Here is a brief detail of my horror story….

Virgin Media’s marketing over a 2yr period sucked me in. Their leaflets mentioned my road (by name) and that it was already connected. They stated that connection would be quick and easy.

In Nov 2010 I decided to improve our family’s home computer experience and bought an IMac and applied to Virgin Media for their super fast TV Broadband Mobile phone package…seemed reasonable at about £90 per month all in. It was a family installation I ordered with a few TVs.

I particularly stressed that i wanted to keep my old numbers and they say that would be fine.

They promised a connection date in early December, They cancelled that first date they said due to snow, and gave me a new date in mid December. At this point my old phone number did not work. Anyway i put it down to them being over enthusiastic but i thought a couple of weeks without main phone ok.

15th Dec arrived for their connection day. I took a day of work so i could supervise the installation. Nobody turned up. I called them at mid day to be told there was a problem and it was with their installation team. They said they needed to ask the local authority to dig the pavement up. This was unlikely now to be before christmas!

Anyway we had no phone, and no internet over christmas. It also meant our house alarm didn’t work properly and we had to get that sorted too. I also found out that they had caused our phone number to be lost(I have had the same number for 20yrs).

A farce of writing letters ensued and receiving “standard” responses talking about “ownership of our problem” and promising someone would contact me to help. They never did!! Anyway I managed to get my old supplier to reconnect me at my expense.

I finally cancelled the order on Feb 22nd after finding out Virgin had not even applied to the council for permission to dig the pavement. My job was still in their “internal contracting department” . I cancelled the order over the phone which they said was fine. I have not heard from them since. The amount of hassle they have caused us is huge. It was even worse for my kids who need the internet for their school work!.

I managed to get my old provider to reconnect me in early Feb at my expense…however i had to have a new number as Virgin’s bungling had lost our old one.

From my experience it is a totally incompetent company that really does not care. Their mail shots totally misrepresent what they are able to offer. The only thing they provided that worked were the mobile phones!! Use them at your risk!!

That sucks! blog the crap out of it and call the blog, free stuffing from virgin at xmas, you’re the turkey!

I can’t really be bothered with virgin, I’m too tired to get into it just now, but losing your number because ot their beligerence is just plain shitty!

I too was pretty pi55ed of with the service I got when the internet crashed and ringing 150 was a total waste of time. In the end I twittered Richard Branson and got a first class service from virginmedia via twitter. I will never ring them up again.

But I cant understand although I am signed up to VM they still choose to send me post asking to me sign up?!

Cheers guys . Thanks for replies. This thing has been really eating me up. I would like to sue them. However as a guy at work says it may end up taking your life over. When S*it like this company gives so much grief its best to not hold on to it but move on. If I persue them it will just make me hold the anger. My line was cut by an “unsolicited cease” which was instigated by Virgin. If I was running a business from home using them I would be bust! BTW our families have relations all over the world and we normally contact each other at Christmas. This year was spoilt by that rubbish company!

I had issues with the quality of support at my last place (saying there was no problem, despite the 4 vans and 7 engineers at the box at the top of the road) but over the 6+ years we’ve been with them, overall they’ve been no worse than any other provider. That said, our landline gets used maybe once a week.

I suggest you try calling Oftel – they may be able to help you get your number back! I found them very helpful.

On a positive note….wow Apple greeeeeeeaaaaat. Not being a real IT geek it took a liitle bit of time to get used to but I honestly think it blows away my old PC. The Photo stuff is AMAZING 🙂

I get fault all the time, my parents live reasonably close so if it’s a network fault it effects them as well.

Virgin always claim that it’s nothing to do with them and then change their tune when you point out the fact that you know people locally who are also affected.

You really need to keep a blance, between not taking shit from these idiots and not letting it affect your family life and mental state.

I say get a book on blogging and put your point across, also google it and see if there are any groups that have a grudge to bare, add your support and voice to theirs.

Thanks Simon. I did call OFFTEL. unfortunately the time elapsed was too much and I had also applied to my old provider to get the line back so they could not help there. They did put me in touch with the telecoms ombudsman CISAS who mediate in financial disputes. My problem with CISAS is that they are there to resolve financial disputes in services you have paid for. Cleverly Virgin are charging me just for the mobiles I believe at the moment so there is not a legal contract that CISAS could help arbitrate!! CiSAS is funded by the Telecoms industry…it just seems to be a way of getting back fees paid rather than proper compensation.

Cheers Kaesae I will do just that I think. My neighbour next door has Virgin but they served me up all this hogwash. I believe its just that they are keeping their costs down and trying to lump installation jobs together. Anyway i’m back with my old provider and the kids are happy!

I moved to virgin to sky and back to virgin. Sky TV was ace, but internet crap in my area (2-3 meg)

virgin- 2 failed boxes in 6 months , less HD content but 20meg internet. VOD good though.

MY fault with customer service was proving that my clearly goosed box needed replacing. requested the new samsung box but didnt get it 🙁

if it wasnt for the internet, I would dump virgin mind you

I hear ya Radioman.

Mine was the last “Virgin Media” thread. Bloody nightmare of a company when anything goes wrong. Your experience makes mine pale into insignificance though.

They’re still sending me bills – I’ve had the same one three times this week alone – even though we’re no longer customers – and it’s been confirmed we owe them nothing. 🙄