Virgin Media - Incompetence

Enfieldian

This is a vent in case anyone was wondering.

I recently needed to set up a home broadband supply and after wading through various comparison sites I decided on Virgin as I don't need a home phone line and they had a special offer (which is still running, on their website) for free installation plus £5 a month off the first 3 months (normally £20 a month)

I placed an order online on about the 13th of August and provide my direct debit details for payment, opting for the 5th of each month.

I get confirmation of an installation appointment for the 25th of August, which was fine, the guy turned up with the necessary equipment and got me up and running, very easy as the cabling was already in my flat from the previous owner.

The day before he arrived I got a letter saying that I would probably get charged for the first and second month in one go, one in arrears and one in advance, but that was normal and payments would be monthly in advance after that. Also that there was a £60 "credit limit" on my account.

Well, I thought that that was never going to be called into play as even the first bill would be only £30 and I would be notified by email when it was due to be paid as I had opted for paperless billing.

All was going fine until the early hours of yesterday morning when I lost connection. Thinking it might be a temporary outage in the area I left it until today but still no service.

I called up this morning to find out what the problem was to be told that I had been "Disconnected for non-payment" (on the 15th of September,when I had not even received a bill yet!)

Apparently my account was standing at £61.25, which was over the agreed credit limit and triggered an automatic disconnection/suspension.

When I queried the amounts it was broken down as the two months at £15 each, £30 for, yes you guessed it, installation and £1.25 for paper billing (Which was supposedly generated/posted on the 11th but still has not arrived)

When I asked about the £30 install charge I could hear the guy muttering "Oh no, not again...." so I guess it is a common problem with this promotion, but having got back online now I have checked my emails and of course there is nothing from them regarding a bill, overdue or otherwise.

Apparently my DD for the now revised amount is not due out until the 5th of October anyway, I would have been happy to pay on the 5th of September, if I had known but it seems a little out of order for them to restrict a customer's service before the bill is even due to be paid and when it is only 21/22 days into the 60 day period that they are actually being billed for.

On the other hand they did get me connected again pretty quickly so not all bad.

If you have signed up for this offer recently be alert and possibly proactive!

AdrianW2

It sounds like you've had relatively good customer service from Virgin Media. They didn't lose your order, have to confirm every single detail three times, cancel the installation date, mess up the credit check and arrive at the wrong time!

trevormax

the exact same thing hapened to me, only I lost TV in 3 rooms, phone and broadband. Because they had set the credit limit at £60 and the first 2 months came to a total of £80 and the first DD was not due until 5th Oct, they disconnected automatically.

Apparently the credit limit should have een set higher to avoid this issue but it hadn't been done. I did get good customer service though when I called using their free 150 number, and all services were back online within the hour.

Enfieldian

Seems to be a common problem, also found another similar post on the suppliers forum of MSE. They should have sorted this out by now though really.....