To expect to be released from a Virgin media contract?

[RaynorW]

Or is it massively unrealistic?

Broadband drops out throughout the day, 5-10min bursts but a nightmare for work meetings. They call trying to upgrade us sometimes 3-4 a week, huge amount of spam calls! I just want the contract to work, so there’s no point in paying for ‘faster’.

Also the installation was done really badly, promised to do it properly but never did. Just a cable across the front lawn.

The final straw, yesterday next door bought virgin media. The engineer literally unscrewed our garden cable and screwed it in to the box on their house!!! Didn’t clock what he’d done until he drove off and I realised there’s no internet. There’s no way of calling them either, talking to a human, at all

If you have tried to resolve, send an email to the CEO and the Executive Complaints team will get things done.
[email protected]

They should but I doubt they will. We had a two year contract and moved. The house we moved to (and the area) has no Virgin supply. No cables or anything else. They refused to release us from the contract. I had discussed this on the phone and was told it was not a problem, I added it to the contract I signed and they said it did not matter because they hadn't written back to confirm.

I got a gesture of goodwill payment for £150 rather than the £450 at stake. DH is a lawyer and said that the hassle of letters and dealing with them wasn't worth £300.

However, we no longer use Virgin on any of its forms.

I’m regretting having got involved with them, and I had a feeling this is the case. They seem set up not to be contacted

I’ve opened a complaint but thank you, I’ll keep this as the next step

When I had problems with other broadband companies, I received discounts for each day that I couldn’t use broadband.

I only got £150 out of them because I sent a registered, old fashioned letter, to Richard Branson! There was no traction whatsoever up until that point.

I don’t think Virgin are unique in this regard. I was with Hyperoptic, and moved, mid-contract, to an area where they had no presence. As per the contract, I had to pay for the remaining months. If you have a mobile contract, and move to an area with poor coverage, you’ll still need to see the contract out, or buy your way out.

If you are WFH

Do you have a Residential or Business broadband account, because this makes a difference?

Virgin did this to us. Disconnected our broadband when someone else in the building applied for it. Not literally with a cable, but with some sort of virtual switch. It took weeks to resolve and still makes me furious. I got a “free upgrade” of the service for a year as an apology. However, this proved incredibly difficult to remove a year later when they wanted us to start paying.

My only advice is always take names, times of calls, suggested solution dates. Ask to escalate it if there is no resolution.

And then run away.

Phone up and ask to speak straight to a manager.
I did that when we'd been without broadband for 3 days waiting for new modem, chap drove away and the modem promptly died.

I got 3 months free broadband, a promise they'd be back the next day and a better modem than the one we paid for. They didn't however offer counselling packages for traumatised teens. I did ask.

Yes, but thenissuebwas Inhad covered off the possibility on the phone and amended the contract I sent back accordingly at the time. Who'd have thought we would buy in a tiny patch of Surrey close to the London borders with no Virgin connection.

Lesson learnt. Do not renew a contract on better terms if you may move house!

I was let out of my virgin media contract because they couldn't fulfil there end of the deal I told them I wanted to stay with them provide my Internet they said they couldn't I pointed out that as per there contract they had to or pay me for every day I was without service

They let me out

Yep, plusnet refunded us £10 per day of over a week after some eejit working on the water main cut through all the fibres....

I managed to book an engineer but it was cancelled as my broadband and apparently has no issues, it’s just disconnected. I’ve wasted hours.

I may be judged… I’ve just swapped the cable back over. They can’t install it by taking our cable that we are mid contract for, they need to do it properly. When I looked the problem is obvious, the cable to their house is ripped at the connector. So the engineer has disconnected us to use ours. Even our box was left hanging open, had to screw the cover back, like it was just forced

Well to update… virgin let me out of the contract quite easily. Accepted it was rubbish on a few counts, the cable should be installed and let me out

they are not unique at all
I had enormous issues that never got properly sorted out with Sky years ago so much that I refuse to even contemplate a contract with them again
the problem is when you’ve worked your way through all the companies and they’ve all been shit and you’re stuck because you don’t want to deal with any of them

Virgin customer service does like to send you round in circles until you just want to scream
thankfully our service problems are just with the phone which we hardly use anymore so I can cope with their terrible timing / inability to sort stuff out
we also bore this in mind when signing up for mobile contracts so we each have different ones (gift gaff & talkmoblile) and can piggy back on the data when working from home if we need to - so far it’s worked even if there has been a glitch in service but ours have only been minor & usually in a powercut (we have battery back up but the network in the village doesn’t)

Had the same issue. They installed next door and ours stopped working. Took 3 days to get Virgin out and they kept saying they would charge us as it wasn't their fault, no issue at their end. The engineer said straightaway that he could see our connection had been broken.

My DH has just been in a wrangle with them over renewal, ended up going to Ombudsman who upheld his complaint.

The speed etc., is fine, but trying to talk to a human who gives a shit when you have a problem is the reason he wants to swap to another provider.

try using on of those comparison website, sometimes the provider you switch too will buy you out of your current contract. I did this a few years ago, may not have been virgin but I know they do sometimes give you this option.

You have done amazing to get out mid contract. I had an awful.few weeks trying to leave when I was at THE END of my contract
They would just hang up when I said I wanted to leave. In the end, an old fashioned letter had to be posted recorded delivery. It was so stressful.

Yeah, I was surprised. I had this with supporting a non-English speaking family member. They charged months extra too, finally sent a cheque refund but it was hell.
I raised a formal complaint, and got it as a resolution, didn’t go to customer services (again) as I’d been struggling to even explain the issue to people whose English was below the technical level to understand it.