VM fail to call back

Some 30 odd hours after Virgin Media promised to call me back the call has not materialised. No surprise there then.

Decided to log-on to “My Virgin Media” and surprise surprise. The following message appears:-

We're sorry; we're having a few technical problems. We're working to fix them so please try again later.

I try to cancel my account

Needless to say I was unsuccessful. Apparently my agreement has another six months to run?

To cancel I will have to give one month’s notice and then pay£180.

I asked what had happened to my account that had started the clock ticking again six months ago but could get no answer. I was told that I had changed my services and that I would have received a new contract and I would find the details in the terms and conditions. I asked what had changed but she didn’t know.

I was also informed that I should not complain to customer service but to write a formal complaint as customer service were not geared up to handle complaints. These people are hard to believe.

I have tried writing to them in the past but have never had an answer. Much the same as when they say they will phone back, as they did this morning. Of course they don’t bother.

What is wrong with these people?

Virgin Media Choices.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Here are the choices offered by Virgin Media if you wish to access your account.
Click on the picture to get a bigger image.

"We'd like to keep in touch" would be more accurately described as “YOU WILL KEEP IN TOUCH”

And I guess I could add that a customer doesn’t have a choice if my treatment is any example.

Let me stress, the Virgin Media service is very good whilst it is working but wow betide if anything goes wrong as they have engineered their customer service in such a way to ensure the customer always comes to a dead end. I guess this is good business practice from their point of view as it obviously allows them to recon that a large proportion of customers will have either the time or energy to pursue problems further. I have given in on many occasions before. But not this time Virgin Media as I have all the time in the world.

I get to speak to the Supervisor

After listening to a few tunes the Supervisor finally comes online.

Whereas the first Customer Service agent was able to look at the Virgin Media website and see what I was talking about the supervisor claims she cannot see it. She asks for my password and pin number so that she can access my account page to see what I am talking about.

I wasn’t very thrilled by this idea but thought what the hell I am going to cancel this account anyway and try a different ISP. So I gave her the information and went back on hold while she had a look.

A few tunes later she comes back and said no problem, all you had to do was tick the box for "no" and press "Continue".

I pointed out that doing either ticking the box or pressing “Continue” were the only choices and both signed you up for a lifetime of Spam.

Virgin Media have just signed me up for my details to be passed to other companies……Thank you very much, I get enough Spam already.

I thought about the old adage of being “promoted to your level of incompetence” but dismissed the idea in favor of thinking that she probably knew exactly what she was doing so I asked to speak to her supervisor.

Of course, the normal answer of “There is no one senior to me here, I will get someone to phone you in about an hour”
I asked a silly question, "Do you have any escalation procedure to follow when you cannot deal with a problem" She said it all, "No, nothing that I have ever heard about!.

It is a good job I am retired as I have a feeling this is also “Virginspeak” for “Another punter dealt with” as I know from bitter experience they never phone back.

Talking to Customer Service

When my ISP was incorporated into the Virgin Media Empire I couldn’t have been more pleased.

My previous experiences of Richard Branson’s airline had convinced me that this was a guy who knew how to get things done correctly. Thoughts of many flights being pampered in his Upper Class seats and the trips to and from the airport in his chauffeur driven cars really convinced me that if this guy was putting his company’s name into the ISP things would not only get better but become world class. Unfortunately, this is yet to happen.

So I called Customer Service fully expecting to be eventually answered by someone on the Indian sub-continent with an impenetrable accent reading from a script that did not contain the answer to my query.  All I wanted to do was ask how I may access my account without agreeing to subject myself to more spam for the rest of my life. Yes Virgin Media, you may call it marketing information or whatever you wish; but to my mind, if I don’t want it I shouldn’t be forced to have it and I will call it SPAM.

Imagine my surprise when the call was answered by someone from the United Kingdom.  Unfortunately, the call was answered somewhere far North of Hadrian’s wall and I found the accent slightly more incomprehensible than that of the Indian sub-continent.  

However, despite my surprise things rapidly got back to normal.

1.       The answer to my question was not on the Tartan shaded script.

2.       She could do nothing about it except make a note on my account

From previous experience I know without ever having been on a Virgin Media training course that the true meaning of making a note on my account is actually “Virginspeak” for “that’s another punter we can forget about because we have dealt with it”.

Normally this is where I normally give in because this far into proceedings can take a long time.  However, having just retired I have plenty of time and asked to speak to her supervisor as I really would like to pay my bill. I shall listen to the music in the meanwhile.

Virgin Media forces me to accept Spam

I signed into my Virgin Media account this morning with the intention of paying my monthly subscription. Or at least I tried.
Being greeted with a page asking me to verify my details I immediately suspected that it was some spammer impersonating the Virgin Media site. After all Virgin Media manage to issue me with an invoice each month so why would they need to verify anything?
After doing some checks I found that the page was indeed coming from Virgin Media so decided to proceed.
That is, until I came upon a page that forced me to accept my details being passed to other companies. They have so designed their site so that it is impossible to log into my account without agreement to my details being passed to other companies.
I give credit to the guy that designed the scam because it would be so easy to think that because you hadn’t ticked a little agreement box you would remain spam free.
Note to Richard Branson: Why do you allow your company name to be associated with these people?
I will contact "customer service" and see what they have to say.