhere , phoned them and was told they had no idea who’s bill it was and unless I could tell them the number it was supposed to go to they couldn’t stop it happening .

Your examples are perfectly reasonable to be annoyed by and something you'd expect to be trained to the days staff

I left Virgin Media. Phoned and told them we had found an alternative provider and gave the 30 day notice. I asked to port my home phone number over to the new provider, because it's the one number my very elderly mum knows by heart.

For a different unrelated reason I got a new bank card a few months later. Then i had a bill from Virgin. I thought that maybe it was an end of service clear up/adjustment and paid it and thought no more.

Fast forward 2 months and I get threatening letters from Virgin about outstanding fees owing and how I will be cut off.

Long story short, there was a delay in porting my phone number and when it was eventually ported, the engineer who did it somehow restarted my entire contract for broadband and tv - without my permission, consent or knowledge. They then took the money every month until my card was cancelled, whereupon they sent me a bill which I paid, then 2 others which I didn't pay and then started threatening me.

I took hours sorting all this out and eventually got a written apology and refund, plus they cancelled my "new" contract which I had known nothing about.

Then - the horror - they started hassling me to return the kit that I didn't have, from the contract I knew nothing about that they never sent kit out to me for. They billed me 40 quid and sent more threats.

All in all I think I spent the equivalent of 3 or 4 working days on the phone to various departments trying to sort their mess out.

I would rather live the rest of my life with no home broadband than ever deal with Virgin media again.

One big problem with Virgin is that they have a captive audience in many areas, where their own fibre network is the only realistic option - although OpenReach have caught up massively in loads of places now.

Our ISP is a small one, with two offices in Bracknell and Abergavenny. If you call them, it's answered in a few rings by a knowledgeable native English speaker (in the UK) who can, will and WANTS to help you. They have no scripts or time limits and are paid good wages without having targets or commission.

If you want to leave them, you can find the necessary info on their front page - and if you call or email requesting to leave, they will cease your service for you straightaway with no drama or hard-sell.

If you look at the top ten rated and reviewed broadband providers on ISP Review, you won't find any of the big boys at all. Minnows with a tiny fraction of their money, marketing and household exposure all dominate. The massive companies are all about branding, market reach and money; service and customer satisfaction are very low indeed on their priority list.

I lied and said I was moving abroad to get rid of Sky, they put me on hold for an age and then processed the cancellation.

The workers must be under pressure to persuade and keep clients on as much as possible.

Don't worry about it

You're not alone- after an hour on the phone to Talktalk, the handler asked incredulously 'Mrs Pommefritio are you crying'- yes I bloody well was after 4 months running being billed incorrectly and them having no record of me paying a set up cost!

I have been waiting a month now for BT to cancel my contract.

Apparently the system won’t let them do it….. they reckon I should just pay my quarterly bill which is payable now in advance to cover up to December and then I’ll get that refunded when the cancellation goes through……

Bearing in mind they’ve been promising me since MAY that they’ll switch me over to monthly billing but again, the system won’t let them and they don’t know why, I’m not convinced that they will be able to refund me for paying for three months’ service that I don’t need or want.

Yeah, not doing that……paying £300 for a service I don’t want, aren’t using, and am trying to cancel 😂

I’m about to sit down and write a complaint to try and get this sorted. Failing that, I’m going to the ombudsman. This is the latest in a string of fuck-ups and failures by BT and I’m never, ever using their shitty services again.

It’s honestly soul-destroying trying to sort this out.

Perfectly valid. As a languages teacher, I'd say there is a big difference between a native or absolutely fluent speaker having an accent different from the listener's and a non-native speaker, who may not just have a strong accent, but also non-native turns of phrase, place emphasis on words in the wrong place etc. I'm really good at deciphering accents, but I sometimes have difficulty understanding people speaking from foreign call centres.

It's not racist to say that someone doesn't speak a particular language well or clearly. Obviously some very strong native accents might also be hard for some people to understand. No, they shouldn't be made to change their accent, but neither is it wrong to point out that many people would find them hard to understand. Interestingly, I find it's rarely the person with the strong accent who gets offended by this. It's usually someone getting theoretically offended on their behalf!

