Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Grrrr.....Virgin
I used to sit back and wonder what all the fuss was about with Virgin. I've had them for years from Telewest days and they've always been fine.....well HAD always been fine till about three months ago. Then things started to go badly wrong. I started getting continual speed drop-offs to unusable levels. I've made many phone calls - frustrating ones with the poor sods in the Indian call centres that you can almost guarantee will get you nowhere - and hopeful ones when on the odd occasion you get through to someone who listens (usually seems to be in Cardiff or Liverpool, it seems). There's been an acknowledgement of a performance problem, but apparently no fix. I've had engineers come round. I've had a new router and things get beter for a while then deteriorate again.
Today the connection was worse than ever, barely strong enough to test teh speed (when I can it's .25MB on a 10MB service). So I called again. India again (sigh). I was told that my speed has been capped because of excessive uploading and downloading! This means gigs-worth of traffic. Whaaat! I've barely used the computer today. I know beyond any reasonable doubt that I haven't exceeded any limit. It's absolutely impossible.
It's sooooooooo frustrating.
So two questions. Has this happened to anyone else? Is there any point in changing ISPs. Are there more reliable ones out there?
Tags for Forum Posts: broadband, virgin, virgin media
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by JulieB on
-
We've been with virgin for about a year I think and, so far, they seem ok. I've had a couple of instances of loss of service and both times I've called and it's been fixed.
It's probably a stupid question but have they checked if anyone else is using your broadband which would cause excessive usage?
Also I know I once asked to be put through to a British call centre, but I can't remember which utility this was.
In the past we've been with BT who's customer service was about the best but had a slow connection. We attempted to join talktalk but gave up because they were by far the worst company I've ever had the misfortune to deal with. I found Virgin to be the quickest in my house - anything relying on BT lines is too slow.
-
Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
-
Original dicussion, and what to do to fix your problems, here.
To summarise:
The problem is a lack of power, they need to install more equipment at your local exchange which they are obviously reluctant to do. This happens because the engineers are paid by the job and they find it easier to split the feed in two when installing to a new flat. As more of our houses become flats....
To fix this, go through the charade of the engineer visits (three) and speak to the call centres in the UK (i.e. not at the weekend or at night). More on that in this discussion.
Nothing around here is better than cable.
-
Permalink Reply by ElleCarumba on
-
we have virgin on Burgoyne Road for two years and it has mostly been fine. A few complete outages but they have generally been resolved quickly and on the one occasion it took over a week, they refunded us a month's bill.
Speed seems ok to me but I've never actually checked to see exactly how fast it really is. I can watch Iplayer without any problems though.
Their call centres are very frustrating though. I have called them more often to report damage to the cable box at the end of the road and getting through to a human with any sort of idea of what to do is rare.
Now I've said this, it is going to deteriorate, I am sure
-
Permalink Reply by Maddy on
-
Hi Hugh, I have a friend on Hewitt Rd who has had major problems with her Virgin connection leading to a couple of months without TV or internet connection. It was something to do with the equipment in the street, not her house and they were promising to fix it shortly.
I'll try and find out a bit more about what's going on for her, as it may be connected (if that's the right word...)
Maddy
-
Permalink Reply by Bulent Ozlem on
-
I live on Mattison road, I internet connect over the weeks has been going up and down, I lost connection two days ago but its fine now. I think they are having bandwidth problems in the area. Also, they are reluntant to do anything about it coz, it will mean to dig up the roads etc. I was told by some virgin enginner that they hate working around the ladder coz most faults are from outside the house. But I think the cable leading to a house is still copper. I dont know if they use fibre optics from the exhange onwards, but wont really effect us. Just the thought.
-
Permalink Reply by Hugh on
-
Thank you all. I called Virgin Customer Services today. Contrary to what I was told, apparently the capping is calculated on combined upload and download. So that makes sense, since I'm currently changing my cloud back-up provider and that'll mean many gigs going up the wire for a while. As a result of the call I got my 10MB doubled to 20MB for a few pounds less each month. (Apparently that'll mean I'm less likely to be capped as well as getting faster speeds).
I don't think I've ever called the 'I want to leave you' department without getting more for less. Always worth a call!
