VM Community Forum Move
 

The VM Community Forum is moving to a new provider over the next couple of months. The boards will be locked as read only until all the existing accounts are migrated. The VM & O2 forums will also be merged into one at the relaunch.

https://community.virginmedia.com/bl...wntime/5692886

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Title changed to be less confusing.
I thought this was going to be about you being suspended, until I read it.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Yes I was perusing this morning and noticed some threads are now locked and some are still available, mostly to do with VM TV.
It will be interesting to see what the outcome is, I mean can it be any worse than the VMO2ID merged account creations ...

Good luck with your move guys!!

I had a look at your site,looks nice!!

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

It’s an odd situation, most of the sections are locked except for some related to TV, you would have thought that if they were moving it to a different platform, they would have locked the whole lot to avoid the risk of losing posts.

Also the post from their mods specifically called out about the forum going off line at the end of the month (January), which patently hasn't happened.

You don’t think that maybe VM’s legendary propensity to be completely incompetent has stuck again? Surely not.....!

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

All the VM Community Forum boards are now read only (the VIP boards were the last to be locked yesterday). The forum is likely to go offline completely around the end of the month.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

"The forum is likely to go offline completely around the end of the month.”

But will it ever come back? I’m 50/50 about whether VMO2 will simply abandon it in favour of ‘social media’.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

That is when the Khoros contract ends.
The signals we were getting from the forum mods just before the shutdown was that progress with the new platform was already under way.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

“The signals we were getting from the forum mods just before the shutdown was that progress with the new platform was already under way.”

Yes but do you honestly think that Kei et. al. will be aware of the actual situation, our are being told to say ‘xyz’?

Yeh, fine, they have about as much validity as if you asked my cat for a statement!

Sorry no, this is not how stuff works; your contract with a certain provider expires at a certain time and won’t be renewed, you know this and so take action well before to mitigate against it. Also ‘end of the month’; the original implication based on when to was posted was that it was end of January, which never happened. Here we are in mid February and the VM community forums still seem be on-line, albeit in a read-only mode, so presumably there is still some relationship with Khorus.

Anyhow, this is simply not how a competent company who genuinely want’s to maintain a forum works. Either VM are not competent to do this, or they simply don't want to have a forum.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

VM aren't the first (probably not the last) big company to close a 'public' forum that does tend to only have posts (accessible without logging in) concerning problems and issues with the service, equipment, and it's contracts.

Damage limitation in my eyes ;)

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

It was far too useful for customers. Advice from others and VM mods who would try and help. That won't do at all, not the VM way.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Only a temporary thing.
Link

Yes people always seem to do away wiith GOOD things and its quite sad!

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

How longs a offline a 'bit'? Its been offline for several weeks. Either they have a major technical issue, or they intend kicking it into the 'long grass'.....

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

The point being it's not permanent as some people are suggesting.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

No it hasnt, its still online atm, read only I presume, the last posts appear to be 10 days ago.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

The last two posts were actually made 6 days ago, by nodrogd and myself in the VIP Lounge. That forum board is only visible to Forum Moderators and Forum VIP's.

VM are in the process of selecting a new provider and currently working through how the new structure will operate including merging and migrating all the data from both the VM and O2 communities into a new combined forum.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

So they haven’t yet selected a new provider, nor have a proper plan for how it will look or how to merge the posts from the old VM and O2 communities?

One would have thought that such things would have been already decided and worked out some time ago - it’s starting to give a distinct whiff of ‘not properly thought through’.

So does the contract with Khorus terminate at the end of February, in which case the old VM and O2 forums will probably just vaporise? Well they've got two weeks, so let’s see.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

So they have closed the current forum but havent even selected a replacement yet. :shocked: Sounds like more poor planning by VM. :dozey:

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Or maybe VM are hoping for a last minute callback from Khorus with a better offer and a bigger discount..

:erm: Just joking

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Lets all hope it goes better than the last VM & O2 user account merger ...

