Shocking treatment by Virgin towards 86 year old couple.

[RichardCoulter]

This Radio 4 programme reports on the way that Virgin have been treating an 86 year old couple (it's the first feature.)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002v0z1

They lost their TV (and phone/broadband) back in January, were told that it would take until July to fix it and told that they must carry on paying their bill in full.

When they said that they needed to be able to call for medical help, they were lent a mobile phone, but were under strict instructions to only use it for 111 or 999, so could not keep in touch with family or friends!!

After Radio 4 became involved, it was fixed within a day and the bill payments were refunded.

The programme also said that 71% of people who complain to the body responsible for seeing that they treat people properly win their case and that Ofcom have already fined them for not looking after vulnerable customers properly.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

They lost their TV (and phone/broadband) back in January, were told that it would take until July to fix it and told that they must carry on paying their bill in full.

Ummm....

https://www.virginmedia.com/help/bil...c-compensation

Here’s how much we’ll credit you for the following service issues:

£10.34 per day for a total loss of service after 2 full working days from registering the loss of service to us

Did they register ?
Thats over £1,800 for 6 months.

You can report the issue to us by registering it online or alternatively, calling us. If we haven’t fixed the fault within two full working days from the end of that day, you will be entitled to £10.34 credit per day until it’s sorted. Once you’ve reported the issue to us and service has been fully restored, any credit owed will be automatically calculated and applied to your bill – so there’s no need to call us to credit you.

[Jaymoss]

Yeah I am currently due this with my BT . Total loss of Service Friday Morning at 5 to 10 although for some reason they do not include Friday only Monday or Tuesday but the first full working day would be 10AM Monday surely

[jem]

Originally Posted by Paul

Ummm....

https://www.virginmedia.com/help/bil...c-compensation



Did they register ?
Thats over £1,800 for 6 months.

I would suspect that if they have already been told that the repair won’t happen until July, then they must have called and reported a fault. The whole point of the OFCOM automated compensation scheme is that the customer shouldn’t need to ‘register’, just logging a fault is enough to start the compensation timer.

Yes you are still expected to pay the monthly bill, but the compensation is supposed to be worth more back to you, and despite what you might be told, you absolutely can demand it back as a cheque or bank transfer. You don’t have to accept a bill credit.

[daveeb]

Like everything with VM what they promise and what they deliver are often two different things. Everything is a battle as their business model seems to be based on customer misinformation and inertia.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by daveeb

Like everything with VM what they promise and what they deliver are often two different things. Everything is a battle as their business model seems to be based on customer misinformation and inertia.

Exactly and even vulnerable/elderly people are considered fair game along with everyone else.

---------- Post added at 18:05 ---------- Previous post was at 17:59 ----------

Originally Posted by jem

I would suspect that if they have already been told that the repair won’t happen until July, then they must have called and reported a fault. The whole point of the OFCOM automated compensation scheme is that the customer shouldn’t need to ‘register’, just logging a fault is enough to start the compensation timer.

Yes you are still expected to pay the monthly bill, but the compensation is supposed to be worth more back to you, and despite what you might be told, you absolutely can demand it back as a cheque or bank transfer. You don’t have to accept a bill credit.

The radio feature did touch on this and said that, whilst this is the literal position in normal circumstances, because they were looking at a 7 month outage, it should not have been done as it amounted to a breach of contract.

A lot of issues arise because staff at this company (and others) apply rules that are interpreted literally in every situation, with no consideration for reasonableness, common sense or humanity.

We seem to now have humans thinking and working like computer programs.

[jem]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Exactly and even vulnerable/elderly people are considered fair game along with everyone else.

---------- Post added at 18:05 ---------- Previous post was at 17:59 ----------



...snip

We seem to now have humans thinking and working like computer programs.

What we have are call centre workers, probably on what amounts to minimum wage in that part of the world, being told to literally follow the prompts on the screen in front of them - yes they might just as well be a computer algorithm.

You think they are given anything other than basic training - I’d be astonished if any of them have even seen a VM hub, they are told to simply follow the flow, ask the questions that are presented on the screen in front of them and act accordingly, no more, no less, no deviation. Possibly they are penalised for deviating from the script and using their own initiative.

Now VM could make things better, but don’t, they consistently lie at the bottom of OFCOMs league tables for customer satisfaction. This may be down to them not exactly being in a good financial position - as a PLC their figures are public knowledge, and it doesn’t look too brilliant - they need to save every penny they can.

It is what it is.....

And yes I do agree, the couple in question could leave without penalty due to obvious breech of contract. But in reality, what would happen is that VM would charge them an early disconnection fee (I assume that they were in some kind of minimum contract term), wit threats of legal action if they didn’t pay it. Yes they could escalate to arbitration, no doubt win and get compensation. But really?

[Itshim]

Originally Posted by jem

What we have are call centre workers, probably on what amounts to minimum wage in that part of the world, being told to literally follow the prompts on the screen in front of them - yes they might just as well be a computer algorithm.

You think they are given anything other than basic training - I’d be astonished if any of them have even seen a VM hub, they are told to simply follow the flow, ask the questions that are presented on the screen in front of them and act accordingly, no more, no less, no deviation. Possibly they are penalised for deviating from the script and using their own initiative.

Now VM could make things better, but don’t, they consistently lie at the bottom of OFCOMs league tables for customer satisfaction. This may be down to them not exactly being in a good financial position - as a PLC their figures are public knowledge, and it doesn’t look too brilliant - they need to save every penny they can.

It is what it is.....

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by jem

What we have are call centre workers, probably on what amounts to minimum wage in that part of the world, being told to literally follow the prompts on the screen in front of them - yes they might just as well be a computer algorithm.

You think they are given anything other than basic training - I’d be astonished if any of them have even seen a VM hub, they are told to simply follow the flow, ask the questions that are presented on the screen in front of them and act accordingly, no more, no less, no deviation. Possibly they are penalised for deviating from the script and using their own initiative.

Now VM could make things better, but don’t, they consistently lie at the bottom of OFCOMs league tables for customer satisfaction. This may be down to them not exactly being in a good financial position - as a PLC their figures are public knowledge, and it doesn’t look too brilliant - they need to save every penny they can.

It is what it is.....

And yes I do agree, the couple in question could leave without penalty due to obvious breech of contract. But in reality, what would happen is that VM would charge them an early disconnection fee (I assume that they were in some kind of minimum contract term), wit threats of legal action if they didn’t pay it. Yes they could escalate to arbitration, no doubt win and get compensation. But really?

Exactly and at their time of life they probably couldn't cope with all the hassle, something which Virgin will be well aware of.

According to Hugh, these are highly educated people, so I dread to think what the rest of their citizens are like.

I didn't know their figures were looking troubling, at this stage the best thing would be for them to go into administration and be bought by a better company.

As both Sky & Virgin will eventually be offering the same product (and others too), the only differentiation will be pricing & customer service.