DO NOT TOUCH VIRGIN MEDIA WITH A BARGEPOLE - AND YES I'M SHOUTING

[Freckle]

Due to Virgin buying out NTL, I was forced to change my internet provider. I went with Virgin Media (cable), taking a package of broadband and telephone for £18.95. All well and good. Engineer came to install same and told me that, as I have both telephone and broadband, I was entitled to free tv. Spoke to their sales department who agreed, but I would have to pay a £30 installation fee. Agreed.

I have just had my first bill and they are trying to charge me an extra £5.20 a month. When I queried this, they are now claiming that I am not entitled to free tv with my package. They are willing to cancel the tv, but will not refund the installation fee.

This is a clear breach of contract. The sales department and I agreed that I was entitled to free tv in return for a £30 installation fee. They are now wanting to remove the tv unless I pay more for it and want to keep the installation fee.

So if you are looking for broadband, etc., DO NOT TOUCH VIRGIN MEDIA.

Sorry you've had this bad experience but I have to say Virgin have been brilliant for us.

I know how you feel though as we had abysmal customer service with sky and it is so frustrating.

Have you everything possible - ie spoken to senior line managers, complaints departments etc?

Message withdrawn

Virgin Media are shite round here .. really sporadic service, I know 3 people who have made them take the box back

I agree with OP

crp customer service but have had absolutely no problems with their products at all (so therefore haven't had to put up with the crp customer service )

We've had no problem with virgin media, been with them for over 5 years.

have to say when they were still NTL we decided we were fed up with the customer service and swtiched to Sky/BT........and switched back less than 2 months later as they were even worse LOL.

A few years ago I tried to sign up with virgin broadband.

There was a catalogue of fk ups, which I seem to have repressed.

I do remember it all culminated in a reply to my complaint from a half wit who wrote that the problems I had had were "down to you own choices."

I chose to find another isp.

As NTL their service was so bad that it took 12 phone calls, 5 letters and THREE WHOLE YEARS, to persaude them by Mum had died and they should stop billing her. In the end she got a court summons and I was quite tempted to take the urn of ashes along and put it in the dock just to shame them.

I hate them too. I called up to get broadband, it was supposed to be delivered on Tue. Got a call, actually it'll be Wednesday as it takes 48 hours not 24. They apparently tried to deliver it on Wednesday but I wasn't in - I was in all day and they def didn't try and deliver it - they apparently left a card saying they'd tried to deliver, they didn't.

Called them back and they said it'd be Thursday, again just didn't deliver it. Spoke to them again and they said they would deliver it to DP's office in London, the package then got lost on the way to the London depot (probably because it went from Croydon to Camden via Nuneaton) and didn't get delivered. They then said that an engineer would deliver it personally on Saturday. Gets to 5:30pm and nobody has delivered it. Finally get a call from the area manager who delivers me one himself at 8pm on a Sat night but has to leave it on my doorstep as I was out. I was in floods of tears towards the end of all this as 40 weeks preg and DP would have really struggled to take pat leave with no internet access (as it happens the little moo still hasn't arrived so it's not a huge issue).

All done with a nasty attitude from everyone I spoke to. Absolutely fucking awful.

Artichoke

Totally agree with OP. Customer Service is appalling. Overpriced crap. Half the time we didn't get a decent tv picture and the broadband was beyond slow. We were being charged for a TV package that was effectively freeview. When we told them we were moving to a non cabled area they wanted to charge us over £200 to disconnect the service. And the box is rented. Thought I'd never say it but Sky are much better.

Message withdrawn

Oh yes, forgot to mention that the tv service only includes the Freeview stations, so I'm not getting something from them that I couldn't get elsewhere for nothing.

I had one of their senior customer services bods on the phone today (probably just means he's been on more courses on how to soothe angry customers) who was so smarmy, saying "We can't do this" and "We can't do that", when what he actually meant was "We won't".

He passed me off to another department (to which I have to write) when I started quoting contract law at him. He mumbled something about knowing their terms and conditions, but I pointed out that this is basic contract law not something they've cobbled together to stitch up their clients.