They randomly cancelled my service mid-contract once. Turns out I have the same address as someone living in another country in the UK. Think: 6 Westmead Street. Except different city, postcode, and country! The next day I received a new fancy hub and other bits (I'm guessing the other 6 Westmead Street was trying to upgrade their package). I phoned VM. They apologised and said they would send a pre-paid box to return it. 3 days later I received another fancy hub and bits. I still have those 2 fancy hubs and bits. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I had the same issue with British Gas's home repair service. I use chat because I find accents difficult to understand on the phone, also you can screenshot or get transcripts to prove what was told to you....like the woman in India who told me it was still daytime and my plumber would still arrive when it was around 10pm and pitch dark. She could not seem to grasp that there was a time difference between where she was and where I was.

I have found Virgin Media to be THE worst company I have ever dealt with. I once spent over an hour travelling the world, talking to different advisors to sort out my problem only to return to the first one.

I always advise people never to use them.

If you aren’t happy, the best you can do is get into Twitter and see if they can respond as they don’t want their “good” name sullied.

Virginmedia are a rip off and awful service.

I was paying £100 for a load of repeats channels!

I'm now with nowtv (cheaper version of sky) and I pay a lot less for sky sports than I did with virgin media. Plus they are quick to get through to. And can get many deals. Service network is better too

Agree. My late dad had a stroke and was unable to speak on the phone. My mum needed utilities transferred into her name. The foreign call centre woman kept saying to my mum, 'I will speak to your husband when he gets better,' despite my mum pointing out he would not get better! She went on and on about my dad getting better, then I had to hang up.

Another incident with a foreign call centre - I had ordered a personalised unit and had to send it back due to damage. The foreign woman sent me another one as she did not understand that I was ringing to initiate a return!

This might make you feel a bit less embarrassed.

Many years ago, when NTL was still around, my sister signed up with them and then changed her mind.
She rang them and instead of just saying she wanted to cancel in a cooling off period, she said her sister had signed her up without permission, because for some unknown reason, she didnt want to admit she'd changed her mind.

Agent: "it says on the notes that the last person spoke to liarliar sis"
Liarliar sis: "oh yes"
Agent: "but at the start of the call, you said your name was liarliar sis"
Liarliar sis: "that's right" while she was going red
Agent: "so you're called LLS and your sister is also called LLS"
Lls: really flustered "erm yes, my parents just really liked the name" and then she hung up, while my other sis and me were in fits of laughter. She saw that contract out until the end 😂

Yes I'm dying to know what OP meant by this. Please enlighten us OP.

Nationality has got everything to do with it when the person at the other end of the phone has such a strong accent that you struggle to understand them, and end up with something you don’t want because they can’t express it properly. Don’t know how OP knew he was British - possibly because there was a British accent and it was just an assumption. There are lots of people of different nationalities working for these companies and some have perfect English and are understandable. But some are not.

Waits with bated breath to see if MN deletes post because it’s considered racist when it’s nothing of the sort. It’s fact.

I,m so sorry OP I've cried on the phone too over things like this and I'm 62 and very savvy with IT products.
They make it just as confusing and horrible every single time.
I had my poor 90 neighbour over here in tears after the local EE refused to set it up for her and I had to do it for her.
My only advice is formal complaint each and every time.

Because it's extremely difficult to understand and to make yourself understood when you get put through to India or any other country.
It's not a racist comment if that's what your getting at.
If I need help I always press the leaving option as you do usually get someone who can actually help and not just read through a script.

I understand your frustration and it gave me flashbacks to when I nearly had a nervous breakdown trying to negotiate with ntl back in the day.

They went out of business which is what will happen to Virgin media if they don't improve their customer service by the sounds of it.

Edited to say I just Googled ntl as wondered what happened to them - they ended up merging with another company and eventually bought by Virgin 😩

I have an accent and I’d like to not have to change it when I need to call a company.

Problem is when a call centre is staffed with people who haven’t been exposed to the multiple accents of the UK I’m not usually understood.

If you’re calling out prejudice you need to think a bit deeper. It’s not as simple as you think.