What's going on with Virgin Media?

[Lesterfan 10]

I can't even ring up to complain. After 30 minutes on hold I give up.

[Buzzing 10]

To be honest I have been with cable right from when it was first put in our area which was around 1997 so at that point it was Yorkshire Cable which then became Telewest and now Virgin Media.

Cant really say I have had any issues with cable since I have been with them regardless of who is running the company and I have TV/Broadband & phone services from them.

Quite happy thankyou

[Bloomdido 10]

I find Virgin Media to be fine. No problems at all.

[PeteMorris 10]

I'm with Virgin, but I wouldn't dream of using a VM email address, simply because if you change provider, you lose that email addy.

 

Get yourself a Gmail, or Hotmail, or some other email address, then you can never 'lose it'

 

I know that doesn't help right now with existing emails, but maybe a lesson learnt for the future!

[mapleboy 10]

Update on my situation. Hopefully someone from Virgin is keeping an eye on this thread. There I go, off into the realms of fantasy again.

 

So, anyhoo, the VM tech turned up this aft with the new TiVo box and (unexpectedly) a new wireless VM "super-hub". Install went OK (apparently), when trying the 3 computers I noticed my wife's netbook was reporting a speed of 150Mbps. The tecg said, that it shouldn't go over 100. Perhaps alarm bells should have started ringing at that point?

 

I'm now typing on my laptop, which with our old Netgear connected to the old VM modem would run at 54Mbps, as would the wife's netbook. This laptop is running anywhere between 1 and 11Mbps and pages take AGES to load. It's virtually unusable TBH.

 

So, with reluctance, on the blower to VM. After a couple of minutes listening to that annoying VM bint saying, "Let's get you some help, press button...", I got to a message saying, "We're sorry, all our operators are busy and it may take up to 30 minutes to answer your call", I hung up in disgust.

 

Can all you VM customers who are ringing up to complain, please hang up and let me have a go. Not that I want to talk to a phone drone in India you understand, the chance of one of them being able to actually achieve anything, (other than tiddling me off even more), is virtually nil.

 

And, yes, I have rebooted the new modem. Not that it made any difference, unlike with the old kit.

 

Virgin Media? Quite happy to take your money under false pretences it would seem.

 

I'm now going to press the "Post Quick Reply" button and hope this actually posts.

[mapleboy 10]

So 2 minutes listening to the chirpy recorded bint at VM (who frankly should have been drowned at birth IMHO) and pressing various buttons, then 49 minutes listening to the muzack before "Richard/Ranjit" in India answered. Apparently he can see that our broadband connection is working fine but the very slow speed on the laptops is because their Super Hub (that we DIDN'T ASK FOR by the way) hasn't been configured. So the tech "installed" a piece of kit but didn't configure it before disappearing over the horizon. According to "Richard", this is because the install techs aren't trained to do that. It has to be done remotely by the VM broadband "help" (ha, ha, ha) line. Does that sound either totally illogical, or just a blatant load of nonsense?

 

Apparently the modem needs connecting by an ethernet cable to a computer on the customers premises for the "Super Hub" to be configured. "Richard" got me to try downloading some software wirelessly so he could remotely operate my laptop to do the required configuring. Of course with the painfully slow download speed, 14 minutes later (when the 1.14Mb file had downloaded), the remote control session had timed out and "Richard" couldn't do anything.

 

The only solution "Richard" could offer me is to post me an ethernet cable, then when it arrives I can connect my laptop and the (not so) "Super Hub". Then I can spend another 45+ (?!!) minutes "enjoying" the muzack before him or one of his colleagues can remotely connect and do whatever is needed. Cable in the post, allegedly. You'll forgive me if I don't hold my breath?

 

Not entirely happy with paying for a service for the next 3-4 days that is virtually unusable (it's not even operating at dial-up speeds TBH!), I rang the onshore billing number. As before, I got through to a very nice Scottish lady within 2 minutes. Sadly she couldn't knock anything off the bill until the fault is fixed but she says she's made a note and for me to ring again when "Richard" fixes things.

 

Is it me or:

 

1) Is it too much to ask VM to train their install techs to FULLY install, including configuring installed equipment?

2) If they can see the connection is OK, why can't they remotely configure from their end, as they must be in communication with their modem?

