Virgin is the Best ISP - Page 5

MovedGoalPosts · 14-02-2010, 15:15

We will never know the terms of contracts between Virgin Media and their suppliers in terms of payments, penalties for breaches or even cancellations. No doubt a lot of funds will already have changed hands for the kit to be installed. Going else where may not be an easy or even practical option. There may be no other supplier whos kit could just be "slotted in"

Anyway this is all

for a thread, started by a spammer,that is supposed to be about whether VM is the best ISP. There are plenty of other threads where your BSR issues are more valid discussion. It's time for us both to move on please.

Welshchris · 14-02-2010, 15:25

I agree Rob but around the topic i still think that some kind of scoring system for people on here as i mentioned above would be a good idea to see how good Virgin truly is and seperate their services.

III · 14-02-2010, 15:31

You can't 'truly' score VirginMedias performance/service unless all VM customers take part.
AFAIK this forum does not have each and every VirginMedia customer as a member.

Burt-Kwouk · 15-02-2010, 00:40

Just a note to the people posting their little speedtest banners....

(^ This is as good as it ever gets here ^)
(I'm on the 20Mbit tariff, in case you're wondering)

There's more to running an ISP service than just providing a few lucky customers with the speeds they were promised.

I used to live right on the outskirts of Plymouth (a stone's throw from Dartmoor) where I had my first cable installation from good old Telewest.
They installed it, I used it and never had a moment's worry for a good few years.
So, if you're lucky enough to live in say, Wales (just as an example), where the population is fifteen people and a cow, you'll probably never have cause to become entangled in the web of insanity that is VM 'customer services'.
That being said.
If you've had a run-in with BT, EDF or British Gas etc., then you'll probably have a reasonably good idea of the experience.

Stuart · 15-02-2010, 01:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by III

You can't 'truly' score VirginMedias performance/service unless all VM customers take part.
AFAIK this forum does not have each and every VirginMedia customer as a member.

It doesn't. It has 64,941 members (at the time of posting), not all of whom are VM customers. VM have at least 3 million customers so it's not even 1%. Then factor in that a lot of our members won't want to fill in a survey.

I think any survey done on here would not provide VM with the info they need. They would need to do the survey nationally, and probably hire one of the survey organisations (Gallup or someone like that) to run it.

darren.b · 15-02-2010, 02:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by III

You can't 'truly' score VirginMedias performance/service unless all VM customers take part.
AFAIK this forum does not have each and every VirginMedia customer as a member.

Agreed.

I bet most people who find this site were searching Google or something for "problems" related to their service. So it is expected the majority of votes on this forum would be negative which compared to the number of happy chappies who wouldn't vote or even find the site kinda makes the result predictable.

I have never searched Google to find a site to post praise to a company! I registered here way back before it was CF (simply to read the rants about NTL's 1GB per day limit - I was with BT at the time and knew they'd copy it) and then "re-found" the site after searching Google for my slowdowns in the evenings (discovered thanks to CF it was STM)

A fairer poll would be to reveal whether the irritated punter is ex-ntl or ex-telewest. Would be interesting to see who out of those two really were the worst. And still are. Merged/rebadged or not, there seems to be a wide variation on service provided.

Some ex-tw have said it got worse "after VM took over" (LOL) and the same has been said by ex-ntl.

I have no complaints over the service provided, it's the deceptive pricing, unenforcable "penalty charges", lies and hype they use that get my gander up.

*deceptive pricing* - despite choosing a phoneline as part of the bundle package, the cost of it is not included in the total displayed, but instead buried in small print. Whether the rivals do it or not, it doesn't make it any less deceptive. VM should set the standard, not copy everyone else. Why stop at just phoneline? Why not just claim all packages are free and bury the real cost "when you take" blah blah blah". Why is phoneline excluded from the total displayed cost and hidden underneath in small print?

*unenforceable penalty charges* - charges related to late payment, non-DD etc are not legally enforceable in court. It does not cost VM Â£5 to process a payment by card, by paypoint or any other. Ask them for written justification of their costs - watch them back down. It's a cash-cow, nothing else. There is no law anywhere in the UK that says a company can "penalise" a customer for late payment. VM (and their competition) do it because they can. There's no law saying they can't. Yet.

*lies* - Fibre optic broadband. The cable coming into my home is definitely not Fibre Optic. BT have Fibre Optic in their network too, only not as extensively as VM. So why does it make it better for VM to spout it than BT? Also, many people seem to believe VM are owned by and were "taken over" by Beardy. This is an ideal that NTL/Telewest like to play on. They even pay Beardy to be a figurehead/spokesman!

*hype* - "fastest broadband in the land". Maybe for download, but their upload sucks and many DSL providers have them licked on that.

VM have excellent technology, it's such a shame the company is run by clueless monkeys.

/whinge over

pip08456 · 15-02-2010, 08:21

solcuerda,

You covered every one of my gripes except one. Bring CS back to the UK and staff it with personnel who don't need to read a script and guide you through all the things you've already done before you made the call.

HowardCanning · 15-02-2010, 14:47

I have to say that on the whole I agree with the OP. My 50MB connection is, for the most part, rock solid. I also rarely have any speed issues, touch wood. Perhaps my neighbourhood is inhabited by mostly older people who don't know what Bit Torrent is, who knows

It might go down on rare occasions briefly, but show me where it states a 99.99% uptime SLA in the terms and conditions

Can't say I'm quite as enamored with the V+ box, although I can't directly blame VM for the fact the SA boxes are noisy, clunky, unresponsive, ugly chunks of crap.

Welshchris · 15-02-2010, 15:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by pip08456

solcuerda,

You covered every one of my gripes except one. Bring CS back to the UK and staff it with personnel who don't need to read a script and guide you through all the things you've already done before you made the call.

Some of the Indian staff are quite helpful.

Its not ONLY! the fact that they read from a script its the fact you have problems understanding one another also and people get annoyed and just cant be bothered especially if the problem is ongoing.