Virgin Media fail to deliver promised level of service

Cassidy123

Hi everyone,

Just before Christmas a Virgin rep came to my door and offered me the following:

• XL TV
• 200MB broadband
• sky movies
• TiVo v6 box
• an extra set top box
• Line rental and free evening/weekend calls

All this for a mere £39 a month! I'm not the biggest fan already of virgin media, but I entertained the idea for a while and then decided it was significantly cheaper than my sky package (TV, phone and bb) and the only difference would be not having sky Atlantic.

I had VM installed on Tuesday and had medium channels (no movies, HD or Nat Geo!!!!) and only 50MB broadband. So I called customer services. Apparently the doorstep dude was overstepping in his ability to offer! Now I have a crappy old TiVo box (only one, mind!) and no sky movies. Granted it's cheap, but I want all that stuff, and I was promised it!! Turns out that the detail on my "contract" was not clear enough to get me what I was promised, and people in the call centre were of the opinion that I should be grateful for having any of what was promised!

So my question is this:. Do I cancel (I have 12 days from today) because they haven't delivered on their promise, even tho it's A LOT cheaper than my sky package or do I stay and be forever whiney about it? I just don't know!! My first instinct is "cancel"!! But then I think that's cutting off my nose to spite my face!!

Thanks!

AndyPK

Scan the bit of paper in what you signed upto.

Is it black and white ?

Only you can answer the question though.

kwikbreaks

VM certainly used to have a satisfaction guarantee allowing you to cancel within 28 days if you were dissatisfied. If you are dissatisfied check to see if that still applies and if so cancel.

Doorstep touts have been misselling VM deals since shortly after Noah's arc landed. The bloke on the door was not a VM employee and was working on commission - if he thought promising 6 gold plates, diamond encrusted Tivo boxes would have got a signature then that is what he would have promised along with unlimited terrabit broadband probably.

Pincher

I had a Virgin installation today.

For £55 per month, during the first year, I get:

One Tivo V6, Full House (XL)

Virgin Media Hub 3.0, VIVID 200Mbps Optical Fibre

Phone line, Talk Weekends

All I did was to call Virgin in December, and made an appointment.

Crossing my fingers, I will get £100 shopping voucher a month later, because I rang up when I saw the New Year Promotion.


Drilling down into the online bill,

05 Dec PRE INSTALLATION VISIT £0.00
29 Dec OPENCB10 £0.00
06 Jan V6 Box Activation Credit -£99.95
06 Jan V6 Box Activation Fee £99.95
06 Jan Activation Fee £14.99
06 Jan Free Manned Install -£40.00
06 Jan Manned Installation Charg £40.00


A pleasant surprise, as I thought the V6 costs £50 extra.
The £14.99 Activation Fee is a bit odd, since all the expensive items were refunded.

The engineer says the V6 has only been available for two weeks.
He knows very little about it, and there is NO instruction booklet.

A very odd arrangement is, the ON DEMAND/CATCHUP functionality will only work if the Tivo is plugged into the Media Hub (or via Wi-Fi)! The co-ax is only for playing TV channels. There is no guarantee that BT Infinity is fast enough for the ON DEMAND function!? It sounds like the Ultra HD stuff only works through broadband, not co-ax. Ultimately, it's still one co-ax that comes into the house, with a splitter that divides the signal to the Media Hub and V6.

Basically, it looks like Virgin was so desperate to get a reply to Sky Q into play, that they rushed out the V6 when it isn't ready.

The reviews I read said the V6 remote control is RF, not infra red, but it couldn't control the V6 even from behind a sofa. Line of sight works.


I suspect you should cancel, and get a V6 when it's more stable.

The extra Tivo box offer was in the A4 envelope offer Virgin sends me from time to time. It was never a V6, but two 500GB Tivos. Sounds like they were expecting to swap out lots of old 500GB Tivos, when the V6 comes out.

AndyPK

I recall when I signed up via a rep in 2012 that I didn't get something for free (installation maybe)

I sent a copy of the paperwork and they begrudging amended it.