3) Why do Virgin Media respond within a couple of minutes when money is the issue but take over three quarters of an hour when money isn't the issue? Are they only concerned with taking money off their customers but not bothered about providing the service we pay for?

4) If they are sending out unconfigured kit, surely thousands of customers will be having this problem. Whichever manager made the decision to send out unconfigured kit should be sacked, as he is wasting VM's time and money and customer goodwill by having them go through what I'm currently enduring. I have no doubt VM will lose customers over this, surely this is an even more pressing reason to sack the incompetent oaf who made this decision? Are you listening Mr. Branson?

 

Any one who has a Virgin Media tech turn up and "install" a new "Super Hub" (black box about 6 inches square with rounded corners and 1 inch thick) might want to make absolutely sure they are getting a good speed out of the thing before the tech leaves.

 

Buyer most definitely beware.

 

Watch this thread for the next irritating beyond belief episode of "Virgin Media, how they have ****ed me off this week".

 

I shall now press the Post Quick Reply button and go and make a cuppa. Hopefully when I get back this post will have been sent.

Edited May 17, 2012 by mapleboy

[alchemist 36]

When Virgin asked me if they could double my speed and take 10 pound less per month off of me I nearly ripped their fingers off. They asked me if I needed help installing the suoerhub they were going to post to me. I said no, the hub came, i swapped it over and it worked fine apart from the speed not being what I expected. Rang 151, the guy there was very good, checked my hub from thier end, remote reset it couple of times and determined that the setup was OK so arranged for a tech to come and check out the infrastructure. This he did and sorted out some problems in their box, speed climbed a bit then next day i was getting around 30 meg which is now 45 meg with 30 meg in evenings. He rang back today to see if all was OK and I mentioned the slow evening speeds. He said this was known about but that he would put my name on the list to increase the priority of numbers.

 

OK, in the past I have had some problems with Virgin which have been soon sorted, and no i DONT like the foreign call centre

[mapleboy 10]

Having found an ethernet cable, I've just come off the phone to Virgin. The Super Hub now appears to be configured. The bloke in India talked me through setting the hub up.

 

Given the various settings he told me to change, frankly it was blindingly obvious that what they supplied yesterday had come form the factory with some default settings that DID NOT match what was needed to operate on the VM network.

 

Presumably VM have a few containerloads of these things that they will be palming off on "lucky" customers. If they give you one, I strongly suggest that BEFORE you let the technician leave your house, you type speedtest.net into the address bar on your browser and do a test to check your speed. I should be getting 60Mb but an currently only getting mid-20s. Allegedly this is a known VM problem which they are "working hard" to fix and we'll get our speed doubled "shortly". If you get something considerably less, chain the tech to a radiator until such time as he sorts things out for you, otherwise you'll have the dubious pleasure of what I've had to endure with Sir Richard's clowns these last few days. Happy surfing?

[lectrolove 10]

Has anyone else in S11 been having problems with the TV service? Our picture has been freezing every couple of minutes for two days now, and before that intermittently for about a week. They say it's a fault in the area but we're wondering if it's our Tivo box.

[Plain Talker 11]

Has anyone else in S11 been having problems with the TV service? Our picture has been freezing every couple of minutes for two days now, and before that intermittently for about a week. They say it's a fault in the area but we're wondering if it's our Tivo box.

 

Yes I have been having difficulties. (A VM box, here, though, not tivo)

 

Lots of Pixellation, and when I try to fast forward on the ad breaks, for example, the display will say it's gone to the required time further on, but the picture is showing no change (playing the same part as before, and not going on to the time displayed). I'm also getting the "on demand not available" banner coming up, mid-programme. Rather annoying.

[lectrolove 10]

Yes I have been having difficulties. (A VM box, here, though, not tivo)

 

Lots of Pixellation, and when I try to fast forward on the ad breaks, for example, the display will say it's gone to the required time further on, but the picture is showing no change (playing the same part as before, and not going on to the time displayed). I'm also getting the "on demand not available" banner coming up, mid-programme. Rather annoying.

 

Yes that's pretty much what's been happening with ours. Anyway it seems it was a fault in the area, TV and internet have both been off all day until a short while ago and both now seem to be working ok (touches wood).