Re: Virgin Media Horror Story

Muttley wrote:
On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 12:21:29 +0100, Eeyore
<rabbitsfriendsandrelations@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Nick wrote:

I can only say my dealings have been the opposite...few as they have
been because,as i mentioned before,i've had very few problems.

Maybe the truth of the situation is that VM aren't particularily
bad.... or particularily good.....they're just like a lot of big
companies and it sometimes comes down to the luck of the draw who you
actually get thru to when you have a problem.....it shouldn't but
frequently does with many companys.
I have dealt with many big organisations, like BT who have problems but
in my experience were far better than VM. The only big company I have
seen rival VM for awfulness is Sky.

I too decided to try VM after Mark McIntyre assured me the connections
were not congested. The initial self install didn't work (and apparently
never could have worked as my cable connection was pre digital). Hence
an engineer install which I was told I wouldn't be billed for but I was.
Standard lying practice. Same here.

I've never been lied to....not saying it doesn't happen but i've not
experienced it and i doubt very much it's standard practice

The support line took 30 minutes+ to be answered.

When I got the line working it was chronically congested in the evening
and my 20Mb VM line was much, much slower than my 4Mb Zen line. Even
during the early morning when speedtests showed the line at 10Mb+ the
line was still much much slower than Zen to certain websites
(particularly in the US). The line was also much worse for Voip.
I kept a record of my speeds on the thinkbroadband site. It was only the 4
Mbps deal. It could nearly mamage that during off peak periods but dropped
to 500 kbps or so during the evening etc. Idnet is 6 Mbps plus virtually
regardless of time of day.

That's strange...it wasn't long ago you were always singing the
praises of how Idnet always gave you your full speed...7.15
meg.....seems your service has deteriorated.I hope you've complained
as vociferously to them as you have about VM on here.Altho from the
tone of your post it seems not.....it appears you've happily accepted
it.

PS: I /still/ get my full 20 meg when i d/load altho i've no doubt
you'll just call me a liar again.


Actually I could normally get near 20 Ms/s from VM if I used the Zen test servers with 20 or 30 connections. At the same time I couldn't download streaming video at 1.5 Mb/s from a US site. So the line was fine for a pointless test but useless for real life usage.

A Thinkbroadband (single connection) speed test would give a test results as low as 1Mb/s. I did ask on the VM newsgroup about this and never received any sensible answer. AIUI it was due to congestion.

So saying you can download at the full 20Mb/s doesn't make you a liar but it does make me wonder exactly what you mean and whether you are only choosing to quote line speed in a way that is favourable to a heavily congested network.

VM were often keen to quote how unreliable speedtest sites like thinkbroadband were. But for my Zen and Idnet accounts they seem pretty stable up to 4Mb/s. As the VM 20Mb/s connection was producing results in the 1Mb/s region I can't see how it can have been the speedtest site's fault.



So I tried to cancel within the 30 days, twice the telephone operator
told me it had been cancelled but it was only when I sent a record
delivery letter that it was actually cancelled. After I had cancelled VM
continued to send me bills with random figures on which bore no relation
to the services I had signed up for.
Just like me. Like the bill even a manager couldn't understand.


Prudently I had terminated all direct debits before money was actually
taken.
Not so lucky here so I got hit with a penalty charge by my bank for some
insane bill. I really ought to reclaim that penalty charge too.

Oh incidentally, when I tried to cancel within the 30 days, 'retentions' ?
said they they needed a month's notice to cancel and insisted I paid for
another month's service at something like £25 !

Graham

p.s. I think you're losing Carl. 2 near identical experiences here.


Well..Carl doesn't seem to have had that experience and neither do
i...so that's 2-2 then.....as if 2 peoples experiences proves anything
at all,either way, about an organisation with over 3 million
customers....you really are a joke.

But if you look at VM's private newsgroup there were endless posts from people having the same problems.
.

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