Virgin Media Broadband Faults

planemad

Sorry! What do you mean run your computer? Do you mean Internet?

I'm with Blueyonder and I only have the broadband internet and do not have their phoneline.

The_JinJ

Skype with cable.....?

mrochester

Gav, my Virgin Media internet connection was ADSL, down my BT phone line. So none of the TV or phone stuff affects me at all as I'm not in a cable area.

I'd pay up, you are only going to cause more trouble for yourself by ignoring the £50 charge. If your credit rating is damaged, then it could end up costing you far more than £50, and affect your finances for a long time to come.

If you want to pursue the £50, do it after you have got the debt collectors off your back, but in the end you signed up to their terms and conditions, and nowhere do they guarantee a speed or level of service, nor do anyone else.

I did actually originally pay the £50, but as Virgin Media ignored my letter of complaint, I took it back. 3 ignored letters later, I've come to the conclusion that if they can't even respond to letters, the chances of me getting the £50 back were slim to none, so I had to take action myself.

Not quite sure where you get the idea that they don't guarantee a basic level of service. They state that they will 'provide sufficient servers for a high level of connectivity to the service', but that the 'speed may be slower, (due to circumstances beyond their control), from TIME to TIME'. The wording from time to time is very important, as it suggests slow downs only very infrequently. As my connection was horrendously slow everyday at peak times, the T&Cs should have said that would be the case. But it doesn't, hence I believe VM have violated their T&Cs.

Just out of curiosity did you go through the faults procedure in finding out why you was getting slow speeds on your line? I know hindsight is a wonderful thing in these situations but going down that route rather than wading in and terminating everything could have brought less ball ache in the long run!

No, I didn't get any official answer to this. They had me do all sorts like plugging the modem/router directly into the master socket, taking the front cover off the master socket and using the connection behind that, unplugging other electrical equipment to make sure it wasn't interfering, etc etc. I can't imagine that they were ever going to admit that I was subject to some very harsh traffic shaping on the phone (even though I had done nothing to deserve it), or that their server capacity was simply inadequate. Come to think of it, I experienced a lot of disconnections and resyncings, long after the line should have settled (10 days or whatever it is - even after 10 days it disconnected and reconnected at different speeds a lot).

I waded in and terminated after no solution was given to the problems I was having, and there was no improvement in the connection after 2 months of usage.

Agreed . Quite a lot of speed problems on ADSL are a BT issue and there is a lengthy , drawn-out procedure to go through between your ISP and BT before you can really point blame .

I can quite believe it, but since moving to a different provider (ADSL24, part of Entanet), I have had no issues whatsoever. That points, fairly conclusively to me, to Virgin Media being the culprit for all the issues I had.

Seen as though majority of ISP's use BT Wholesale for services then it's not surprising. However the process isn't that lengthy nor drawn-out. I used to work for BTW on ADSL Faults and once a fault is raised its dealt within a few hours. The problems occur on trying to focus on what is causing the problem, stuff like slow speeds could be a multiple of things from an incorrect speed profile to the line, or something physical at the property.

Virgin Media refused to report an issue to BT because the official BT Speedtests showed that my line had no problems whatsoever. It was just that the BT speedtest, and every other speedtest and real world usage, were completely different.

mrochester

albertross wrote: »

They don't guarantee a speed because they can't, upto 8meg (sync rate) is all you will get in black and white. Download speed varies for everyone all the time, it may be slower from time to time, it may be faster from time to time, but slower or faster than what? The £50 charge is in the terms and conditions, so they have a right to take it, if you subsequently want a refund, then a phone call may be better than letters, but getting the money back in the way you did it has resulted in debt collectors, so not the best way of going about things, whatever your case.

You would only be traffic shaped if you were a heavy downloader.

You've just used the very words yourself; from time to time. It would have been fine if the connection was slow from time to time, but it wasn't, it was slow at peak times, EVERY SINGLE DAY, without fail. It was so bad that websites would often fail to load because they were taking so long, and it would take numerous attempts to get to a site.

Please read my posts fully before replying.

They don't guarantee a speed because they can't, upto 8meg (sync rate)

There is no way in hell I would ever get anywhere near 8megs on my line as I am so far from the exchange. But I did sync at 2mb. However, my peak time speeds were actually in the region of 0.3mbps, every single day. Soooooooo slow, everyday, at exactly the time of day I wanted to use it. Which went against their T&Cs as they say that this slowness will only happen 'from time to time'.

The £50 charge is in the terms and conditions, so they have a right to take it, if you subsequently want a refund, then a phone call may be better than letters, but getting the money back in the way you did it has resulted in debt collectors, so not the best way of going about things, whatever your case.

That's debatable, but I think the second they broke their own T&Cs, which they did before I left, they waived their right to my £50. But they took it anyway, even after I supplied written evidence to them. Therefore I had no option but to reclaim it in the way I did.

