General : Petition to highlight/embarrass VM into improving the way that they treat customers

[RichardCoulter]

There are now loads of people complaining about VM customer service, (can't get through, messages being ignored, their offshore call centre doing stuff wrong or messing things up & not speaking good English, calls not being returned as promised etc etc. IMO it's now even worse than the days of NTL. I myself have been left without TV for going on 4 weeks.

Facebook, review sites & even their own forum all say the same thing. They posted an ad for BB on fb and every single response was about negative experiences. This abysmal service seems to have started 12 to 18 months ago from what I can tell.

A neighbour was messed about something shocking and I suggested he write to the office of the CEO. He kept them informed of the ongoing farce and they took over a month to respond. It was a letter (that he showed me) that basically said don't don't email us again, go to the regulator if you don't like it and if you email us again, we will consider switching off all your services!!! No name was given, it absolutely beggered belief.

Hopefully John Malone will retire or something and sell it to someone who will try and turn things around.


Ofcom have now become involvolved and i've been sent this petition to try and highlight/embarrass VM into improving the way that they treat their customers:

https://www.petitiononline.uk/disgra..._media_service

[oliver1948uk]

At the time I looked 76 of the 92 who signed the petition did so in 2016, many of them from Dublin.

[RobboEdin]

Have YOU actually looked for help on the official Virgin Media community forum?

If not, do it.

Looking there, there are plenty of cases of customers getting excellent help to resolve many issues, although it can take a week or so to get help.

Had you taken action four weeks ago to do so, I can be fairly sure you would have been fixed long before now.

Instead you take your normal (wrong) approach.

PS If you have posted on the community forum, give us a link to see how it progressed.

---------- Post added at 22:39 ---------- Previous post was at 22:32 ----------

Originally Posted by oliver1948uk

At the time I looked 76 of the 92 who signed the petition did so in 2016, many of them from Dublin.

Oh dear.
No sign of Richard’s name there either, unless he wants to remain anonymous.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by RobboEdin

Have YOU actually looked for help on the official Virgin Media community forum?

If not, do it.

Looking there, there are plenty of cases of customers getting excellent help to resolve many issues, although it can take a week or so to get help.

Had you taken action four weeks ago to do so, I can be fairly sure you would have been fixed long before now.

Instead you take your normal (wrong) approach.

PS If you have posted on the community forum, give us a link to see how it progressed.

---------- Post added at 22:39 ---------- Previous post was at 22:32 ----------



Oh dear.
No sign of Richard’s name there either, unless he wants to remain anonymous.

My own particular case has now been taken up by Ofcom, so i'm just waiting for them to get back to me.

It seems to be pot luck on that forum, some receive help within 48 hours and some are still outstanding after weeks!

[jfman]

Richard is incredibly unlucky. Every other day it seems to be something.

[Legendkiller2k]

I find you get a good response on twitter from companies, had contacting Sky issues i tweeted them they were superb took my details and phoned me, i'm pretty sure VM would do the same.

I can assure you 96 out of 4.3million won't get Ofcoms attention especially as a majority of those signatures were 4 years ago.

[Chad]

I find most service providers I've had to deal with over the past 8 months haven't been up to scratch. I am however prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt and tough it out. Covid is having a massive impact on customer service across the board. Companies doing their best to adapt whilst the majority of their workforce is home based trying to plod through never ending change. Offices closed, people off sick, redundancies etc... Very uncertain and stressful times. I'm sure we've all had less than positive customer experiences recently but that's to be expected ?

Richard in your case being left without a TV service for so long isn't acceptable and I hope this gets resolved for you swiftly. I'm just commenting in general in regards to not many companies being able to operate at their usual standards. Everything is very unusual at the moment for everyone including some of the biggest businesses in the UK.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Legendkiller2k

I find you get a good response on twitter from companies, had contacting Sky issues i tweeted them they were superb took my details and phoned me, i'm pretty sure VM would do the same.

I can assure you 96 out of 4.3million won't get Ofcoms attention especially as a majority of those signatures were 4 years ago.

Yes, i've been told that Twitter receives a good response as it publically highlights the failures of companies.

Ofcom say that the number of complaints (with regards to TV programmes anyway) isn't relevant and that they've taken action after only one complaint and not taken action after many complaints. The petition, however, was sent to me by an individual and not Ofcom.

Ofcom have become involved because Virgin Media have not followed the procedures expected by them or indeed their own policies with regards to vulnerable customers.

