Virgin Broadband rant

DettaWalker

Good morning.
Loving my virgin broadband cancellation experience. Their process seems to be designed to throw a lot of roadblocks your way if you try to cancel:

1) cancel via post, phone or chat.
2) if you chose chat: expected wait time 660 minutes (I guess a lot of people give up that way and decide to try later). Not to worry, the real wait time was 30 minutes.
3) When you speak to an advisor, they will refuse to cancel for you before you listened to their options and despite repeatedly telling them that my decision is final, they keep trying.
4) they finally agree to cancel and ask you to stay on the chat. MAGICALLY you get logged out right after they confirm a cancel date. I logged back in just in case and of course, as I log back in the message refreshes saying: I need you to stay on the chat while I process. Nearly got me there!
5) they process the cancellation further but then.. throw another offer at me. Now I am no longer polite as we are 45 minutes into my chat session with the advisor and they still have not cancelled. I am holding "the line" on chat and am awaiting further information.

Here's some screenshots. I cannot believe they get away with this kind of behaviour.

I am still waiting for the cancellation to be confirmed. It's now been an hour.

(Removed by Forum Team)

I am still waiting.
Not ok Henry.

DettaWalker

Update: After 1 hour 3 minutes being connected to Henry, I have finally received confirmation of the cancellation of my services.

The_Unready

That is appalling. I'd be tempted to raise a formal complaint, although I doubt if it will do much good ☹️.

daveyjp

No different to what I experienced. 

 Even after I cancelled they called me constantly during the termination notice period to negotitate a new price. 

Moving broadband should be as simple as changing mobile provider.

DettaWalker

Sadly I agree, a complaint won't do any good. So I am posting here instead for just a little naming and shaming.  1 hour 3 minutes to cancel a service, not including waiting time. That is not okay. Should have posted a letter.

The_Unready

Your letter would probably have been "lost in the post" ☹️.

victor2

That is appalling. City Fibre have just dug our estate up laying cables, so will look at leaving when my contract is up. At least it does mean the usual game of threatening to leave works!

daveyjp

victor2 said:

That is appalling. City Fibre have just dug our estate up laying cables, so will look at leaving when my contract is up. At least it does mean the usual game of threatening to leave works!

Slightly OT, but if you have a new City Fibre connection available check the number of providers.  When it was first installed in our area it was Vodaphone only as they had exclusivity on new services in the area and they were no cheaper than Virgin.

After about 12 months that incresed and we now have about 15 different options with far more competitive pricing.

Marmaduke123

The_Unready said:

Your letter would probably have been "lost in the post" ☹️.

We wrote to them to cancel, and said we didn't want any contact with them by phone. It worked OK, but admittedly it was a few years ago now. I'd never go back to them.

PZ19

Haha completely wrong that but made me smile, Henry wouldn’t give up would he..just ignoring you all the time.  That’s how they’re trained, when you go off the usual script they can’t handle it, and ignore you.  Maybe Henry was an automated AI bot…

FreeBear

DettaWalker said:

Good morning.
Loving my virgin broadband cancellation experience. Their process seems to be designed to throw a lot of roadblocks your way if you try to cancel:

1) cancel via post, phone or chat.
2) if you chose chat: expected wait time 660 minutes (I guess a lot of people give up that way and decide to try later). Not to worry, the real wait time was 30 minutes.
3) When you speak to an advisor, they will refuse to cancel for you before you listened to their options and despite repeatedly telling them that my decision is final, they keep trying.

I sent an email to their complaints team telling them that I will be terminating my contract in November when my deal runs out. No response.

Have used their "chat" system, and had acknowledgement of my "request" to cancel, but it couldn't be processed as it was more than 60 days. I said "thank you for acknowledging receipt of notice. That you can not action it is not my problem". Tempted to ring them, but I'm not prepared to hang around on hold. Maybe a terse email to the complaints team admonishing them for the lack of response is in order....