My experience with Virgin Media was very good until Virgin decided to upgrade to the super fast broadband. It was at this time that my connection got dropped from their system and they could not get me back on.
In January 2009, Virgin Media pushed through this big marketing campaign for their new super fast Broadband which would benefit all their customers. However, many customers including myself, who had been with Virgin for over 4 years, were somehow lost from the Virgin system.
The first time my Broadband stop working I called the Virgin customer services line (paying a horrendous amount of money for the call). The customer services agent went through all the procedures with me over the phone but could not get my broadband to work. He then told me that someone more senior was going to call me back in the next few days. A few days passed but no one from Virgin bothered calling me back. I called them back again; there was nothing on the system showing that I was expecting their call. Over the following 3 weeks I made numerous calls to Virgin where I had to explain the whole problem over and over again to each new customer services agent I spoke to, none of them able to help me or resolve the problem. Each time I phoned I was promised that someone at Virgin would phone me back but they never did.
Having made approximately twenty calls to Virgin customer services, but to no avail, I had run out of patience with Virgin. I work from home on one day per week and I could no longer survive without broadband connection at home. I explained this to every person I spoke to at Virgin but it seemed to make no difference. I decided that I should end my contract with Virgin and asked one of the customer services agents at Virgin for my MAC code to be sent to another broadband provider. Concerned about losing my custom, the agent then convinced me to stay with Virgin as he said I would experience the same problems with any other provider. He argued that the problem was not with Virgin but was a fault at the BT exchange. He then went on to say as I needed my internet for work emails, I could use dial-up while I was waiting for my broadband problem to be fixed. I was not totally happy about this, knowing how slow dial up is but I thought that they were at last trying to resolve my problem, so I accepted the offer.
The agent then went through the process of installing the dial-up service on my computer over the phone with me, and I specifically checked that I would not be charged for these calls made on dial-up. The agent said as an act of good will he would add £30 to my account straight away and that I should let them know when I needed more credit. I was very careful how much I used my internet, as I knew it was running up a bill and that the connection was extremely slow, so I only used for work emails. I found the dial up service quite unsatisfactory for work purposes as it was so slow and quickly became frustrated by it. Over the next few weeks I kept calling the Virgin customer services, but they could not seem to find out what the problem with my broadband connection could be. A customer services agent did once call me to say that they were trying to resolve my problem, but nothing got done. I eventually and reluctantly decided to terminate my contract with Virgin and asked them for my MAC code. The agent I spoke to was very understanding and ensured me that my dial-up services were going to be taken care of, as my broadband had not been working. Within a week I had a new O2 broadband up and running in my house, with no problems at the exchange.
About a week later I received a bill from Virgin for £93, charging me for all the dial-up I had been using. I phoned the Virgin customer services a few times to try to get them to cancel these dial-up charges. They then told me that I had been given £30 dial up credit at the beginning and they could not cancel the bill. I argued that the dial up had been given as a temporary solution to compensate for my lack of broad brand and that I had been told that I would not be charged for it. I was told that I would have to write to the Virgin head office and explain what had happened. I wrote a letter that same day but have still not heard from their head office. I decided to cancel my direct debit from my bank account until they Virgin made contact me with me to resolve the problem. Virgin did phone me, someone from their collections department in Nottingham called to tell me that I still owed them the money. I explained that I was waiting for their head office to call me so he advised me to wait for a month for their head office to contact me. It has now been almost two months and I still have not heard from them.