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

it will probably all get thrown onto Discord :devsmoke:

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

This is nothing new with Virgin, no idea about how 02 is run.

---------- Post added at 16:54 ---------- Previous post was at 16:53 ----------

:) :D

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

"This is nothing new with Virgin, no idea about how 02 is run.”

Too be fair, I’m not convinced they know how their own company is run, let alone O2!

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Well here we are a week later, no further news, both the VM and O2 community forums are read only for almost three weeks. Just how long does it take to migrate to a new platform - well assuming that all due diligence was done and a proper plan put in place.

VM didn’t have a proper plan in place did they?

Now I know that a couple of posters on here are also VIP members of VM’s (ex) forums and presumably have some back channel connections, but they have all gone very quiet - odd that.

It's not coming back, is it? Or if it does it will be a shallow imitation of its former self. It used to be said that the VM customer forums were a beacon of light in the stygian gloom of VM’s sorry excuse for customer service - so obviously that can’t be allowed to continue!

I feel sorry for the staff; it has to be a soul destroying job. Not able to actually do anything but pass messages on, (it is true, no, that various abilities have been removed from their purview recently), and be mandated to reply with the (obviously company policy) ‘sorry to hear of this incident, this is not the quality of service we aim to provide’ spiel - actually yes it is, this is exactly what you aim to provide, because that is what your bosses have spent a lot of time engineering just such a scenario.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

I guess they're still working on getting the AI to stop responding to any queries with the answer

"oh that doesn't sound good does it, I'm sorry but we neither have the time, money or inclination to fix anything"

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Looks like the suspiscion they were using this as an excuse to 'close down' any public airing of the many issues with VM, maybe true. As mentioned above this was thie only decent bit of CS VM had.

They'll prevaricate for a few more weeks/ months then come out with a statement saying they are pursuing more effective ways to interface with customers. It will probably involve bots/ oversea call centres.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

The forum used to be the single useful thing that VM actually provided. It seems to have been watered down in terms of what the staff could do over the past year or two but it was better than nothing. I also fear the end is nigh for it. no news is bad news I think in this instance.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

I think I saw some mention of VM and Goole's Gemini being deployed to manage the network, thus giving better service as the AI can spot problems quicker?
If this is true, then I guess Gemini can also be used as a brilliant front line Helpdesk bot, no? ...

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Wouldn't you have to type (or speak very clearly and slowly) the problem and its symptoms for the AI to understand and diagnose* the issue?



* diagnose = search the internet for a fix, something you've already probably done.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

In my experience, "Support" bots are generally just completely useless, on any site.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Yes, although they will start with the basis that you haven’t tried the obvious ‘turn in on and off again’ process; which, naturally you have, not being an idiot, but the bot doesn’t know that, so insists that you do it anyway.

And to be fair, a good majority of issues can be fixed with a reboot, yes I know it’s a bit of a cliche, but it does actually work, well, say 80% of the time. So you can see why a bot will default to that.

The issue comes when you have a more complex issue which won't be fixed by simple measures. How many resources will VM expend on fixing a ‘possibly tiny’ number of issues?

Now they may make a business decision that it is better to simply concentrate on the simple fixes, using AI, and as for the more complex ones? Tough, just leave! Not good from a customer service and long term view, but from the bosses perspective ‘just get my bonus based on short term....’ maybe it’s suddenly understandable?

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Tick, tock...

Last time VM did a forum 'upgrade' it took a few hours....

A month later, after the latest hiatus, and they are hoping the punters have forgotten.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

This is more than an upgrade though, it's a merger of two forums and we know how well combining VM and O2 services has gone for many people so far. I'm not hopeful we'll see anything any time soon. I'm thinking more of the timescale with the email debacle a year or two ago which went on for months.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Yes true; but you would have assumed that the two companies, knowing they were intent on doing this, would have worked out beforehand the practicalities and how exactly this would be done. I’m certainly not suggesting that not is easy, which is precisely why it it should have been meticulously planned out ahead.

