Virgin media and weird things on disconnection

andy2004

update today after a phone call from david whos in complaints at Virginmedia, i cancelled the disconnection after i asked for a better deal and he reply he was not authorised as i had 10months left in my contract, how can i been in a contract?.

Lets go back 1 month.
tuesday 4 weeks ago, i phoned up and asked for a better deal, which i accepted but i had 7 day cooling off period. Then a week later on the monday, my new modem arrived, and we "me and virginmedia" had trouble activating it. long story short.
Tuesday after i spoke to the 3rd person. i was told my connection would be fixed wednesday by 3:30pm so i asked to speak to cancellations and disconnections.
So i cancelled the new contract and put in my 30days notice of disconnection. so why is their system saying i'm still in contract. why is it only 10month, surely 30days = 1 month therefore it would be 11months, VM dont do anything under 12months.
So david is going to look into that, but said that he'd cancel the disconnection and get the modem fixed, and then i can cancel immediately if i feel like it. We'll see.
I was told yesterday when he phoned me back that the I.T department should have phoned me, no they didn't, they've been tryig to activate the new modem which isnt even plugged in, why simply because i wouldnt been online and the engineer who bought out the replacement modem who couldnt get it activated because it was firewalled and the tech he phoned wouldn't remove it as i was leaving, so as he was leaving he told me to "plug in the old one at least then you'll have the internet if it still works."
Anyone else having as much trouble with VM as i am?

Buzby

No - but you can have only 1 modem online at any one time. Upgrading to a different one automatically causes the previous one to be de-registered.

As to your contract, until the service is terminated you are always in a contract (it says so in the T&C) what you are talking about is your minimum term of service, which is a different thing. (This can expire, but your contract carries on until you give notice of termination).

Can't help you with the dates - it all hinges on what VM's system calculated it to be.

andy2004

Today, finally got the replacement modem running only taken virginmedia 5 weeks and loads of phone calls.
9 days with the new hub connected, and finally got back online today. after 1hr on the phone with them today.
note: it was the engineer who came out to my house who TOLD me to connect the OLD 10mb modem due to my disconnection date being 2 weeks later and the tech department not activating the new modem he brought with him.

note2: to all people thinking of upgrading to the free 20mb connection which requires the new hub. 1 when you get the new hub this will automatically put you into a new 12 month contract which they dont tell you. so its better to got through retentions before asking for it, and get a better deal and then get the modem.
2. You may have trouble activating the new modem it took me 5 weeks and a lot of calls, and 3 emails to the CEO which went directly to complaint

funny thing i've been getting a lot of calls lately from indians, telling me i got a computer problem.. yes the scammers.
just had 1 whilst typing this calling himself, windows technical support or something. thats 2 today, 3 yesterday, but didnt actually answer after i said HELLO and they put the phone down. pretty much have had 2 or 3 per day. getting really annoying, but Virginmedia say they cant stop them.,

Buzby

ANY change to your service will re-start your minimum term, why is that a surprise? Every service company I know does this - yes, it would be helpful if the staff member noted this in the call, but it doesn't really matter. Why? YOu'll get a letter confirming the change and THIS provide confirmation of the minimum term. Under the DSR you can then reject the change and not follow through.

Also, as you have a phone line connected to the public network, why do you think VM have any power to stop these people calling your public number. If you want them to stop, buy a TrueCall, sure it costs, but your phone will only ring with genuine callers.

Nilrem

IIRC no phone provider can stop the scam calls without also stopping anyone with a withheld number (and there are ways that the scam callers can spoof their number from memory, so even that doesn't work*).

I think VM have an option (paid for) to stop calls from withheld numbers (as I think do BT), but that will also stop calls from a lot of countries that are legitimate (IIRC caller ID doesn't always work from one countries phone system to another), so may not be helpful if you have family abroad.

Unfortunately the cold call scams like the "windows" one are usually from the likes if India so outside the jurisdiction of UK telecoms operators, and tend to be very hard to block because the only way to do it normally means blocking legitimate calls


*IIRC it's relatively easy with the right kit depending on the phone company you are using to fool the caller id systems.
In the US it's been used a lot for "jokes" and in some cases by people to place a fake 911 call, with the result the Police/swat teams descend on the victims home, as they go to the one the caller id is linked to.