---------- Post added at 00:12 ---------- Previous post was at 00:06 ----------

Originally Posted by Chad

I find most service providers I've had to deal with over the past 8 months haven't been up to scratch. I am however prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt and tough it out. Covid is having a massive impact on customer service across the board. Companies doing their best to adapt whilst the majority of their workforce is home based trying to plod through never ending change. Offices closed, people off sick, redundancies etc... Very uncertain and stressful times. I'm sure we've all had less than positive customer experiences recently but that's to be expected ?

Richard in your case being left without a TV service for so long isn't acceptable and I hope this gets resolved for you swiftly. I'm just commenting in general in regards to not many companies being able to operate at their usual standards. Everything is very unusual at the moment for everyone including some of the biggest businesses in the UK.

Thanks Chad. I have given them forbearance, but my patience is now exhausted. A lot of companies are using Covid as an excuse for crap service, despite it being just as bad before the pandemic.

The pandemic first affected companies last March, so they've now had eight months to put alternative procedures in place, as indeed many more professional companies have.

Originally Posted by jfman

Richard is incredibly unlucky. Every other day it seems to be something.

Hes just never happy unless hes taking legal action against someone (or threatening to).

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Paul

Hes just never happy unless hes taking legal action against someone (or threatening to).

Tell me where legal action by me against anybody has been mentioned.

And what would you do if you were left without TV for going on 4 weeks and every attempt to sort it had been ignored?

[vincerooney]

called up virgin media retentions and got like 25 quid off my bill. probably could have got more but the lady was foreign (excellent english mind i just thought explaining "hey....not good enough may lead to me losing everything) but didnt want to push my luck and im generally a coward anyway so i thought it was a win.

[Legendkiller2k]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Tell me where legal action by me against anybody has been mentioned.

And what would you do if you were left without TV for going on 4 weeks and every attempt to sort it had been ignored?

TBF being left without a service you're paying for for more than 48 hours without good reason is a disgrace, 4 weeks is just taking the pee.
Talk with your feet it's breach of contract by VM they are not providing a service they have agreed to provide therefore you can walk away penalty free despite what VM will try to tell you, they are in breach of the contract.

You may get a better result from OFCOM if you can evidence you undertook reasonable endeavours to resolve the issue - such as putting your problem on the VM Community forum (with the added bonus it may be resolved there).

It worked for me - I put in an online upgrade a couple of weeks ago, saw no action on it for 4 days, tried ringing 150 but got quite frustrated (they couldn’t see the offer I had, no trace of the order, etc., etc,). I went on the Community Forum, politely outlined the issue either details of the order, dates and times of the calls, and Beth got back to me by PM within an hour or two - it took around a week to get the problem resolved, then another week for the kit to get to me, activated, and working, but now everything is hunky dory.

I’ve found being polite, patient, and providing all the details can have a positive outcome.

[johnasimmons]

Originally Posted by Hugh

You may get a better result from OFCOM if you can evidence you undertook reasonable endeavours to resolve the issue - such as putting your problem on the VM Community forum (with the added bonus it may be resolved there).

It worked for me - I put in an online upgrade a couple of weeks ago, saw no action on it for 4 days, tried ringing 150 but got quite frustrated (they couldn’t see the offer I had, no trace of the order, etc., etc,). I went on the Community Forum, politely outlined the issue either details of the order, dates and times of the calls, and Beth got back to me by PM within an hour or two - it took around a week to get the problem resolved, then another week for the kit to get to me, activated, and working, but now everything is hunky dory.

I’ve found being polite, patient, and providing all the details can have a positive outcome.

Totally agree with this post!

[newapollo]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

. I myself have been left without TV for going on 4 weeks.

Is it really 4 weeks? You notified this forum that it first occured on 26th October. Have you managed to get a phone line yet Richard? You still haven't tried the Community Forum.


From 25th October https://www.cableforum.uk/board/show...20&postcount=1

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Since the early hours of this morning, my V6 has been rebooting itself exactly every 5 minutes! I cannot call VM as my phone isn't working (nothing to do with VM, it's the phone that's faulty).Thanks.

From 27th October

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Live Chat looks to have been taken off, so i'm going to have to order a phone online as that seems to be the only way to contact them. Even when the phone arrives i've read horrendous tales of being left on hold for over an hour and then cut off!

From DS 5th November - post 6658
https://forums.digitalspy.com/discus...-channels/p267

Originally Posted by Richardcoulter;c-97648351

I've had no TV for nearly a fortnight now and can't even get through to this shit company.