Shame on you VM
 

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...ient-told.html

Unfortunately I am not surprised by this in the slightest. Goes to show that the NTL 'Traffic Warden' mentality is still alive and well in Virgin Media.

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Additionaly

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I saw that but it's just damage limitation. The initial reaction is what we'd have come to expect from NTL 10 years ago.

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Agreed

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So a dying man phoned up to end a contract ,this was refused by first line reps escalated to senior managers who are possibly the only staff with the authority to end the contract anyway ,and hey presto the contract is ended .Did the Sun have a few spare column inches today ?

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No phones to hack ;)

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that'll be it then :D

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I know it is in the Sun - so take with pinch of salt - but my take on the story was that the response from the spokesperson was AFTER being contacted by the reporter - not a response given to the customer.

Thus it was a reaction to the publicity and not "normal practice".

Re: Shame on you VM
 

Sorry to hear about this guys trouble, especially if the events which took place happened exactly as reported.

The Sun is becoming a great alternative to The Citizens Advice Bureau. Plus, unlike Citizens Advice, The Sun will pay to hear your tales of despair.

Would The Sun have been as helpful if the poor guy wasn't dying?

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But again, depends which part of VM responded to his offer to send in details - also it doesn't say he did send them in, just that he offered to, so it's an expectation of shifting the stance without confirmation

There certainly does seem to have been a better way to handle it, but at the same time, not everyone tells the truth when trying to get out of paying things

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Sounds about right :(

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would there of been an issue if he wasn't dying?

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My point being if someone phoned Virgin to cancel their mobile contract due to being made redundant, and Virgin refused to help just like in the dying mans case, the redundant person wouldn't get the same support from The Sun. I'd be surprised if The Sun gave 2 hoots.

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thats a whole different issue. VM have cut back plans for that.

may be guesswork white lies and all was part of the stance the agent took but it does need addressing somehow. all ISP need to take note of this, it isnt just VM, at least VM have really nice people in high positions at the company willing to go the extra mile if possible.

sending in medical/death proof isnt nice but the world turns and we have to as well.

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In fairness it is at least possible to recover from redundancy.

I'm sure people try to pull all kinds of stunts to get out of their contract and VM, just as any similar company needs to have measures in place to protect its interests.

But the guy offered to supply proof. From my time working at NTL, had I been the agent I would have gone and spoken to the highest level manager available about this. And if that person had still refused to help then it would have shown them out to be the shoddy company everyone thought they were during the 'free internet' days.

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[coughs]

Sounds like that's exactly what happened :)

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However even the 'highest level manager' probably wouldn't haven been able to give a 100% guarantee over the phone and without any proof of the situation that the contract would be cancelled - which seems to be the nub of the The Sun story.

I'm not saying that Virgin would need full medical history or anything, but just something they can log to the account to justify the cancellation

We don't know the exact phone conversation either, so judging based on story probably doesn't give the full picture.

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No one knows the validity of this story so without hearing the actual call how can anyone pass judgement especially as the source is the **** newspaper which no one in their right mind would trust to print the thruth.

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No, what it sounds like happened was the customer was greeting with the old NTL style 'brick wall' from a 'Traffic warden' CS rep.


Nobody from Virgin Media has denied The Sun's version, which is what I'd imagine most companies would do had the story been incorrect or misleading.

Going on my history of NTL/VM, this story sounds very much like something they would do.

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Based on my history of dealing with some customers, it can be just as much of a brick wall the other way ;)

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Absolutely - however the customer offered to supply proof. VM have not denied this.

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Indeed, and as I said there is probably been a way to handle it better.

But as I said before, just saying you'll send in proof wouldn't have been enough to confirm a cancallation over the phone.

What should have happened is that he should been advised to write in explaining the situation and then Virgin could have taken it from there.

Also we don't know what the tone of the conversations was? There is an assumption it's all on the agent (and it may well be), but it could just as much been a combination of both sides.

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Can you confirm that "What should have happened" is actually VM policy for such a situation, or are you just saying that in an ideal world it would be better if it was?

I am genuinely curious to know if there are actually tried and tested steps in place to weed out the honest customers from the liars when someone makes a claim like this, or are the staff instead trained to treat everyone as nothing more than potential fare dodgers?

I mean, given the amount of customers VM have, it can't be the first time something like this has happened..

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As far as I know there is no defined process to cover this particular situation - processes are usually only mapped out for regular queries.

The reason I said it would have been approrpriate to get the customer to write in is that it's likely to be dealt with in a slightly more considered position. To be honest when I was on the phones I would have had difficulty in knowing what to do with a call such as this.

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Quite simple really he would have been advised to send in written proof of his illness which any doctor worth is salt would supply for the patient.

What else could any company do except ask for written confirmation, any less than this would leave companies open to abuse of their systems.