RichA

I've been with Virgin for my broadband internet for over 4 years now. Have always been very happy with the actual service - it's quite rare that anything goes properly wrong for more than a few minutes.

But I'm sick to the teeth of being treated like a fool. I've never had an overdue bill, not once. I don't phone them up for technical advice at all. I've got to be the most easy-going customer they've ever had.

But all they do is take the p*ss out of us. I was on their 2mb service for ages. Noticed Tiscali were offering a great deal for the same price - I phoned up Virgin(well, NTL as it was back then) because I actually wanted to leave. I spoke to a cracking chap who said they'd match the Tiscali product(8mb) with their own 10mb, and set the price to £17.49 per month. For life, without being tied into a new contract. I was chuffed, and sang their praises - resulting in two family members who signed up for other NTL services.

Three months down the line, my bill came through and the discount had not been applied. I telephoned customer services, who immediately re-applied the discount, but told me I'd have to phone every three months to get it reinstated. It was a hassle, but not the end of the world. But had I been told this when I initially telephoned to cancel, I'd have still left, as the Tiscali offer seemed to be less recurring hassle.

Ever since they were rebranded as Virgin Media(the same time as 'measured' usage in the evenings, but still 'unlimited', and the increase to 20mb), my billing went to pot. I'd phone up and get the discount applied again, but it wouldn't take on the system. I'd have a credit raised for the previous month - the whole process was a pain in the rear.

One month I phoned up to get the credit raised, only to be told that they no longer honoured the offer I was 'sold' when I telephoned up to leave.

After much hassling with the person on the phone, I was eventually offered 4mb for £17 per month, which was £7 less than the advertised price, plus I'd not have to phone up again to get the discount sorted every month, or three(at best!).

Now I look on their website at the current pricing schemes. The 'L' package is £11.50 per month to a new customer when taken with a telephone line. After the first year, it goes up to £16 per month.

That's less than I'm paying, even with my 'retention' discount. Despite being a good customer for over 4 years.

Am I wrong to feel that Virgin are totally arrogant to their actual customer base? They really couldn't f*ck me over much more if they tried.

I'm sorry it's such a long post; I'm just really irate over this. I don't know if I have the energy to attempt switching to another company, nor do I know if I have the patience to continue being p*ssed off by Virgin Media.

They really are quite pathetic.

--Rich

normanmark

I had similar bill problems with them but they sorted it out each time. If you have them still use their web complaint submission, they respond within 24hrs and i find that its easier to get your point across. Just make sure you give references and dates you phoned & what was stated etc.

Remember they're not here to be all kind, they're here to take the money off you (every business is, some just hide it better with good customer service lol). What i'd advise is to keep the retention number handy & speak to an advisor with regards to the offers for the new customers & why cannot they apply this to yours (they should technically as you have no installation charges). But do your maths first of both your deal and the ones they offer. Most of all make sure you keep your cool, it isn't the advisors fault who deals with the call, they just work there! I find having a laugh with them usually means they're more inclined to help!

HTH

kat21

no the new discounts are incentives to get new customers, I had the same error when I asked for a better price, but eventually they do get things right lets not forget you can have the same hassle with any other provider and I have yet to find any provider better than cable broadband, look at the issues when using the telephone line for adsl, slow speeds
just keep trying they said the same thing to me, ring up every three months to renew I have been with them for a long time too, but they have to create incentives to get new customers whom are then locked in for one year
kat

jowie

https://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/boycott-virgin-media-before-they-boycott-all-special-deals

mrochester

albertross wrote: »

The point is, that nowhere is there a T&C that guarantees a minimum download speed, so 300 kbps is upto 2meg, which is what you signed up to. 300K is far from ideal, but they will have gone over the T&C's with a fine toothcomb to make sure they don't promise what they can't guarantee to deliver. From time to time could mean that 300K is your norm, and from time to time you will get 100K

I can understand you there, but then, what is the cause of this slowdown?

If it's 'circumstances beyond Virgin Media's control' then their T&Cs promises this will only happen from time to time. If it's their network shaping, then I shouldn't have been subject to that at all as I am far from being a heavy user. And if it's because they are over-subscribed, then they are failing to provide 'sufficient servers for a high level of connectivity to the service'.

The way I see it, the 3 possible ways in which my service deteriorated everyday are mentioned in their T&Cs, and break their T&Cs.

DatabaseError

to my mind, if the service slowed down at a specific time each day (peak times) then this is most likely down to insufficient infrastructure (backhaul). very rarely is congestion at the exchange on a max line the problem, which is why we no longer see 50:1 or 20:1 being advertised (by decent ISPs). my next door neighbour is with one of the well known providers and his connection slows to a crawl at about 6pm most days, i am connected to the same exchange and continue fine, his problem, like yours, is he's got (had in your case) a !!!! isp promising more than it can deliver.
the problem you have is that vm argue that the congestion is the customers fault for all using the service at the same time, rather than their own for not providing the required capacity to service their userbase at peak times.