Virgin Media - Avoiding, unhelpful and a complete nightmare

WCol42

I cannot believe the lack of service that I am having at the moment and by at the moment I mean 4-6 weeks of any assistance.

I moved into my new flat close to two years ago. Since then I have only had freeview television. Several weeks ago there was a promotion on for a broadband and television bundle so I decided to take the plunge with Virgin Media. This was ordered 21st March with an engineer visit booked for 6th April to install my services. I received my confirmation email acknowledging the order was a success,

6th April came and went however and other than the original email communication that I had at the time of placing the order, I received no further correspondence. Anything at all such as further emails, engineer confirmation times or even acknowledgements about Covid-19 and the household (To make sure the property was "safe"). I only had order confirmation numbers - No account number was issued to me so that I could register on the Virgin Media website to see for myself.
The team I needed to speak to on the phone - Their line was closed due to Covid-19 so it was just the normal customer services. However I could never get through to them to discuss this matter with them directly.

I had a family member go onto Facebook to message them but they did not respond to my posts about it. So the next day after the engineer failed to turn up, an email was sent to the Virgin Media Executive/Managing Directors Office on 7th April. I received zero communication from the Managing Directors Office either - Until 24th April a colleague named Anthony Levendale responded. It was a generic response that "A member of the team was looking into it". I responded in acknowledgement of this. I then received a response from another Executive on 4th May - Once again the exact same word-for-word generic response "A member of the team was looking into this". It was unbelievable that I went to the highest level within their customer care and their responses to me were in such disarray.

I registered on the Virgin Media Community Forum at the time of the original Executive email being sent. The team on the Community Forum I must say have been far more standout than any other channel. They have tried their very best with the limited information that they have to get me some answers. Sadly their responses do leave me with more questions.

It is now to the point I am finally getting somewhere with the Community Forum team, but their responses are slower than I want them to be (One reply takes a whole work day). A letter was posted out to me for me to contact them on the text messaging service (Giving a COM complaints number). Once again I had a family member use the text service for me. The information was sent in a text, after several days I had a response "I will check this now for you...." Two weeks later he never got back to me, so I responded to the text message. It has started the whole rigmarole again. By this time the Community Forum referenced the letter. Off the cuff the admin said "The letter was titled "UNSUCCESSFUL LEAD - DEBT"". The word debt was concerning. At this point that particular admin stopped responding to me and another admin took up the mantle. I got a bit further this time.

I repeated my issue (For the upteenth time) and he finally gave me something - "The order was put on hold because there is a debt on a previous account". He skirted around the debt question though. I implored him that he would be mistaken and if it could be linked to the previous tenant of the flat (<2 years ago). He seemed confident in implying that this was a personal debt against my name and that I should check "the" credit report (Whatever "the" credit report is, I haven't done one unless they are sending me one).
I was a Virgin Media customer personally about 10 years ago, but I separated from my wife and she took over the Virgin Media account in her name. I left the family home and since then I was registered as a Sky customer in all my previous address'.

This is where I am at now though, no further ahead to getting my services installed and the Executive team are too rude to respond to me personally and explain what is going on. I have no idea how I can move this forward to an actual resolution.

I may well have missed out some points, but I don't think they would be key to this whole saga considering how long it has dragged on!

• 21st March signed up to Virgin Media bundle. 6th April engineer appointment booked
• 6th April no engineer arrived
• 7th April Emailed Executive team at Virgin Media complaining over lack of correspondence
• 22nd April Received no correspondence from Executive team so sent a second letter of complaint, linking in a few more registered CEO's
• 22nd April (Approx) Community Forum member says letter issued was "Unsuccessful Lead - DEBT" letter
• 24th April Anthony Levendale acknowledges receipt "Team are looking into this"
• 1st May Sent an email back to Executive Office asking them for a follow-up
• 4th May Received response from Executive team member Michael Callan which is word-for-word the same as 24th April
• 5th May Community Forum advise that order not successful due to previous address history but not elaborating on it (Yet)

[Deleted User]

I don't think you're likely to get any further with this during the lockdown period. At present, you're not even a Virgin customer. Trying to get them to remove any "debt" from a previous account will therefore not be a priority. In the meantime, I'm certain you can make do with Freeview or sign up with one of the other ISPs

cranford

There are many vulnerable people  and those that are in difficult circumstances getting assistance from VM at the moment so why should you jump the queue? You are being totally unreasonable.

WCol42

Who said anything about queue jumping? I think what is unreasonable is that I am not being given any information and I am having to scrimp and scrape to try and get any answers that I can after 6 weeks. I think I have been incredibly fair and patient to have waited until this point

If I received something other than a generic response from the Executive team to say "I am sorry, there has been an issue - Can you please answer this question about XYZ we can make sure this is sorted". Instead I wait two weeks for an ignored email, chase it up and get a response a few days later - Then nothing further other than the same generic response.

rachel6188

I'm actually wondering did your ex actually take over the account or if she has ran up a debt? I know the customer services should still be open and tbh people saying that you are wanting to jump the queue I do not think you are. Ring up and try and go through to disconnections and although it might not be the correct department you have got a chance of speaking to someone who should be able to help find out what is going on. I understand that there is a pandemic but to completely ignore you isn't right and I know virgin media are working because I had a engineer pick up equipment today as we have recently left. I hope you are OK.

Take care x

WCol42

Thank you! Yes I am all good. I will give it a few days to see if this team can conjure something if not yes I will explore other options, even if it means spending hours on the phone.
While I did leave on less amicable terms, no debt was ran up as I had family still living at the family home so I know the account was looked after at least.

CoastingHatbox

It is very frustrating, but it is a tough time for ISPs, like it is for many businesses. They will have legal obligations around looking after their vulnerable customers, and I know they have had their hands full. One thing I will say, is that when I've needed an engineer, VM have always been much quicker to get one out than other ISPs have been to dispatch on Openreach engineer. (Two Internet connections, one expensed with VM, the other I pay for myself and switch every few years)

Marvel1

rachel6188 said:

I'm actually wondering did your ex actually take over the account or if she has ran up a debt? I know the customer services should still be open and tbh people saying that you are wanting to jump the queue I do not think you are. Ring up and try and go through to disconnections and although it might not be the correct department you have got a chance of speaking to someone who should be able to help find out what is going on. I understand that there is a pandemic but to completely ignore you isn't right and I know virgin media are working because I had a engineer pick up equipment today as we have recently left. I hope you are OK.

Take care x

Silly saying trying this department they may help, happened to me previously and I generally cannot help - don't have access etc and I end up repeating this.  They ring my direct number as can't be bothered to wait in a queue after trying the general nunber.

[Deleted User]

rachel6188 said:Ring up and try and go through to disconnections and although it might not be the correct department you have got a chance of speaking to someone who should be able to help find out what is going on. I understand that there is a pandemic but to completely ignore you isn't right 

First of all, he's not a Virgin customer. How is someone in "disconnections" therefore going to access an archived account? 

As for Virgin being "at work", yes what staff they have available are prioritising dealing with vulnerable customers. The OP is not a customer and I fully expect him to struggle to get any definitive answer until the lockdown is lifted.

dobbiesloan

The scum have took my discount from me. You chat to them on-line and the say they will put you through to someone that can help, I have been waiting since 1st April and sure enough my bill went up on the 1st of May. Let's hope when O2 takes over we will get a better deal.

cranford

O2  are not taking over: they are merging as equal partners.  Why did you not try again to get another discount? Its difficult to get thru at the moment but plenty of customers have,