Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

Hi all, 8+ years with virgin and now they've finally let us down us down for the last time.

We just moved house and had a nice local Virgin 'rep' set up our transition from old house to the new over the last 3 weeks as the virgin call center did not think our address existed.

My wife NEEDS the broadband to work from home.

3 weeks ago we arranged an install for this Monday 9th. People were let into the vacant property and confirmed there was indeed a virgin box installed and wires leading into the street outside. All was good to go.

Monday comes, my wife skips working for the day, loss of earnings, no Virgin...

Where are they? "Oh we cant provide the house with VM" although the remnant ofthe virgin kit is attached to the walls and the neighbors all have it.

One week ago we received a missed call, no messages, just a number. In this age you don't call unknown numbers back for long, they are normally ppi or a scam. It was virgin's 'we cant connect' call. They left no message or text alert. (a service so many now do like sky for example).

We're massivly let down and out of pocket. I'm paying for a service I can but cant have.

Who do I quit to people? Sky? Bt? none are as good on B'band / fibre optic... what works best for movies & gaming at peak times? what are my options in Cambridge?

Advice please x we need a quick set up and some better customer service than this

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

Why cant they connect you?

Have they given any explanation, as the only issue is likely a collapsed duct, which once permission to dig is obtained, shouldnt take long to fix

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

...something to do with the unique grid system of Cambridge...

the real burn is they wont acknowledge that the house previously had Virgin set up. It's all there... It's like they're looking at a computer saying 'can't do that' and not even investigating at the source.

After all the hoo-har we asked if a technician can call past and just check the kit that is there and if they think it is possible. They couldn't even do that and left us hanging...

taking days off of work waiting for these mercenaries to never turn up is utterly frustrating.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

If someone posts it, maybe an email to the CEO is the way to go? Or getting in touch with them through Twitter. They have been able to sort out a problem for me before now through Twitter account.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

Yeah a good suggestion!

anyone know a useful address for uk contact? I don't 'tweet' you see...

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

thank you very much :)

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

Anyone who NEEDS broadband for work and relies solely on a single consumer service with no backup is just asking for trouble.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

she was involved in an accident and is currenlty house bound, we are humble people with limited resources.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

If you can't afford paying £2 to avoid losing a day's earnings you should probably not be subscribing to Virgin Media.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

maybe you could enlighten me how spending £2 helps instead of being so blunt about it?

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

By paying for a backup connection?

Perhaps like I said earlier, you should have looked into these sorts of things before you ran into problems if you have business needs that rely on having an internet connection?

As I see it, Virgin tried calling you to say they would not be coming to install, you didn't answer, now you're blaming them for loss of earnings and poor customer service?

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

Surely working from home you should be using business broadband??

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

Cambridge is SID fed, its a very old and badly designed network. Your property may well be pre wired but if the external drop cable has been used for an adjacent property then you are doomed. Have you tried contacting the original guy that came out?

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

If like me you're a one man band and don't need to host your own website or e-mail server then the domestic service is more than adequate.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

I do believe it is or was against the VM T&Cs to use their home broadband for running a business.

Also the business service has better fault response and repair times.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

Its not illegal to run any business from your own home no matter which services you use to do so.

It is not up to VM on the way you run your business, whether its over the phone, email or through a website, or all 3.

They only want you to believe they have the right so you buy the extortionate package, which is nothing really special... an amended docsis file and a different hub.

Again they would be pretty much in hot water if they forced people who work from home, or has to work from home due to an accident, a business package for silly money.

There is no law that supports VMs claims.

If you want a service where there is personnel tech staff sure go for the expensive package, but if people want to pay for the smaller package at a reasonable price and don't care about throttling etc.. then they can do so.

Besides not all small business can afford the business packages anyway, so in some respects when they are giving the spiel about having to buy that package it just alienates the customer who will move elsewhere.

My old shop was Blueyonder at first (then VM), and I would help get customers for them etc, eventually they started calling and sending emails constantly about me having a business and MUST have the business package.. I told them several times.. no I don't, show me a legal law that forces me to do so... Nothing.

I heard the "We would then be closing your services" schtick. To which I said no you won't as you would be breaking the contract we have. Eventually it got so tiring, I just called up and cancelled, told them aint paying your stupid cancellation fee due to the harassment (and it was) of the CSRs and left them.

Went to BT on a normal connection from that day, and for another 2.5 years it was great.

There ya go :P

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

DABhand, your're right - small businesses can (and do) use the Home Broadband package.

