Help - Virgin Media Employees

[dpj]

I am looking from help from someone who works for VM.
A few days ago I was on Virgin website and went to 'Existing Customers' section and then 'Change Your package' to see what new services I might want to add. While on there I saw that as a current 10Mb broadband customer I could apparently get a basic hub for £0 or a superhub for £75. As I thought an all in one hub would be better than the separate modem and router I have already I ticked to order the basic one for £0 and went right through to the end of the process with no mention anywhere that this was not correct.
The following day when on my account I noticed that a one off charge of £60 had been added. I went to the 'Contact Us' page and sent an email enquiring as to what this was for.
2 days later after the hub had been shipped I received a reply email from someone in India directing me to a completely different part of the website where it said that a basic hub was £60 for existing customers saying that it was my fault for not reading it correctly and if I had changed my mind I could return the hub to them and they would then credit me back the £60 when they received it. When I check the page I started from it has been corrected to now say £60 also so someone has obviously realised their mistake.
My bill has now been completed for this month with the £60 charge on it so at the very least I will probably be £60 out of pocket for a month for a genuine mistake caused by VM's website being wrong unless I can get this sorted asap.
I have sent an email reply but am expecting another standard reply from India. I don't have a landline phone so will not phone an 0845 number on my mobile to be kept on hold at 40 or 50p a minute.
Is there anyone on here who can help me or can give me an email address of someone in UK or a phone number starting 01 that I can phone.

[General Maximus]

Originally Posted by dpj

I thought an all in one hub would be better than the separate modem and router

there are VM employees who are active members of this site but this is not an official VM support forum, it is a customer/community forum and thus VM employees can offer no direct support, the best they can do is offer some friendly advice.

Have you got a friend or a family member with a landline you can ring VM from? I have got an 0800 number for tech support (and they could transfer your call) but i think you still have to pay for it from a mobile.

Although you are peed now dude this is a blessing in disguise, trust me. When I started reading your post and saw it was free the first thing i wanted to do is to reply and give you some good advice and tell you not to use it, and now I have seen it is £60 i just want to laugh.

A combi modem and router are not better than a separate modem and router, especially in this case. The ones VM provide are poo to say the least. If what you have got atm is working fine then leave it that way. If you are looking for an upgrade (because we all love new toys) I can recommend far better routers for less than £60 made by excellent manufacturers if you are looking for gigabit ports, 802.11n etc etc

Even if they do what you would consider to be a best case scenario and give you the hub for free you reallllllllllllllllly don't want to use it. Give them the hub back and get your £60 back and all is well again.

[dpj]

Originally Posted by General Maximus

there are VM employees who are active members of this site but this is not an official VM support forum, it is a customer/community forum and thus VM employees can offer no direct support, the best they can do is offer some friendly advice.

Have you got a friend or a family member with a landline you can ring VM from? I have got an 0800 number for tech support (and they could transfer your call) but i think you still have to pay for it from a mobile.

Although you are peed now dude this is a blessing in disguise, trust me. When I started reading your post and saw it was free the first thing i wanted to do is to reply and give you some good advice and tell you not to use it, and now I have seen it is £60 i just want to laugh.

A combi modem and router are not better than a separate modem and router, especially in this case. The ones VM provide are poo to say the least. If what you have got atm is working fine then leave it that way. If you are looking for an upgrade (because we all love new toys) I can recommend far better routers for less than £60 made by excellent manufacturers if you are looking for gigabit ports, 802.11n etc etc

Even if they do what you would consider to be a best case scenario and give you the hub for free you reallllllllllllllllly don't want to use it. Give them the hub back and get your £60 back and all is well again.

Thanks for your reply. I was happy to give it a go if it was free but certainly not going to pay £60 for it. I just want this sorted out. It is their mistake so I do not want to be out of pocket at all. All the standard email reply I got said was that I should return the hub to them (they told me the address to send it to), doing so would then make me further out of pocket as I would have to pay for this, and they would then refund the £60. I imagine this would be on my next bill in a month's time and I would never get the money back I had paid for the courier. I just want to speak to someone who will admit that it is VM's mistake, refund my £60 immediately, and arrange for the parcel to be collected at no cost or further inconvenience to myself. I don't think this is too much to ask for, customer is always right etc.
Hopefully someone can give me somewhere to contact that can help me.

[BenMcr]

You will need to raise it as a complaint at www.virginmedia.com/contact if you don't wish to try and resolve it over the phone

[dpj]

Just to update.
After sending a second email after the unhelpful standard reply to my first I got a phone call a couple of days later from someone in the UK. They admitted that there had been a mistake on the website and said that I could keep the hub and they would refund the £60 immediately as a 'goodwill gesture'. This is more than i would have expected and at least restores some faith in Virgin's customer service. If they had done this after my first email then I would have nothing to complain about at all.
I have been using the hub for several days and to be honest, despite what others have said on here, it seems to work just as well as my previous set up with the advantage of just having one box on my desk and only 1 power source needed.

And the moral...it sometimes pays to be patient and not always assume that VM don't care about good CS.

[Nopanic]

Originally Posted by dpj

Just to update.
After sending a second email after the unhelpful standard reply to my first I got a phone call a couple of days later from someone in the UK. They admitted that there had been a mistake on the website and said that I could keep the hub and they would refund the £60 immediately as a 'goodwill gesture'. This is more than i would have expected and at least restores some faith in Virgin's customer service. If they had done this after my first email then I would have nothing to complain about at all.
I have been using the hub for several days and to be honest, despite what others have said on here, it seems to work just as well as my previous set up with the advantage of just having one box on my desk and only 1 power source needed.

In defence of VM, the amount of emails received were the auto replies do actually fix the issue are worth the slight delay in replying to customers like yourself.

Remember mate its all about balancing costs against customer service and I hope you'll agree it's worth waiting when they come good