Why is the old VM Community forum still up, albeit read-only? I understood that the contract with Khorus expired at the beginning of the month (which month is vague, presumably Feb.) so it should be down. Why isn’t it?

There are a couple of of posters on here who are also VIP members on the (now defunct) VM forum, and, presumably have some back-channel information as to what is going on and could comment on here. Except they won’t, it’s more than their status is worth!

VM in Ireland has no equivalent forum and relies on social media, and that's the way it’s going.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Not true as far as I am concerned. I know as much about what is going on as you. Hopefully the Fourm will come back at some point, however the decision is ultimately down to cost. It could well be deemed too expensive and that would be the end of it. As for moving to "Social Media'", I did read somewhere around 50% of VM's queries are on "X", so that is also an option. If that did transpire, I'd be off as I'd rather eat glass ...

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

And yes I would agree, I have no Social Media presence, and I am not going to create one for my 88 year old mother who is still a VM customer - although probably not for long, well as soon as I sort out the Power of Attorney details.

"I know as much about what is going on as you.” - hang on, you are a VIP member on the (now, obviously defunct) VM Community forums no? So they hold you in as much contempt as all the rest of the contributors; Kei has told you nothing at all? Yeah, sounds about right.

It is a massive shame, the forum staff were the one and only way of cutting through VM’s deliberately customer-hostile support provision and actually getting some help.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Can people not get help on this forum any more?

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

No all, of the threads are ‘read-only’, no new posts allowed and no new threads requesting help or advice can be made.

The claim was that the forum needed to he moved to a new platform because VM’s contract with the old provider ‘Khorus’ was ending and for whatever reason they didn’t or couldn’t renew it. Absolutely fine, make arrangements to move one it to a new provider.

A post from the VM mods back in January stated that the forum would become ‘read-only’ soon, then be completely off-line 'for a while', at the end of the month - presumably end of January. This came and went and the forum still worked, and then suddenly all of the threads were locked, no new posts allowed in early February, so OK a slight mess up and it all needs to change by end of February. Fine.

And here we are, 6th March, the old VM community forums are still there and accessible but still read-only; you can’t post anything or request help.

So what of Earth is going on? It does have all the hallmarks of VM’s legendary ‘confusion’ as the staff used to claim on the forum. To which a number of posters would point out that by ‘confusion’, please do read ‘complete incompetence’!

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

I think the writings on the wall. The prospect of VM and O2 collaborating to get a new forum up and running, involving merging their two forums seemed a bit optimistic at best. They seem like perfect bed fellows in their new merger with incompetence and b.s. being their mission statement.
I expect we'll end up with some token interactions possible via Facebook and Whatsapp only, thankfully from my pov it won't matter as I'm now cable provider free for the first time in decades.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

I think he meant THIS forum.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Can I recommend Dude111 as Chief Technical Advisor? ;)

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Shame if it doesn't come back it came in handy solving a few things rather than contacting Dave in india

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

I did, used to be a load of helpful people on Cf and there were high up contacts whose help could be sought too iirc

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Think you are being too generous to VM here. They don't have any intention of bringing the forum back. Its a way of 'soft closing' something they dont want. Prevaricate for weeks/months, then say they've found better ways (for them) ie. Social media/bots that they can control the narrative more. Its not good business for them to have all the issues with VM aired for all to see. Vodafone did exactly the same with their support forum.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Ah right, my bad, I misunderstood your post. Yes there are a number of helpful and informative people on here who do understand how a lot of the technology that VM uses works. But at best, now then can advise only.

All of the contacts will be gone now, in the last few months of the VM community forum, it was announced that even the forum staff (VM employees) could no longer perform certain tasks, everything disappeared behind ‘let’s take it to PM (private message) to get further information’ - and then radio silence. Was the issue resolved, if so how, what was the procedure? It strikes me that the whole point of a ‘community forum’ is to share information.

There was one forum team member who did actually take the time to return to threads and update them with results. Possibly she has now been let go for being far too helpful!

