to think Virgin Media are lying

[iguanadonna]

We're moving abroad on 16th Dec. A couple of weeks ago, DH phoned Virgin Media, who provide our landline, broadband, and TV, and asked them to disconnent on 16th. He made sure they had the right date.

On 1st Dec the landline went dead. We're in the middle of moving, I have job interviews, our family is mostly abroad, DH sometimes works from home, mobile reception here is dodgy - we really need the phone.

DH called Virgin and asked if they'd mistakenly disconnected us early. Nononono, they say, nothing on the computer about that. There must be a fault on the line.

On 7th Dec they send a "technician". He checks and says "You've been disconnected. I'll phone up and get you reconnected." He does so. Suddenly, the woman on the phone can see on the computer that the wrong disconnection date had been set.

The phone works for a few hours or maybe a day. Then it goes dead again.

Last night (8th) DH phones Virgin and asks if they've disconnected again. Nononono, they say, nothing on the computer about that. There must be a fault on the line.

A technician can come on Monday 12th. No phone until then. And he is obviously going to find that they've disconnected us, right?

And then they'll disconnect us again...

I wouldn't mind if they just said "Sorry, messed up, putting you through to reconnection dept. Here's some money off your final bill."

But the childish dishonesty is so INFURIATING!

Yep, sounds exactly like my experiences with Virgin Media.

I loathe Virgin Media. They are evil.

Sorry, that doesn't help, but sympathy...

Oh-oh... Let me tell you my nightmare story!

We moved house - we decided to do this two days before we were due to go to Austrlia for my best friend's wedding (I was bridesmaid). I've got a friend who said she would housesit for us while we were away - so we need tog et everything ready for her.

I organise Virgin Media to set us up in the flat. The only day they can do is the day before we go away - they can't do it while we're away as it needs to be 'The Account Holder' present.

Fine - I think, I'll see them in the morning - 8am to 1pm slot they've given us - then I can go off and do various things for preparing for Oz.

At 1.30pm I finally get through to someone at VM (on my mobile) asking where the guy is? Apparently he's running late but will be with us in 1 hour.

I'm not happy - but need the phone/broadband/tv for my firned while we are away. I express my displeasure (in a nice way as it's not the call taker's fault).

An hour later - I ring again - apparently, I was given wrong information - he's now coming sometime between 1pm and 6pm. I express my displeasure (not so nicely this time ) at waiting in all day when I have a million things to do.

So I wait.

At 6pm I call them and ask what is happening. Apparently they tried to call me to say that the technician was running late. They didn't call me - my mobile has been on and with signal all day.

At 8.30pm - 8.30pm - the technician arrives, takes an hour to connect us while chatting and generally arsing about.

When he finally leaves, I pick up the phone and guess what? There is a message from VM saying my technician will be late to connect my phone.

What phone, oh - the one that hasn't been connected yet - THAT YOU ARE LEAVING A MESSAGE ON?

Idiots!

Sorry

But I feel better now!

Well at least refuse to pay from 1st December.

They are liars and utterly incompetent and I absolutely rue the day I signed a contract with them. I would never, ever, ever use their services again. Some of their corkers:

They told me, when I rang to inquire about when I terminate my contract, that by letting an engineer into to check a fault, I had automatically extended my contract by six months.

When we moved house in the middle of our contract, their computers assumed we were closing the account and charged me each month the balance - so say if there was 10 months left on the contract, they charged me 10x the monthly amount, 9x the next month and so on. This happened month in, month out for about 4 months. Each time they apologised and put the money back but i was getting screwed by charges from my bank. It wasn't until I threatened them with legal action for stealing from me did it stop. To this day, I continually refuse to re-set up the direct debit.

They cut off all my services when I had phoned once to ask about a smaller package.

Their engineers don't turn up, and lie to say they have when once - I even had the front door open ALL day and they still said they'd turned up and no one was home.

I generally really hate the awful Sara-Cox type "Helllooooo" automated message on their phone system - smugly hipster, and it makes me hate Virgin for using it. Haha.

Thought I might not be the only one! Cat, yeah, they've been ok up to now. We've had a few problems but they've been sorted out within a few days.

This is just hopeless, though - especially the sense that you're having a conversation with someone who knows she's lying, and knows you know she knows...

And why??? Surely it would be cheaper for them just to reconnect us, than to repeatedly send out a technician?

When we signed up to Virgin (switching from Sky) I was promised a discount of £30 off my first bill for cancelling Sky through them.
They didn't send the letter I was supposed to sign and after countless calls to them suggested I cancel Sky myself (? I could have done that in the first place). Fine I said, will we still get the discount as this is obviously not my fault, oh yes of course you will.

