[Update] ALL 20>30Mb upgrade discussion

[Graham F]

I upgraded my broadband online 10 days ago, from 10 - 20mb which it said I had to keep for 2 months. It all went through I was getting my new speeds within minutes and I was happy and didn't think anymore of it.

This afternoon an engineer calls round and says we has been sent to change my modem, I was confused and busy so let him in and he quickly changed it. I suddendly thought after he had gone that I would check my billing and on my unbilled and they have whacked a £70 charge on. £40 for the bloke coming round and £30 for the new modem. I rang the office and spoke to a girl who was adament that this is what I had asked for and agreed to, even though I upgraded to 20mb for 2 months and not the 30mb for 12 months that she suggested!!

To say that I am annoyed would be polite...

[Roph]

Originally Posted by Graham F

I upgraded my broadband online 10 days ago, from 10 - 20mb which it said I had to keep for 2 months. It all went through I was getting my new speeds within minutes and I was happy and didn't think anymore of it.

This afternoon an engineer calls round and says we has been sent to change my modem, I was confused and busy so let him in and he quickly changed it. I suddendly thought after he had gone that I would check my billing and on my unbilled and they have whacked a £70 charge on. £40 for the bloke coming round and £30 for the new modem. I rang the office and spoke to a girl who was adament that this is what I had asked for and agreed to, even though I upgraded to 20mb for 2 months and not the 30mb for 12 months that she suggested!!

To say that I am annoyed would be polite...

I had the £70 charge too, I called their billing deparment and after a few mins of chatter I got it waived. Try going to billing instead of customer support maybe? Worth a shot

I also got my new gear today, happy with the results:



Yay

[rockbreaker]

I got the £70 charge on my 'Service contract' this morning, spoke to a scottish lady in their billing department and she checked and said although it was £70 on the bill I will only be charged £30 as advertised.
I wait and see, with interest!!!

[zekeisaszekedoes]

Originally Posted by adzzzbatch

Oh nothing that we don't already know sorry. She says the hardware is great the software/firmware is being improved every week with any glitches being found are removed with the next update

Weekly updates on the TiVo box huh? Goes to show you where VM's priorities lie. Why can't they manage the same on the broadbands CPEs? If anything I would have thought TiVo firmware would be harder to compile/develop, what with the more extensive GUI etc.

Originally Posted by Stevie1961

Well, I've just been stunned by a loverly retentions representitive.
Dialed 150, got through to regular call centre and was told I had to pay £30 activation and £10 a month more on my bill, because of my loyalty discount.

I asked to be put through to retentions and was refused. Dialed back and got through to retentions, They asked if I had recieved a letter and I told them yes, the letter stated "at no extra cost". I was put on hold and the lady came back to me after a few seconds and said "I can do that for you, some letters were sent out wrongly, I am sorry.

To cut a long story short, I've had a free upgrade to 30mb, Free super router and keep my loyalty discounts.

Happy days

Classic VM customer service. As ever, persistence is the key: don't be fobbed off, keep pushing until you get as close to what you want or better still. What one rep says is gospel is often refuted by another: seems to depend not only on the person, but also the region the person is in.

You see, this outsourcing of call centres is probably causing more headaches than companies realise. Might even work out to be a false economy, who knows? I can't see the process continuing forever, seeing as it has a pretty shoddy track record overall.

[Griffin]

Originally Posted by Masque

Let us know what they offer you.

Finally managed to get upgraded today & all i had to lose was half price line rental, kept the rest of the retentions deal in the end.
No £30 charge as i already got the super hub & my bill has gone up from £39 pm to £45pm thats for xl phone, xl tv, & xl broadband @ 30mb

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Griffin

Finally managed to get upgraded today & all i had to lose was half price line rental, kept the rest of the retentions deal in the end.
No £30 charge as i already got the super hub & my bill has gone up from £39 pm to £45pm thats for xl phone, xl tv, & xl broadband @ 30mb

As long as you are happy that's all that matters.

[Griffin]

Originally Posted by Masque

As long as you are happy that's all that matters.

Very happy as i have always got a good speed with VM, even through the old modem router config i had no difference in speed with the router or direct to the modem.

[abductedcraig]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

To those of you who got discounts - well done - to those of you who haven't yet, keep calling. For whatever reason VM seem either incapable of noticing or just don't care when people call several times basically pestering for a discount. It seems to work eventually!

Pestering?

It's not pestering, when even the staff admit they are unsure of how the 30mb deal works.

So if that takes a few calls over a number of days to get the right answer, who is at fault? Virgin staff or the end user?

[zekeisaszekedoes]

Originally Posted by abductedcraig

Pestering?

It's not pestering, when even the staff admit they are unsure of how the 30mb deal works.

So if that takes a few calls over a number of days to get the right answer, who is at fault? Virgin staff or the end user?

VM staff, clearly. Shame really, as the VM staff on this forum are usually helpful, just that there's not much more they can do. I resent having to be tied to the phone in order to get things changed for whatever reason... for goodness sake, they provide all kinds of media services, you should be able to get support in other ways, for example a quick IM session with a qualified tech on laptop.