There are a couple of members on here who are (were) also VIP members on the VM forum and could pass on issues to the forum team there. But recently most of the posts seemed to consist of ‘oh you need to call Customer Services’, just a means of reporting a broken omnibox or graffiti on a street cabinet.

It’s sad really.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

I've just noticed the Board is still available to Mods. There is a post about phishing from 14 days ago, so it's still operational to a point. Also the "like" buttons seem to be working as well, even though the threads are all locked? Very strange ,,,

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

ISPreview had an article saying it could be mid year before it comes actively online (if at all) although I don't think there was any insider information to give that opinion any extra credibility.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Login button & the top menus (apart from the Volt board) are now locked and inaccessible. Main search facility just loops back to the main page.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Maybe thats the 'transformation' complete. Another of VMs 'upgrades'...

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Ok Thanks

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

All of the menus and sub menus are accessible and working for myself. The search facility also works everywhere, for example https://community.virginmedia.com/search?q=error+cs2114 I am using Chrome Version 146.0.7680.80 (Official Build) (64-bit)

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Yes, the site is still working for me as well, search, sign in, notifications and DM's. It could be server synchronisation is still not complete?

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

No it’s not, it’s now been well over a month and other than the various sub-forums (fora?) becoming read-only, absolutely nothing has changed.

For me, I can browse the various threads, search for usernames or content, all appears to work; wonder if I can log in? Why yes I can, historic login credentials still work. Naturally I can’t post or start a new thread; I wonder if i can send a PM (personal message) to another user? I need to try that.

The claim was that VM’s contract with there current provider was finishing at the end of the month and this was posted in January, Khorus run the software and presumably host the forum - so if the contract was ending at, OK let’s be generous maybe end of February, someone jumped the gun - but here we are mid-March and it is still running in a zombie-like state. You would have thought that if the contract had ended, it would all be gone - but no?

Of course the O2 community forum is in a similar state, the last post being made on 2nd Feb.

What can we conclude - either VMO2 are committed to having a community forum, it’s just that they are too incompetent to do it - having ‘let go’ all of their technical staff to save money and 'boost shareholder value’. Or they were lying all along, don’t want a user forum because it tends to be filled with examples of just how bad VM’s customer support is. Which is embarrassing for them.

I’ll leave it as an exercise for you all to decide which is the most likely.

Now, I’ve said it before but it merits repeating, there are a number of posters on here who are (or were) VIP members on the old VM forum. Now, presumably you have some back-channel to Kai* et. al. and can find out what is happening. Or you all get nowhere which just shows the level of contempt that VM has for people who have supported them and helped customers for some time.

They really don’t care!

* Kai - the lead moderator of the VM community forum and also given the same role at the O2 forum - which is possibly the least stable job in the World.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

I think its a shame whats happening.

It wasnt perfect, but it did serve a purpose, and the community on it was reasonably active.

Sometimes the support offered was a joke, where staff would take 2 weeks to notice posts, and then take another week to reply just asking "you still have the problem".

But it also could be useful, I remember when I moved away from Virgin Media, I just could not arrange them to pick up my old equipment, with many phone calls, as a last resort I posted on the forum, and they did via DM arrange a pickup.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

All is well with the site for me

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

But the site is currently information only, you can't make posts. Maybe you're mixing it up with Cable Forum?

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Well, over a month and still not moved on any. The pessimist in me might say the Community Forum is not coming back ...

Seems like they have gotton behind.... Im sure it will be done..

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Have faith , VM promised.... ;)

They want any customer feedback closed down. It's not good for business.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

I thought that they opened their community forum (and closed NTHellworld after buying it) to stop people complaining about them?? Have I got this wrong?

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

No that’s about right. NTHELLWORLD was a parody site, which they purchased and shut down.

The official community site was opened and was originally staffed by really knowledgable and helpful VM employees who could actually get stuff down.

However over the years it has been run down. More and more requests for help were met with ‘let’s take this to a private message’ and nothing forthcoming. Which sort of nullifies the whole point of a community forum.

Also there were an increasing number of posts massively criticising VM’s procedure and basic competence which were embarrassing.

