Virgin Media upselling and poor customer service

viewfromhere

This is a warning to anyone booking an engineer from Virgin Media to visit your home.

Virgin Media upselling

We recently had a Virgin Media engineer visit to install a new upgraded broadband router. After the work was done the engineer engaged me in a friendly conversation about the local school. Following this he 'phoned the office' to see if he could get me a discounted price on a subscription to Virgin Media cable TV. He told me the discounted price he could give us was only offered if I signed-up on the spot.

I signed up to it and the Virgin Media cable TV package was installed the following week. A month later I received a bill for the full price with no discount.

Poor Virgin Media customer service

I then went through the lengthy process of speaking to foreign based call centres who refused to even acknowledge my complaint. I had the original estimate in writing, so following Virgin Media's own complaints procedure guidelines, I sent a letter with a copy of the estimate. They promise to resolve complaints within 28 days. After over eight weeks later I still had no reply.

So my next action was to try the Virgin Media customer forums. After a week I had a reply on the forum (from 'Kath_F') suggesting I telephone Virgin Media to discuss it. But the number they gave me was the standard 150 call centre number.

I did not want to waste my time going through the same call centre channel, so posted a reply on the forum saying I would be going through the 'social media route' with my complaint.

Following this I received a private message, this time from 'Rita_B'. But now the advice was to contact Virgin Media using a @twitter email address!

Obviously I'm not going to bother, my time is worth more than the money!

But the lesson is to look out for upselling techniques from any visiting engineers from Virgin Media or anywhere else.

(The local school chat was a particularly neat trick.)

jb66

You have a cooling off period, so chill