-
Permalink Reply by 36wcv4zkdyzkc on
-
I've found the magic number for getting anywhere with Virgin Media is the CEO's personal customer service team: 0800-052-2182 (yes he has one he gets that many complaints..!). We're currently waiting to get some work done on the street to *finally* get our Virgin up to scratch. They were the only team to get it organised with any efficiency.
They also have rather a lot of leeway to apply credits to your account so don't be afraid to ask for inconvenience money etc..
-
Permalink Reply by Malcolm on
-
Thank you, that's a superb number to have to hand.
I live on Hewitt and have been having problems with Virgin since May. Engineers have called and decided that the problem is the cable to the house, which means digging up the road.
We got as far as a team coming out to do the digging, but there was a car parked in the way (I kid you not). Since then both the customer service and the broadband have been flakey.
Recently it's got much much worse again, so time for more calls!
-
Permalink Reply by Malc B on
-
I've lived on Cavendish and Burgoyne, and have had VM in both places. Our experience has generally been good, but we have had this problem in both places, which was solved by the same charade of visits/callbacks that John M described. One way to make this process less annoying is to do your complaining on their forums: http://community.virginmedia.com/ (difficult if broadband isn’t working I know, but if you have internet on your phone or at work, you can do it) and/or by twitter - both have support people who monitor threads and can arrange engineer's visits etc, and don't drive you crazy by making you wait on hold for hours to talk to someone who will fob you off.
-
-
Hugh,
Sky seem pretty good - been with them for four years, only one problem, which was line related and which was fixed with a site visit from Openreach after a few calls...
No, not the fastest, 6mbps down, 768kbps up, but jolly reliable. No speed caps, no bandwidth counting, and all that for £7.50 per month - can't really moan! Sky do not have the problem with over-selling their network; it's totally uncontended as they planned capacity for 40 million subscribers, I'm reliably informed by a member of their old network design team that I know - they certainly don't have 40 million ADSL subscribers up and down the land!
We will be considering moving to BT Infinity though, unless Sky jump into the new unbundled FTTC street cabinets, because the new cab is only a few metres away from our house, and it promises 40mbps down with 10mbps up. That's nothing to sniff at! No, not as fast as Virgin can crank up, but certainly a reasonable alternative if things get desperate!
All I hear from Virgin customers around here is that the service is unreliable. That's why I've never wanted to shift to them despite their fairly good prices and fast speeds (when you can get them). We were one of the first areas to have traffic shaping introduced by Virgin... Sky still don't do that (although it has been known for BT to do too), and as it can play havoc with VPNs, IPT, RDS etc., that's a strong reason to stick with the "slow" but consistent connection that I have.
-
-
Our broadband strength drops several times a day and we regularly have to reboot everything to restore the signal. Our V+ box regularly reboots and stops recording too. So thanks, John, for advice on that.
New Twitter Campaign: Can VM customers motivate the Customer Care staff to improve their customer service?
I've had truly awful customer service from the people who answer VM's 150 phones over the past couple of months (I've been trying to get my phone line restored after a utility company inadvertently cut through our cable) - and this includes the staff in the UK call centres (who you can always reach if you choose option no. 5 in the menu/cancellation of service). VM's call centre staff don't seem to have any incentive to provide even a mediocre level of customer service e.g. I've had about seven separate people assure me they will call me back and then they just don't do it.
So I've just started a Twitter campaign: VirginMedia SuckOrShine. [http://twitter.com/#!/virginmediasos]
The idea is that VM customers post real-time details of the service they receive from specific individuals in VM's Customer Care Centre. You name the employee, and praise them if they shine but shame them if they suck. I'm interested to see whether customer monitoring/pressure can make the VM staff more accountable for the service they provide.
I'm still working on the page/campaign but it'd be great if people contributed to it. So, next time someone in the VM call centre is unable or unwilling to help you, or say that they will call you back and doesn't ... get them name and tweet about it!
-
-
We are with O2 and they are brilliant. We noticed a drop recently and couldn't get broadband upstairs or at the back of the house so we rang to complain and they said that all the have to do is switch the channel and it would be fine. they said most people use Channels 1 - 3 so they get over crowded and so he put us on Channel 11. I don't really understand but it's be perfect ever since. Maybe a similar problem is happening with you?
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