VM don’t want customers sharing experiences, because if you happen to have a really bad experience, they would like to isolate it, it’s just you. What they don’t want is a platform where others can say ‘oh this is exactly what happened to me......’

It’s not coming back, ever. it’s just too embarrassing for them. They would prefer a more one-on-one approach where you are forced to call their sorry apology for a customer service provision. Whose main job is to upsell you to get them more money.

Now I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but there are a number of posters on here who are/were VIP members of the VM community forum and supposedly had back-channel access. Have any of you been given any insights as to what is happening? I’m going to suspect ‘no’ which just goes to show the level of contempt Kei has for you.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Yep, it always was the intention to close it down. The forum upgrade/merge was a smokescreen. Keep delaying and the punters will forget it ever existed.

Strange for a company that consistently wins awards for the worst CS. This was their only helpful area, but as you say not good for business to have issues publicly aired, and that's all that matters.

At least this forum still exists, till VM buy it to close it down lIke NTHELLWORLD.. ;)

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

No offers ... yet ;)

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

I'll give you £5 for it :D

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

I had a taste of their crap customer service earlier today.

I keep getting 'Your contract ends soon, check out our offer to renew' emails, but clicking on it is met with the affinity logo going round & round forever.

I called them and the first guy said "I can't match the price you're paying" (about £15 for max TV, lowest broadband and phone.) He said the best he could do was £45, so put me through to retentions. After putting me on hold, she said that I had to call someone on their mobile!!

I called it and it wasn't in service. I called back to be put back to retentions, but no, he had to first try to upsell my broadband speed and then say exactly what the last guy had said. I asked about the request to ring a mobile number and he said "forget that, it's Re: a very old complaint on your notes"!

Got put through to retentions again (looks like the idiots abroard are also running this now), only to be told that she couldn't offer me anything until 30 days before my contract expired!

I told her that I didn't appreciate having my time constantly being wasted and that, no matter what they offered, i'd rather go elsewhere and pay more as they were just too much to tolerate. I told her to open yet another complaint.

She read out her apology script, said they didn't want to lose me as a customer and gave me a £20 credit in order to close the complaint, which I accepted.

Looks like, after being admonished by Ofcom about their track record regarding complaints, that their tactic is to throw £20 at customers, so do bear this in mind. I received a £20 credit a fortnight ago for missing a programme due to the ever worsening state of their EPG.

They are an absolute joke of a company.

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Yes, absolutely they maybe are, but it is what it is, they (VM) have decided that this is the quality of customer services they want to provide, their senior management have decided that this is ‘good enough’, so jog on, tough!

So what should any customer in your position do? Investigate alternatives, what can they offer, how much will it cost? And then armed with this info, call VM and cancel, just cancel. Chances are they will call you back with a much better offer, but they might not - so if you go down this path you absolutely need to be prepared to cancel VM and sign up wth another provider.

The very, very worse thing you can do is threaten to cancel (they will call your bluff), and then cancel and later call back asking to cancel the cancellation and stay.

Do that and there will be a massive red flag against your account along the lines of ‘offer this person nothing, in fact charge them more’.

Not good but it is the way it works - trust me!:)

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

Well hypothetically you purchase a domain say ‘VMO2community.co.uk’, (which is available), set up a CNAME record to point it here, and have a section where disgruntled VM/O2 customers can vent.

Profit.....; maybe. ;)

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

You are taking the pee expecting to get that price for all that. It's not 2010.
Perhaps they want rid lol

Re: VM Community Forum Move
 

You're absolutely right and, unless they offer me another bargain price, i'll be off. I'm no longer bothered about their pay TV offering or the landline, so will be looking into whether any of the broadband newcomers are worth trying (I keep getting letters and had a visit from EE yesterday.)

---------- Post added at 01:41 ---------- Previous post was at 01:37 ----------

My policy is that crap suppliers can only charge what they are worth, or else they get cancelled. Contracts don't only exist for the benefit of Virgin Media.