Legal Action Against Virgin Media

[Toto]

Originally Posted by TheNorm

So you would be happy if an ISP advertised "speeds up to 100Mb (see Terms and Conditions)", even if this could only be achieved by sitting in the company's headquarters?

Most of us understand that advertised speeds cannot be guaranteed, just as trains cannot guarantee to run to their published timetables. But if a train company consistently failed to meet its own published standards, shouldn't a revised timetable be released?

Don't dissagree with you, my point was aimed at those who think that LAW and COURT and LEGAL actually mean that ISP's will sit up and listen. They have created cast iron contracts. You don't think that VM pay thousands to legal teams so they can design contracts that wouldn't hold up to legal scrutiny in terms of the service they offer, do you?

Vote with your wallets by leaving, don't waste your money and time on court cases you will never, EVER win.

ISP's will sit up and listen if they start to lose large sums of money because their service is crap. And unlike the train system, you do have a choice of suppliers in most regions.

[TheNorm]

Originally Posted by georgepomone

...Even the bit about the beer.I can remember arguments about that when lined glasses first came in.The argument there was could you call froth a part of the measurement up to the line....

Personally speaking, I never did mind if the beer was just above the line or just below it. I would have complained, however, if the glass was only 20% full...

......The way things are at the moment I can't see any quick change to this situation. Still we can dream....

Well, George, I dream about a levy on every broadband customer of, say, 10p per annum. For VM alone this would generate £300,000, to be paid towards a regulatory organisation responsible for testing the claims made by ISPs in real-life situations. An independent "actual expected speed" could then be published, similar to the APR used for loans.

[LostintheNW]

What a load of rubbish some people are spouting in this thread, and its all too common those who have no knowledge of the law spout words as "small claims" etc and do a quick google search and think they know it all!

You have no grounds to go to court, the services are up to 10mb, not guaranteed 10mb 24/7, if it said that you would have grounds, but as their T&C's state if the service does not meet the requirements you are allowed to cancel.

Seeing as you have taken their offers of a free service, reduced price etc you don't even have a leg to stand on if you decided to report them of OFCOM for not supplying a service.

I take it that seeing as you are off to court regardless of what people say in this thread you have proof of the speeds you have been getting for the past 8 months, can prove what times of day you are getting poor speeds, have all the cable modem logs, and did you tell the CS people when you were engaging them in a phone call that this would be recorded or used in evidence in court? as if not you can't refer to any of these calls unfortunately. Again you are going to need more proof than you can glean from your little modem logs.

Get over yourself, if you are that unhappy you should have said when they offered you refunds, free services etc that you do not want these and instead want out of your contact, as basically you have got this anyway seeing as you are not paying for the service. So instead of moaning on here about the service you are getting for free, ring up another ISP and get them installed and use them instead, you are not paying anything extra!

Some people think the world owes them everything, and to whoever that prat is posting on about undeclared VM staff I will point out I do not work for Virgin Media, never have never will and that I have my law degree and work in a nice law firm

[jkat]

has no one ever heard of a "bakers dozen" and why the bakers dozen was used lol. the isp's certainly havent lol

Makes me laugh

[Spooky_uk]

Originally Posted by LostintheNW

What a load of rubbish some people are spouting in this thread, and its all too common those who have no knowledge of the law spout words as "small claims" etc and do a quick google search and think they know it all!

You have no grounds to go to court, the services are up to 10mb, not guaranteed 10mb 24/7, if it said that you would have grounds, but as their T&C's state if the service does not meet the requirements you are allowed to cancel.

Seeing as you have taken their offers of a free service, reduced price etc you don't even have a leg to stand on if you decided to report them of OFCOM for not supplying a service.

I take it that seeing as you are off to court regardless of what people say in this thread you have proof of the speeds you have been getting for the past 8 months, can prove what times of day you are getting poor speeds, have all the cable modem logs, and did you tell the CS people when you were engaging them in a phone call that this would be recorded or used in evidence in court? as if not you can't refer to any of these calls unfortunately. Again you are going to need more proof than you can glean from your little modem logs.

Get over yourself, if you are that unhappy you should have said when they offered you refunds, free services etc that you do not want these and instead want out of your contact, as basically you have got this anyway seeing as you are not paying for the service. So instead of moaning on here about the service you are getting for free, ring up another ISP and get them installed and use them instead, you are not paying anything extra!

