Disconnection for abuse

Straws, grasping, at - please re-arrange..........

[Thunderballs]

Originally Posted by whydoIneedatech

I think you would find that Virgin have a very strong defense in your signature being on their documents accepting their terms and conditions, and their legal team would take apart any argument you tried to use saying otherwise.

Do you really think any large company would leave themselves open by not adhering to the laws of the land, because if they did they would fail very quickly.

<edit Rob: deleted>

Thousands of big name corporates are taken to court every year and loose or settle out of court.

I am not saying I have a rock solid case but i do think that a ISP should not be able to effectively disconnect your services for any reason they wish without recourse to the 30 day rule - which is effectively what their T&Cs and AUPs seem to allow.

I know if this were to get any where near court I wouldnt necessarily have a straight forward case and the less straightforward it is the more it is going to cost VM to defend which is fine by me.

The thing that has cheesed me off the most in this issue is that VM have designed their customer facing organisations in a such a way that as a customer with a gripe they do not have any satisfactory way of escalating an issue.

If you have a complaint you'll simply be asked to write a letter or fill out a web form and it seems the Internet Security team can pretty much do what they like and then hide behind the wide ranging T&Cs, AUP.

I lodged my complaint about receiving the letter in the first place with Customer Services and I think I am justified in objecting to being sent a standard letter which if i were to simply ignore to keep the peace effectively accepts I have been in breach of the contract.

I may be in the minority on this forum to hold the view that i think it is well beyond VMs legal obligation to respond to an abuse report for an email such as the one in question here and they are acting unfairly.

I am sure the Internet Security team send out a lot of these letters and probably without much thought or investigation simply becasue someone has filed an abuse report but that doesnt excuse a lack of rigour.

If in my case this isnt so and their investigation was rigorous they have done an extremely poor job of communicating that to me and postively evaded specifics.

[IainK]

I found this post, and it's 11 pages of replies so hillarious that I had to sign up.

First off. Laws are in place to ensure that people don't read your e-mail, but let's face it it can and does happen. Bored system admins working on a mail que delay could easily click your message whilst it's in holding on any number of servers. I'm not saying it will happen but don't be naieve and think that it can't!
The smaller the organisation the more likely this is to happen, and with all these 14 year old webhosts on the go I find it highly likely.

Secondly, I have probably sent 2,000+ e-mails containing swears over my Virgin Media connection in the last 10 years. Have I ever received an e-mail, letter or phone call regarding 'abusive conduct'? No. Never.
Of course, I know only to use such language with friends who 'appreciate' it. As for an e-mail sent to a company, if that e-mail had come to my company you can bet I would have traced the IP and complained to virgin.
You know, you can be prosecuted for telling a bus driver to !@#{ off, why do you think the same doesn't apply to e-mails?

Swearing = abusive conduct, especially calling someone an effing a-hole. Sorry but I have no respect for this.
If anyone holding an account with my company swore down my voicemail line after having broken the terms of service, I would cut them off that very second with no refunds and no chance of appeal.

You (or a friend) abuse Virgin staff, you loose your connection.

Thirdly, virgin media must log your voicemail, or they cannot use this against you in a court of law (or any legal proceedings). If you really care, and think you are inocent enough, go to the police and ask them to confirm to Virgin that's not your voice.

And lastly, do you really think you would come close to beating Virgins 20+ lawyers? Really, you're dealing with Richard Effing Branson! The man is one of the richest men in the world, do you think you can beat him?

If you do then good luck, would love to hear the outcome!

[chriztopher]

Boy this is better than watching Virgin 1!
Can't wait for the next instalment, like many I’m now hooked, as such this is my first post.

I do think there is a bit of the big brother going on here and it’s been dealt with a bit heavy handed ……if it’s all about a single e-mail.

I'd love to know what made the poster so angry that he was silly enough to go and swear at a business / corporation and leave an abusive voicemail.
If your innocent and they still refuse to let you hear the voicemail as previous poster said, go to the police and if you are innocent good luck.

If the reason for posting was to gauge peoples level of sympathy for your plight and whether or not they believe you then my answer is…. Yes I feel sorry for you, but no I don’t believe it wasn’t you writing the mail or leaving the voice message.
All the best.

---------- Post added at 11:27 ---------- Previous post was at 11:07 ----------

I don't think you have any case to bring at all, you think that a ISP should not be able to effectively disconnect your services for any reason they wish without recourse to the 30 day rule. Their justification is your actions, surely you can see that, it's not just for any old reason they wish. If you do something wrong you don't follow it up by doing more wrong and then wonder why you get your knuckles wrapped.
No one is blind here

[Magilla]

Originally Posted by whydoIneedatech

Do you really think any large company would leave themselves open by not adhering to the laws of the land

Absolutely, it happens all the time.

Originally Posted by whydoIneedatech

because if they did they would fail very quickly.

Yeah.. right.

And now back to reality.......

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by chriztopher

I don't think you have any case to bring at all, you think that a ISP should not be able to effectively disconnect your services for any reason they wish without recourse to the 30 day rule. Their justification is your actions, surely you can see that, it's not just for any old reason they wish. If you do something wrong you don't follow it up by doing more wrong and then wonder why you get your knuckles wrapped.
No one is blind here

I suspect most ISPs hace clauses that enable them to instantly disconnect someone that breaks the rules. The reason being that if someone is harrassing someone else (and swearing/abusive emails can be considered harrassment), then if that person is given a polite warning to stop, they may actually start threatening (I have actually seen this happen to a student). Where I work (although this isn't an ISP, but I do do support) we can,if we feel a user is abusive, disable their account without warning. If we do that, they have to go to our line manager or head of school to explain why they felt the need to do this.

[tvtimes]

I have only just come across this thread and all i can say is "Oh dear."

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by chriztopher

Boy this is better than watching Virgin 1!
Can't wait for the next instalment, like many I’m now hooked, :

Same here

Now have a lazy boy chair pulled up to the monitor and some cold ones ready for the next installment of the twilight zone

Originally Posted by Magilla

Absolutely, it happens all the time.



Yeah.. right.

And now back to reality.......

OK lets get back to reality.

Virgin have a very well paid legal team that will blow the likes of this out of the water.

Do you really think against a proffesional legal team this could be won.

Reality Check Over.

[tvtimes]

Legal teams make no difference. Well they do but it's how strong the case is whether they win or not. The case however stands no chance i would really like to see this go to court and see how far it gets.

[MovedGoalPosts]

Originally Posted by tvtimes

The case however stands no chance i would really like to see this go to court and see how far it gets.

I'd rather see court time being restricted to legitimate cases that actually have some merit. There is absolutely no purpose in time wasting that means only the lawyers get rich.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Rob

I'd rather see court time being restricted to legitimate cases that actually have some merit. There is absolutely no purpose in time wasting that means only the lawyers get rich.

Well said

[Magilla]

Admin edit (Chris T): Off-topic arguing removed

[MovedGoalPosts]

Careful please, let's not get personal

Admin edit (Chris T): Do not continue off-topic argument after a moderator has posted a warning. The next one will get an infraction.