Incidentally neither 150 or 151 works on my VM-supplied BlackBerry. So I either have to use the pay number, or wait and use my VM landline. Less than ideal, especially when I have a busy week and am barely home at all. Come on VM, move with the times!

Excuse the rabble-rousing, it's been a weird day. Just being very honest about how VM can improve their services. I find faults, I suggest improvements. It's what I do.

[GrimUpNorth]

Originally Posted by Masque

As long as you are happy that's all that matters.

It makes me smile that some people paying different prices for the same product seems to be such a shocker. Thats life - get over it, it happens with all sorts of things.

Should we stamp our feet and complain when supermarkets have different prices at small corner shop style stores?

Why is my council tax different to someone in the same band in the next door council?

Should I buy a copy of MS Office Enterprise at full retail price or £8.95 through the home use offer my employer has set up?

I went with my mother to buy a new car. Was I wrong to negatiate a deal that got the price down £900 off list? At the end of the day the dealer didn't have sell the car at the price, but decided some profit was better than none.

In an ideal world everything would be fair and equal. VM and other companies know the world we live in and I'm sure have the philosophy that some profit is better than no profit. Special offers and deals are a way of life.

[Griffin]

Originally Posted by GrimUpNorth

It makes me smile that some people paying different prices for the same product seems to be such a shocker. Thats life - get over it, it happens with all sorts of things.

Should we stamp our feet and complain when supermarkets have different prices at small corner shop style stores?

Why is my council tax different to someone in the same band in the next door council?

Should I buy a copy of MS Office Enterprise at full retail price or £8.95 through the home use offer my employer has set up?

I went with my mother to buy a new car. Was I wrong to negatiate a deal that got the price down £900 off list? At the end of the day the dealer didn't have sell the car at the price, but decided some profit was better than none.

In an ideal world everything would be fair and equal. VM and other companies know the world we live in and I'm sure have the philosophy that some profit is better than no profit. Special offers and deals are a way of life.

I think Masque Knows how VM work, they tell their employees one think & do the opposite.
I got a very good friend & neighbour that works for them too

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by abductedcraig

Pestering?

It's not pestering, when even the staff admit they are unsure of how the 30mb deal works.

So if that takes a few calls over a number of days to get the right answer, who is at fault? Virgin staff or the end user?

Your first post was perfectly clear - you were told you would lose your retentions discounts so you kept phoning until you got what you wanted. The answers you received until you got what you wanted were entirely in keeping with both the letters that had been sent out and the experiences of other users.

I could quote your post if you are in any way confused or don't remember what you wrote.

If this is inaccurate I apologise but I only have your posts to go on.

Virgin are to blame for leaving any trace of doubt, they should have stuck with their guns and on the first call told you that you would be losing your discount if you wanted the upgrade and reiterated if you called again, as it is they look rather pathetic having totally changed their policy within a week.

The answers you got were correct, they were the policy at the time, VM's fault for changing it because they don't feel their 30M is good enough to justify its £18.50 price tag, though it's fine to charge it to people who don't claim disloyalty discounts.

---------- Post added at 18:17 ---------- Previous post was at 18:13 ----------

Originally Posted by GrimUpNorth

It makes me smile that some people paying different prices for the same product seems to be such a shocker. Thats life - get over it, it happens with all sorts of things.

Should we stamp our feet and complain when supermarkets have different prices at small corner shop style stores?

Why is my council tax different to someone in the same band in the next door council?

The above examples are silly, it's a different supplier even if the product is the same.

It's a shocker because said company totally confused the issue by trying to make out they'd make people pay full price... for about a week

They'd have been far better off to just upgrade people for free without the messing around.

As it is now I've little doubt some of you guys will be trying to get a hold of TiVo on a discount, and why wouldn't you given Virgin's total fail here? Little point in paying full price if the company is so desperate for business however anyone actually paying full whack should feel ripped off and pursue retentions deals of their own.

EDIT: I can see that another guy managed to get upgraded totally free - kept retentions discount and got the Super Hub free of charge so that looks like it's doable as well. Just complain about the letter you received and ignore the T+Cs on the back.

[SammyM]

Have not contributed since page 16 - a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then Have been following the thread since then and thought I would give an update. Received my SuperHub this morning by courier. Self set up, was no problem. Rang VM to activate and a really friendly and helpful Scouser talked me through everything. (I have spent several St Paddy's Days in Liverpool so we had a good chat regarding the City, while signals were being sent - you don't get that with these "off shore" guys ) Anyway everything is working fine - steady 31/32 Mb download, 1.8 Mb upload, so am happy. Got good deal as well regarding my bill. Well done VM.

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Griffin

I think Masque Knows how VM work, they tell their employees one think & do the opposite.
I got a very good friend & neighbour that works for them too

I have nothing to do with the sales side, so I am not bothered by any deals that people may get by persistence.

[Chrysalis]

so you no longer saying people are breaking the rules by giving out these deals?