Anyone that thinks that a company should act any differently to the above is living in fantasy world of their own design.

Do remember that this is the **** we are talking about and they just like any other daily paper will make a case like this fit the required headlines just to sell newsprint and without hearing the actual call all that they printed can be taken with a pinch of salt.

I know one thing and that is if that customer had come through to me while working for Virgin Media then I would have personally spoken to a retentions agent and would have advised them to do the right thing for this person, I never had to deal with issues like this one but I did take ownership on any call that warranted it.

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Funny how this thread reminds me of nthellworld from 10 years ago. I hope we don't have any flyer's about spiderman anywhere ;)

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If I was member of Virgin Media upper management then I would not want any dealings with this paper as they would no doubt twist the story to fit their headlines.

All that should happen is for upper management to contact the customer to resolve the issue without the need for newspaper headlines, as that is dealing with the issue responsibly which oddly some people do not want to happen.

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If a company was being given negative publicity in this way over something they didn't actually do, or is being reported in a distorted light the common sense thing to do would be to respond to it, even if to a rival paper. This has all the hallmarks of VM knowing they've done wrong and damage limitation.

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This has all the hallmarks of a rag not fit to wipe anyones backside just stirring the bull droppings as per usual nothing more so why would a company want to give credence to a low life rag such as the ****.

Now if this is a real issue why has it not hit the television headlines even at local level, now if it was on television then you could realistically give this tale some credibility but in that rag it has all the hallmarks of pinnochio.

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Fair comment.

However I like to think that if I had a company that was being lied about in a national newspaper, I'd probably want to do something about it such as launch legal action or put out a statement denying it and giving the real version of events.

The last thing I'd do is leave a guilty silence over what initially happened. But maybe that's just me.

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For al we know they are in the process of suing the **** as we speak, believing anything that rag prints is a silly thing to do considering their past history.

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Could be, however I'm pretty certain we'll be able to look back at this in 12 months time with nothing about any subsequent legal action being reported. Although the silence of course may be part of a settlement agreement.

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We will probably never know one way or another to be honest.

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The Scottish doctors prognosis for the alleged/convicted Lockerbie bomber was that he will die in 3 months but he died in 3 years.

Go to Vomit Media's point of view, do they extend the contract daily, so he keeps in contact with his family, doctors AND 911?

VM was reasonable.

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Thanks for your honesty.. I also agree, which was why i wondered if their were established procedures in place an employee could follow in order to find out if the customer was genuine or just trying it on.

You'd think so, but if it isn't actually company policy to do so, it hinges more on the type of representative you end up interacting with.

Well, given that VM have apologised for the incident, I'm leaning toward it not being The '****' "stirring the bull droppings" (for a change at least) and it relating more to VM requiring a set policy, instead of being entirely reliant on their employee to figure it out and do the right thing.

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Any such request would have to be in writing and that is company policy in fact it is every companies policy.

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The only time l would read The Sun, is in the toilet then it would be flushed down the toilet.

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Non-story.

Bleeding heart ballcocks article that that fails to grasp reality.

I feel sorry for the guy, and I would fear to be in that position myself. However, contracting a terminal condition does not free you of all your responsibilities. If it was a mortgage or a car and he owed thousands would you be shouting "shame on you
Lloydstsb or ford?"

I'm sure if you get through to the right person this kind of thing can be sorted out..... And it looks like it was.

I don't understand why it was posted........

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I'm presuming you can see the vast difference between a long-term secured loan costing tens or hundreds of thousands, and 12 month contracts which are routinely ended early under similar circumstances?

Doesn't look like anything of the sort to me. Given that the company has not denied this, it looks like the customer was met with the usual brick wall until VM were approached by a paper.

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Maybe, Maybe not..

I've noticed that Private Eye does report on legal actions of this kind though, as does The Mirror if The Sun is involved.

---------- Post added at 23:12 ---------- Previous post was at 23:00 ----------

Not sure about dying customers, but I speak from experience that when taking over a mortgage from a dead person, most banks will allow you to take a brief payment holiday before requiring that you take out another mortgage to cover the costs. However, in this case, the family aren't quibbling over a loan that may be in the hundreds of thousands of pounds. They are quibbling over £160.
Seemingly when the papers got involved.

People did every day. I daresay bearing in mind the amount of customers Virgin Media have, a few of their customers die every day. I am staggered they don't appear to have a procedure for this.

Maybe to highlight where VM initially failed a customer? Seemingly only correcting it when the Newspapers got involved?

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We'll see what sky's policy on this is as well as most other companies, just let the contract run and it will eventually get cut off when it hasn't been paid and go to a debt collector who will then be informed that the customer is dead. That is what happened with my mums Santander account. Didn't even have to send off any certificates, many debt collectors check up on this stuff.

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Is this still rumbling on, Must be a slow news day in "we hate VM land"

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Hahaha :D