First bill comes - no discount surprise, surprise. This is where the lies started. Phoned and explained the situation to about a million different people, none of them were the person I needed to speak to apparently and finally the person who did have the authority to give the discount was on a break? They would phone me right back in half an hour - yeah right.

Next day get an extremely lovely man on the phone who couldn't actually have been nicer (shame cos I was spoiling for a fight!) and said the notes he had in front of him said that someone HAD phoned me back, explained I WOULDN'T be getting the discount and I had said I was HAPPY with the explanation.

Needless to say I got the discount but I was so at the blatant lies!

When my Uncle passed away,we were executors.we tried many times to cancel his virgin package-they just didn't seem to understand the phrase"he has passed away"
They even asked us if we wanted to take over the package,which was insensitive to say the least!

they did the same to us, also denied it. plus failed to reconnect us properly several times, complete nightmare. only speak to the cancellation team, they seem to be the only people who can get soemthing done.

They're complete arses. Mind you, so are BT. And Sky. But YANBU. Thank God Virgin's now bought a bank too, eh? I'll be the first customer.

they are shit. we had nightmares with them last year - brief summary:

Virgin account was in my exps name, fun started when I wanted to put account into my name.

Exp said he wanted to cancel the account. I said to Virgin could I take it over? Apparently not, I'd have to pay £50 or whatever just to change the name on the account

I threatened to go to Sky. They said we can't transfer you for free BUT we can cancel Exps account and set you up as a new account, we'll waive the initial charges etc. No, your services won't be interrupted etc, you won't notice the change. we'll send you a new box (can't I use the old one? - apparently not...)

So all well and good. new account day arrives - when I come home I have no phone, TV or internet

internet is restored within about 15 mins - cant fault that.

TV - am I using the new box? yes. they havent activated the card, which is why it doesnt work. can I use the old box? No, this has been disabled. I think it took about a week and lots of phone calls to sort that out in the end.

The phone was even better. They said the phone had a fault. Well thats funny I say because it worked fine yesterday. Today you were meant to be ending old exp account and setting up mine - and lo and behold I come home and no dial tone. No, Im told thats just coincidence. It's nothing to do with that, there definitely is a fault. They will try and repair it remotely

A few days later, I get a call saying the line is fine. It must be my phone. I assure them it is not. Also when I phone my landline no from a mobile, I don't get a ringing tone. Oh, they say, its ringing for us. What number are you calling I ask (dont know what prompted me to ask) - they give me a number which is not my home number. I tell them my home no. No they say that is Exps number when we set your account up we gave you a new number did we not tell you?!! I ask for old no back. They tell me they may not be able to give it to me because it might have been allocated to someone else also it is a BT no so they dont control it

By this point I was incandescent with rage. I've lived in this house & had same phone no for 10 years, there was no way I was giving it up It was a BT no originally but we swapped it to Virgin (or NTL as it was then) about 9 yrs ago. So cue lots of very fraught phone calls (not from my house phone obviously!)

eventually I get the number back. BUT of course the line still doesnt work. an engineer comes out and says it is an exchange problem. then another 2 guys come out - all in all it takes 3 months to resolve before I get my phone back. Yes I got money back, but seriously the stress of it all and constantly having to chase it all up.

I'm only still with Virgin because I hate BT and Sky slightly more.

sorry that wasn't very brief

I used to be with Virgin. I had no phone for a month over Christmas last year because some fool hadn't connected the line properly. I complained and was told I could have a refund and compensation. It didn't happen. They sent someone out to repair the line after Christmas but no one turned up. A week later someone finally came out but the fool swapped the lines over so I ended up with my neighbours phone number instead of mine. It took another 2 days for them to sort this out. They also take random amounts out of your bank account. You think your bill is £45? Wrong. They took £70 out one month even though we'd not used any extra services (not to mention that they were taking double out of my account when I first signed up so I had to get this refunded). I owe them £100 apparently!

Sky are just as crap. My DD should have gone out on the 2nd Dec, it went out on the 29th November and the cheeky sods sent me an email telling me to make sure I have enough money in my account! I cancelled the DD and will pay them over the phone.

We're with Virgin. Aside from being without cbeebies for about 6 weeks (not fun!) and eventually getting the box replaced and a partial refund for those 6 weeks we have not had any major problems.

My mum, however, switched recently and was told that the phone would take a while to set up as the cable was imbedded under the tarmac when her road was resurfaced so they would have set it up a different way. When the man came to do it, it transpired the previous engineer that told her that blatantly lied and just hadn't connected it up correctly! He was too lazy to move a cabinet. As a result mum was left with no phone for nearly 3 weeks.

She is waiting for a resolution to her complaint.