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)

To the vast majority of the posters - thank you. I have read the entire thread and am shocked at so many people having bad experiences (although I guess I feel better to know it is not just me). What a shame that a once decent company has gone this way. Some of the stories are utterly shocking. It makes me feel so sad that customer service in this country (or not as the case may be) has gone this way. People are already under so much stress with life and should not have to tolerate this utter bullshit just to sort their broadband.

Thanks for the tips of who might be a better choice for the future and for letting me get my frustrations out. I feel so much better for all your broad shoulders!

I'm in the process of moving to Trooli as they're the only ones who offer full fibre broadband to my address. They make a big point of having UK based customer service. My takeaway from this is that a lot of people are dissatisfied with overseas call centres, or it wouldn't be worth mentioning. I doubt that all those people are racist or racially motivated. More likely that most of them just want to know that if they have problems they will only have to explain them once to someone they can easily understand.

It always used to be the case that selecting/saying that you wanted to cancel and leave a company would get you fast-tracked to a more senior assistant - often one in the UK with English as a first language - as they obviously didn't want to lose you.

Then, loads and loads of desperate, ignored customers realised that they could actually access half-competent service by saying they wanted to cancel, even if they had no intention of doing so.

Also, the big companies hit upon the realisation that, instead of earnestly trying to stop you from choosing to cancel, they could just force you to jump through endless hoops, tell you a pack of lies and simply refuse to let you leave them - insisting that you owed them money and/or couldn't get out of your contract and threatening you with debt collectors.

As I said before, any company that makes it very clear and simple to find out how to leave them without any hassle is always going to be one that knows they provide a very good service to keep their customers truly happy (or work quickly to resolve it properly if they aren't) - and they will mainly only be losing them because they have died, are moving abroad etc.

Because the "nice man" spoke absolutely perfect English.

Doesn't mean the
" nice man " was white though because we all know skin colour has nothing to do with speaking perfect English.

I refuse to deal with any phone company or similar on the phone. So DH has to otherwise we would not have a TV contract or broadband. They are all a fucking disgrace. My parting shot to Talk Talk was that I would rather not have the internet then use their services again.

I have never had to call plusnet or sky btw

but like many here I have had many hours on the phone to Virgin Media. It used to stop working ALL THE TIME. I discounted it entirely when looking for my new broadband and tv provider last month

After reading this thread, it does make me wonder what the hell is the point of Ofcom? How are VM getting away with such appalling service?

Why are you bringing skin colour into it??

They could really do with having some widespread advertising campaigns to inform people of all of the choices available to them - ideally with ratings.

At the moment, a huge number of people believe that there are only about 4-6 options for broadband - all of which are much of a (terrible) muchness.

I'm not sure widespread adverts would be much use. What's available depends on where you live, on a street by street if not a house by house level. I live in a small town and only a few streets can get full fibre broadband. Giganet put the infrastructure in place everywhere two years ago but hasn't actually connected anyone yet.

But apart from Virgin, the network is open - hence 'OpenReach'. Whatever capacity is available wholesale can be managed and sold by any ISP - by law.

Just like the same mains gas that comes through the pipe into your house can be sold to you by any regulated retailer, at whatever agreed price and level of service.

If you watched any bank adverts you'd be forgiven for thinking they were really helpful, and that you could speak to an actual person who would advise/sort out a problem.....when this couldn't be further from the truth!!
The horse in the Lloyds ad and the SeaLion in the virgin ad are probably just as helpful as their chat bots or automated text and email replies.

That may be, but no-one else will connect you round here except Trooli, who use their own cabling. I suspect Giganet didn't finish the installation but no one can find out what's actually going on.

If you are thinking of getting Virginmedia, check out the reports on Trustpilot, Which, and the regulator Ofcom. They all put it at the bottom for customer service.

The only thing Virgin Media think about is getting as much money as possible out of you. Awful company.

I've seen news that there's now a one step ruling from ofcom (?) that we now only have to contact a new provider and then the rest is done. Has anyone done this? Can't say I'm confident about that being a smooth process leaving virgin.

That certainly sounds like a positive step forward - but I imagine the big boys will still throw their weight around and maybe be 'economical' with the truth and 'loose' with their interpretations of the facts and circumstances if anybody wants to leave them for one of the minnows with great customer service and great reviews, but without super-expensive lawyers.

That Lebara advert has just been on TV again - the one where they show their true colours and actually try to laugh it off.

I don't know how big Lebara is, but I'm guessing they must be sizeable, with how much they advertise. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they were basically nothing more than a 'cheap and honest' brand of one of the big names - like PlusNet.

In this ad, they actually mock somebody who left them a one-star review because of their huge difficulties when trying to leave them. Their 'answer' to this is simply not to leave them.

They flippantly spin it as if the problems start because you choose to leave them and go elsewhere, rather than that their alleged cowboy contempt for anybody who wants to leave, and the obstacles they put up, is squarely to blame.

It really does sound like a corporate version of an abusive controlling partner who gaslights you that you're useless and that nobody else would ever want you even if you did try to leave.

I think they are investigating them, but these things always take months or years!

Enforcement - Ofcom

Switching broadband provider - Ofcom

What on earth is your problem @ahemfem ?

Are you choosing to live in a happy happy world where everyone speaks with exactly the sand accent and everything is standardised, and no one ever needs to contact a company and have an understandable conversation?