What they can't do is get recompense for loss of business if the BB goes down.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

Last time I looked into it, businesses don't have to have a business bank account or business telephone line either.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

Whilst true, some good points about that are made here....

http://www.brighton-accountants.com/...-bank-account/

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

Yep. Indeed.

Most people who are small businesses or doing work from home, don't need anything extravagant, and that was annoys me when people instantly throw the "you must have" the business broadband package.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

If I was working from home I would certainly invest in a business broadband package. Business packages usually come with better SLAs and fault response times. If you're dependant on a connection for work, this is vital. Also business customers are much more likely to get UK based sales and support staff (in my experience), and the support staff will be more clued-up on such things as having your own router in place.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

Indeed. Pretty much anything can be used for things that are not their intended purpose. Most of the time if there's a specialised product designed for that purpose it'll do the job better than something which is not.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

Or, to put it another way, you wouldn't use a poundland socket set to rebuild a truck engine.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

On the other hand you don't buy a Rolls Royce when a Mini will do the job.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

The price difference between business and domestic is not Mini/Rolls Royce though.

For example, for plusnet's domestic grade unlimited FTTC package its £32 a month with discounts. Unlimited business is £35 inc VAT. Unlimited business with a 24hr repair SLA is £45 all-in.

If I worked from home, for the sake of that tenner a month, I'd go business.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

If "the job" involves looking big and flashy, and have huge amounts of interior space, the Mini will not do the job.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

Absolutely, but I was talking about a one man band like myself. If I send >10megs of data a day it's unusual and rarely download more than 1G in a session.

I Don't host my own site or email services so a static IP isn't needed. I set up and maintain my own internal network, routers and switches so support or lack thereof, of that kind, isn't really an issue.

I have a 3G backup service to cover VM's (rare) outages.

So for me the extra cost of a dedicated business service, although relatively small, isn't really necessary.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

I have noticed that they never list the upload speed for the business lines (except the performance one which is 100mb both ways), and also no traffic management except between after 6pm and before 8am, but 8am-6pm is fine.

Why pay more for more SLAs in your favour and supposedly instant tech support and fixes, which basically never happen.

Then they have this

"You’ll probably be able to get the fastest Internet service in your area from us. But because broadband services are shared amongst other businesses in the local area, your download speeds can’t be guaranteed. So whilst for some it won’t matter that upload speeds aren’t as fast as downloads, for digitally-dependent businesses – who use video conferencing, Cloud apps or off-site storage – this could be a deal breaker. So allow us to introduce Dedicated Internet Access too."

They even can't guarantee you will get what you pay for lol, it is so bad.

They pretend its bandwith sharing between other businesses in the area, but in reality... it will be shared with normal customers.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

All of VM's services are 'unlimited' so I'm not sure how data consumption is relevant - the business service doesn't allow higher usage.

But of course if you don't need the other 'features' you don't need to pay for them - you do however lose any right to complain about those extra features you didn't pay for. That's the jist if this thread...

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

You are right. They used to list the upload speeds for business services. For the 50 Mb/s business service the upstream speed is 5 Mb/s. for the 152 Mb/s business service I was quoted 'up to 15 Mb/s' but gather it is actually 12, Maybe when someone who has that service reads this they can confirm.

In terms of bandwidth guarantees - this is common amongst broadband providers. If you need guaranteed bandwidth then a traditional leased line service might be more appropriate.

The SLAs on the business service does offer a faster fix time then residential. I, for one have had very swift responses to faults. Certainly in the evenings the person that answers the faults line is the very same engineer that will login to the CMTS infrastructure and troubleshoot with you while you are on the phone. I have had faults cleared that way.

Congestion faults requiring a node split clearly go for further planning, but have seen that happen within a week of reporting.

A visit requiring an engineer visit can be late at night/weekend. The fault repair service for business broadband is excellent in my experience.

Now to balance that the way the new firmware has been handled is poor, and there were many lessons VMB should have learned from this.

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

That is interesting, thanks for sharing.

Good to see they have night shift techs to come out and fix something (with exception of course - they can't do any roadwork etc at time time of night).

Re: Virgin let us down big time - advice?
 

Yes agreed - however on site troubleshooting etc and swap of Superhub or cabinet work etc will be done 24/7.

They quote a 24 hour fix on broadband still however as you say there are exceptions that have to be accepted - roadworks, major network changes etc would fall into that exception list.

a DDoS attack at some of their business broadband IP ranges was dealt with within about 2 hours of reporting on a Saturday evening not too long ago.