Some people think the world owes them everything, and to whoever that prat is posting on about undeclared VM staff I will point out I do not work for Virgin Media, never have never will and that I have my law degree and work in a nice law firm

the law is an ass. proven.

[andyr2005]

Originally Posted by Rik

My word, FREE 10Meg connection for 7 - 8 months of your remaining time on contract, and waived a £180 bill.

Seems you got rather a good deal there.

Is this the reason you dont want to jump ship and leave VM? because of all these good deals you get?

Looking at this guys previous threads, there are some things that just dont add up.

Right, as stated earlier, this one-off bill payment was made yes, however, the rolling credits have stopped. At the end of the day, they offered me this in my opinion to shut me up and sort of by my silence on the matter.

Originally Posted by Toto

LOL, I love the way people throw around words such as "court" and "law" when most here have little or no idea what they are actually talking about.

No ISP in their right mind would provide a contract guaranteeing that their customers will always get the advertised speed. And if any do, then they have no idea how the Internet works, and should not be trusted to offer such services, no matter how attractive the offer seems.

Please guys, move on, this has been done to death.

The LAW is the contract which is a legally binding document between 2 or more entities, and either entity to break the legislations within such a document is liable to have legal action taken against them.

Right,

The other thing, I have just had a call from my Trading Standards office, who have been in touch with a high-level complaints team at VM, and have actually found them to be in breach of their Code of Practice which governs their ability to actually provide the services of the market they are in.

I have been told, that if the situation is not resolved in 7 working days, then Trading Standards will take any further action required, due to the fact that their have broken their own agreement.

If people have nothing constructive to say, say nothing and I will post back as often as I get updates from my Trading Standards office.

[prawncocktail]

which ubr are you on may i ask

[andyr2005]

Hi,

I believe I am on UBR 1, Northeast Gateshead.

[popper]

Originally Posted by LostintheNW

What a load of rubbish some people are spouting in this thread, and its all too common those who have no knowledge of the law spout words as "small claims" etc and do a quick google search and think they know it all!

You have no grounds to go to court, the services are up to 10mb, not guaranteed 10mb 24/7, if it said that you would have grounds, but as their T&C's state if the service does not meet the requirements you are allowed to cancel.

Seeing as you have taken their offers of a free service, reduced price etc you don't even have a leg to stand on if you decided to report them of OFCOM for not supplying a service.

I take it that seeing as you are off to court regardless of what people say in this thread you have proof of the speeds you have been getting for the past 8 months, can prove what times of day you are getting poor speeds, have all the cable modem logs, and did you tell the CS people when you were engaging them in a phone call that this would be recorded or used in evidence in court? as if not you can't refer to any of these calls unfortunately. Again you are going to need more proof than you can glean from your little modem logs.

Get over yourself, if you are that unhappy you should have said when they offered you refunds, free services etc that you do not want these and instead want out of your contact, as basically you have got this anyway seeing as you are not paying for the service. So instead of moaning on here about the service you are getting for free, ring up another ISP and get them installed and use them instead, you are not paying anything extra!

Some people think the world owes them everything, and to whoever that prat is posting on about undeclared VM staff I will point out I do not work for Virgin Media, never have never will and that I have my law degree and work in a nice law firm

ROFL ,your so funny LostintheNW

you make the statement about your UK? 'law degree' and imply to the readership your degree is in consumer contract law/Civil Law(i.e generic consumer T&C text) but dont seem to have read the current T&C and so have seen several clauses there that are open to question.

did you forget your oath ?,
"The oath states: "I (Member’s Name), do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, Her Heirs and Successors, according to Law. So help me God."
The affirmation states: "I (Member’s Name), do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, Her Heirs and Successors, according to Law.""

while i am the only one so far to mention 'small claims' so you apparently are refering to me, in the 'spouting words', 'google search'
and in your opinion 'think they know it all'.

ill just point out it is you that is spouting your elitist 'MY law degree'
and how that somehow makes you better than the average reader here.

its interesting to note however that given the average peoples willingness to learn, and in doing so might use google or any other form of reference to gain insight and true facts as related to a given subject, they dont usually feel the need to spout elitist dogma.

