Avoid Virgin Media - their customer service is appalling

P

partnership

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I cancelled my contract because I was moving. I gave them the required notice. They then harassed me for an early return of the equipment. Finally they sent me a further bill and proceeded to take the money from my account even though I had given back the equipment and was no longer getting a service from them. I am trying to get this money refunded for the last month to no avail even though they acknowledge that it was a systems error. I cannot understand how it is okay for them to take mony and then not be able to refund it within a reasonable amount of time.
 
Always cancel the direct debit as soon as you cancel that way they cant keep going to your account to grab more of your money.
 
I was hoping things would improve from the previous UPC\NTL state of play with Virgin involved
 
My UPC/Virgin story.

I contacted UPC for service at a rental property. The sales people said that they could provide a service and would send a technician. The technician came out and said it was not physically possible to give service to this house. Big problem for me as the tenants were moving in next day sand broadband had been specifically promised.

4 months later I realised that UPC had been charging me for the service which they had never installed. I have another account with them so they just added the charge to the existing d/d. It took a long time to discover what was happening, when I saw the extra going through the bank I never thought that they were charging for a property with no service.

SO they agreed to cancel the charge and refund the money. Then they sent a technician out to the OTHER property and took away the equipment. Again hugely embarrassing for me as the tenant was paying me additionally to the rent for broadband. They seemed to be able to deal with this issue as they reinstalled within 2 days.

Then they charged me a contract break fee and a reinstall fee. Ahh!!

Numerous phone calls to customer service got me nowhere, every time I had to try to explain the situation from scratch. Often the person would listen until I finished speaking then say "i will have to transfer you" back to hold music and then from scratch again with a new person.

Change from UPC to Virgin.

I finally resolved the situation by calling and asking the persons name, being obvious that I was writing it down, then telling then that if they transferred me I would make a complaint to the regulator using their name. I explained my problem and it was clear they had no clue how to deal with it. When the said they had to transfer me to some one who could, I repeated my threat about a complaint. I said I wanted to speak to their boss, initially this wasn't possible but eventually the supervisor came on the line. He couldn't deal with me either, so again with the transfer talk until eventually a higher up came on the line.

This was the first person I spoke to with an Irish accent. He listened, did some checking, apologised, asked how much I was owed and said he would organise a refund. i got more than I asked for transferred into my bank 2 days later.

My learning from this. Controlled aggression and some rudeness is needed to break through the fog of standard responses and "I will just transfer you" That is a pity but from this and other experiences it seems to me the only way. I should probably have posted this on "Letting off steam"
 
partnership said:
I am trying to get this money refunded for the last month to no avail even though they acknowledge that it was a systems error.
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Can you not just cancel the DD and instruct your bank to refund the payment under the SEPA rules?
 

I extended my contract with Virgin last month after about 2 hours on the phone hammering at them for a discount. I had 4 calls, first 3 ended up talking to someone overseas who were very nice, polite and professional but clearly working from a script. 4th call got me through to someone Irish who seemed to have more authority to be flexible but I've no idea how I ended up talking to an Irish person on the 4th call
 
If you log in to Boards.ie you can contact Virgin through the site. Took me three months and numerous phone calls to get a simple problem sorted.
 
Friend logged complaint with advertising standards and Comreg recently regarding their initial advertising at start of year. Appeared that they promoted a comparison with eir and sky that was factually incorrect. They mustn't be too good at maths
 
In fairness to Virgin, I did have a technology issue after I extended, I spoke to their contact centre who were very polite and had me try a few things without success. When that didn't work, they arranged for a call out and the problem was fixed in 20 mins at no cost, and they guy turned up when he said he would and rang before hand to confirm. I can't fault them on that.
 
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I'd have to agree,their Irish based and managed installation and servicing seems as good as it gets.
But...I've heard awful things about their outsourced Philippines call centre.
 
I had a funny experience. Switched back after a truly awful eir experience last year. Rang up virgin to find out about my parents deal with eir..and got a good deal for them. So asked if they could do anything for me as loyal customer and i swear got 'thank you miss for being a loyal customer'. I had to laugh!
 
vandriver said:
I'd have to agree,their Irish based and managed installation and servicing seems as good as it gets.
But...I've heard awful things about their outsourced Philippines call centre.
Click to expand...

Can't agree everyone in our extended family has had issues with the installs, and maintenance. Everyone has issues with billing too. That's with UPC I assume VM is the same going by the litany of complaints of the same issues on their support page on boards.
 
Trying to cancel my contract coming soon to end however they ask me to call on the last day of the contract to give me the right email address to send my request to cancel !! That does not sound right to me.
Does anyone has the correct email and postal address to send the cancellation notice to, please?

Also they won't agree to give me a better deal available for new customer, however after cancelling my contract, I can go back and avail of the deal as a new customer !! Can't see the logic in that.
 
There is a cancellation form on their website - but don't rely on it. I had to lodge a complaint with comreg to cancel my contract (after a deliberate attempt from VM to trick me into renewing). Will never have anything to do with them again. Make sure to cancel your DD as even though representative confirmed cancellation and that I owed them nothing I still received a bill a week later for €40.
 

that's what they told me to do as well but I ended up having numerous discussions with them and negotiated a much better deal. it took 4 calls and about 2 hrs of my life but it was a significant saving and a new updated box as well. Ask for their disconnections department when you ring and don't accept their first or 2nd offer.
 
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