Virgin Media Fandango

anotherbaldrick

Ignoring the hiatus that surrounded Virgin Media as they got everything totally screwed with the initial installation at our property, I am now having frustrating problems in getting them to rectify a problem with their system .
Our Tivo box went dead two months ago so we phoned for an engineer to call ,three weeks later he called and said our cable was low on signal . nothing about the box being dead, we had to prove to him it would not boot up on our other outlet. He advised a line engineer would have to attend and gave us a no choice date telling us to go on line and alter it.
We altered the date , earliest available was a month on. That date has now passed and the engineer phoned to say he was running late but never made it, no contact from Virgin.
We have now been seven weeks and counting trying to get a service attended to, during this time Virgin knowing we are down on service are still billing us for the full contract amount .
Trying to get through to anyone at Virgin is bloody hopeless, what a shower they are.

Moneymaker

My bet is that those who matter at Virgin don't know that you have no service because you haven't written to them. Forget the telephone - you have no proof of anything that you allege was said. Make all contact by signed-for letter. Nowadays so few people are able to write coherently or lick a stamp that companies receive very few letters. So yours will be near the top of the pile.

Be sure to keep it succinct (in other words don't bore them with an essay). Simply bullet-point the dates and the facts. Stick to facts - they don't care about your opinion.

State what you want them to do, i.e. fix it within 7 days and refund/compensate you for loss of viewing for X weeks.

Be sure to include your contract number, full contact details and list days when you will be available.

anotherbaldrick

Thanks for the reply and I take your point about keeping a log of all the facts. Virgin are aware of the fault they have logged it and given me a reference number.
My suspicion is that Virgin are running the department on a shoestring with far too few engineers giving very poor response dates and undue pressure on the engineers who are being run ragged trying to cover too much in a day. A shambolic management structure is not helping.
This is probably aimed at keeping overheads down but the result is bad service. Whenever I have to call service I now put the phone on speaker and settle down in the armchair with a drink and book.

itstheone

Blimey, you have some patience!

I would have emailed the CEO office after about a fortnight.

anotherbaldrick

Update on forgoing , engineer turned up 10 O'clock at night . Luckily we were still up . turns out the previous engineer did not know what he was doing, nothing wrong with incoming cable , strong signal . Bad news it was a dead Tivo box as we always suspected and he had not brought one with him ? so he left promising to bring one today but not arrived or made contactv yet. live in hopes .

anotherbaldrick

Further update, engineer did not bother to make contact . Phoned their contact number again, seems that having visited once they have taken the issue off their system although chap that called did not do anything and left us with the problem unresolved.
Now have a new appointment today for a box to be delivered, being a trusting soul I live in hope that this will come good. But why do Virgin have to make contact with them so difficult ? they do not list any Email addresses, they publicise an on line chat facility but it is always taken and no queuing is provided, written responses go unanswered . The only way is their 150 number which I have never had to wait less than half hour to get through on.
Perhaps Corporate thought is that it is economical to make themselves scarce ! wonder they don't do the same as a lizard and hide under a rock.

anotherbaldrick

OK, the engineer called yesterday and installed a new Tivo Box, we were able to watch television. That is up to this evening, now the Virgin signal has gone down, blank screen for over an hour . Not an unusual occurrence, a month ago we lost the signal for 5 hours. Always seems to happen over the weekend.