"Please note that Roman Law/Civil Law, Conflicts of law and Notarial Practice are not usually studied on a standard law degree course or in the course of training to become a solicitor or barrister, hence most applicants will need to study these subjects. It is of course open to any applicant to seek exemption from these subjects too, should they have the relevant experience. "
http://www.thenotariessociety.org.uk/more_notaries.asp

as the holder of your (whatever?)law degree, is it not your place to take your clients claim/court action and place that before the court (to the best of your ability?), and its the courts and the magistrates/judges place to determine IF the client has a case OR NOT,and rule on that, not yours.

interesting that even judges, use reference books to look up the law as they are wise enough to realise they can not ever know all there is to to know about the given subject..., but perhaps your special and you have a photographic memory.

[Toto]

Originally Posted by andyr2005

Right, as stated earlier, this one-off bill payment was made yes, however, the rolling credits have stopped. At the end of the day, they offered me this in my opinion to shut me up and sort of by my silence on the matter.



The LAW is the contract which is a legally binding document between 2 or more entities, and either entity to break the legislations within such a document is liable to have legal action taken against them.

Right,

The other thing, I have just had a call from my Trading Standards office, who have been in touch with a high-level complaints team at VM, and have actually found them to be in breach of their Code of Practice which governs their ability to actually provide the services of the market they are in.

I have been told, that if the situation is not resolved in 7 working days, then Trading Standards will take any further action required, due to the fact that their have broken their own agreement.

If people have nothing constructive to say, say nothing and I will post back as often as I get updates from my Trading Standards office.

So, what do you expect to be a satisfactory resolution within 7 days. Given as you say that you have not had a full 10Mb service since 2006, what miraculous change in 7 days can you, and the trading standards consider acceptable?

Have the trading standards folks quoted exactly what part(s) of VM's code of conduct they have breached?

[andyr2005]

They did not quote to me exactly what part of the Code of Conduct has beem breached, which is why I am letting them deal with the situation. As stated previously, I will update on any futher information I get from. I beleive trading standards would take a satisfactory resolution to be VM attempting to resolve the situation I and many other customers are having. As well as begin operating as their own agreement states they will.

As for the Up to 10 MB baloney alot of you are spouting, I don't expect 10 MB all the time, I understand networks can have issues, but the point of fact is, that the problem I and many customers in the North East are facing have beem persistent for roughly more than 9 months now, with no mention of a resolution or even any investigation into the problem. I pay for 10 MB so therfore I would expect any speeds from 4 MB upwards, considering 4 MB is the package below, however, I get bairly over 1 MB, which correct me if I am wrong, but currently isn't offered in any service package via cable.

[Toto]

Well, assuming of course your continued poor speeds can be verified and many others in the North East, I really can't see what a breach in their code of conduct has to do with their network, but as you rightly say, you will inform us if you have more information you wish to share.

Incog bookmarks this thread.Will try to remember to come back 6 months down the road and prod for an answer.

[andygrif]

To be fair, if a company says that speeds are not guarateed in their T&Cs but then advertises and sells an 'upto 10mb' service then it could be seen as misleading to consumers if that product did not reach that speed or close to it.

But we know that VM's 10mb can and does reach 10mb, so clearly there is an issue with this connection. So under consumer law it could be argued that the product was not fit for purpose - which might be grounds to convince someone at Virgin with a little applied common sense to allow what is clearly an unhappy customer out of their 12 month agreement.

What the O/P hasn't said is what he wants the outcome to be.

1. Does he want it fixed?
2. Does he want an early exit?
3. Does he want to downgrade to a service that works for him?

1. As I have already said, write a letter to the company secretary saying so, sending via registered mail putting them on notice that he wants it fixed in the next seven days. Give an outcome if the company fails, such as reserving the right to end the contract early, as the product is not fit for purpose.

2. Again, as said, if you can find someone with a little common sense, usually by politely working your way up the escalation order in the call centre you might find that they will allow you to be released from your contract. If not, again, registered mail, company secretary, stating reasons and giving 30 days notice.

3. This should be the first one I guess; if you're only getting a 1mb service then what happens if you donwgrade to a 1mb service rather than paying for the 10mb service, (although I'm not clear if you're still getting the 10mb service for free or not).

Realistically you are not going to take them to court, you have no grounds to as you have no losses - but you can get the problem solved.

Assuming you want to.