Laughable Support from Virgin Media - Warning to all potential customers

sid

sid

sid

Soldato
Joined
9 Feb 2003
Posts
5,178
Location
London
I was going to post this in the virgin 50mb thread but wanted to warn any potential customers about the kind of issues you might expect if you happen to be in an area which is congested.

I have been posting on their forums for help on this issue for 4 months now and kind of response they give is utterly laughable. Basically admitting that there is nothing that they can do about the poor service.

Here is a sample reply
"
Hi sidxms,


The fault is currently being worked on by our design team who are trying to find the best solution for your area. There is no estimate at the moment as to how long this may take and any attempt to estimate would be pure speculation. This sort of work can require roadworks to access cables under roads however, so the fix date may be at the mercy of local planning constraints.


Upgrading to 50 or 100meg would leave you on the same cables and thus would not resolve your issues.


As my colleague stated, we are unable to discuss account or billing information on the forums. Therefore, you would need to call 150 from a Virgin Media landline or 0845 454 1111.

Sorry for any inconvenience caused.
Kind Regards,

Jason G.

Help & Support Forum Team
"

Please check their forums to see if your area has any problems before moving to virgin media. Since I'm in central london I should get fibre soon and will move.

Sample pings during times which I want to use the internet actually.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/665cc25c10e54f7b0ed6e5b2089092df-12-03-2012.html
 
PistolPete said:
Virgin Media in poor speeds and poor CS shocker....... you hear about it a lot sadly.
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My speeds are fine. Recently we've had disconnects though, they sent us a another router for free, didn't solve it, so they sent an "engineer" over, on a Saturday, he played around with the levels and replaced the modem.

So, problem solved, plus we have 2 routers to use now, or perhaps sell one on.

For every customer complaining, there's bound to be 100 who are satisfied.
 
Speeds aren't too bad but time critical stuff like games, streaming isn't doable at peak times which is ludicrous. Their traffic managment clearly fails if downloading is prioritised over things like voip and games.
 
Unfortunately.. they are at the mercy of local councils for roadwork related fixes! I know we have the same issue here with LCC when we want to dig a major route up to renew water mains..
 
problem is, being in central London you're now at the mercy of the olympics too. There's a lot of restrictions in place, I think the first lot have already started and this dictates a number of areas on the ORN/PRN that can't be touched until after the games and this extends to to all London A/B roads durning the games (nightmare for any work planning)

Sid - the twitter feed (@virginmedia) as this is looked after by a separate team, (I think) so you may want to consider putting something there.
 
Since December I've constantly had unplayable pings and nearly always only 50% of my supposed 100mbit maximum speed.

My ping graph:
934171455caa3acdb3cf91224d751537.png

(that's actually better than it has been for a while)

All in all, if VM are cack in your area they will not bother to sort it out.
 
FrenchTart said:
All in all, if VM are cack in your area they will not bother to sort it out.
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This is correct (speaking from experience). I had problems with oversubscription and it took them several months to rectify the issue. But to be completely honest, I'm glad I stayed with VM and they've been absolutely perfect since.

The only problem I've had recently was last night. My internet went down from 1AM through to 5PM. 30 seconds on the phone to VM-India (at 2 in the morning) and they confirmed that it was UBR wide maintenance and that £3 would be credited to my account for the downtime.

Woke up in the morning to find a team of VM engineers in a couple of vans laying new cables at the end of my road. :D
 
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I've also had problems numerous times in North London. The issue isn't helped by them doubling speeds for publicity when the network can barely cope with the current ones.
 
I've been a Virgin Media Cable Broadband Customer since 2001 (Back in the days of Telewest and then Blueyonder). In that time, I've had the access at 3 addresses (Cheltenham, Bromley, and now Gloucester) one of which being my parents house (2001-current, started on 512k and gone up from there), and the others being my homes (2010-2011 Bromley, 2011 to current in Gloucester)

I've never had a performance problem, and never had a customer service problem. Sure, I've had issues with the network breaking a few times, maybe.... 8-10 times in those 11 years, which isn't bad IMO.

On the flip side, since 2001 I've had ADSL in several locations (Chelsea 2006, Watford 2007-2008 and then 2008-2010 in another home there, 2010 in Battersea and then 2010 in Bromley... yes I know, lots of moves !).

Bar one of the homes in Watford I had nothing but problems with the ADSL connections, and used a variety of ISPs. Constant drop outs, poor pings, appalling performance.... the list goes on.

In short, it isn't as clear as OMG THE VM NETWORK IS ****. Some people in some areas have issues. Those that don't have issues unsurprisingly aren't pasting it all over the forums.
 
The key problem I see here is VM never seem to stop pushing the sales, and that to me seems wrong, they know where the problem areas are yet encourage more people to take out services.

Of course I understand they are a business and should make money but at this/that point they fall into the goods not fit for purpose legislation and you are free of contract.

Sadly over subscription does appear to be a major issue and from some of my friends in Portsmouth graphs the OPs is pretty good!! :O
 
Conanius said:
I've been a Virgin Media Cable Broadband Customer since 2001 (Back in the days of Telewest and then Blueyonder). In that time, I've had the access at 3 addresses (Cheltenham, Bromley, and now Gloucester) one of which being my parents house (2001-current, started on 512k and gone up from there), and the others being my homes (2010-2011 Bromley, 2011 to current in Gloucester)

I've never had a performance problem, and never had a customer service problem. Sure, I've had issues with the network breaking a few times, maybe.... 8-10 times in those 11 years, which isn't bad IMO.

On the flip side, since 2001 I've had ADSL in several locations (Chelsea 2006, Watford 2007-2008 and then 2008-2010 in another home there, 2010 in Battersea and then 2010 in Bromley... yes I know, lots of moves !).

Bar one of the homes in Watford I had nothing but problems with the ADSL connections, and used a variety of ISPs. Constant drop outs, poor pings, appalling performance.... the list goes on.

In short, it isn't as clear as OMG THE VM NETWORK IS ****. Some people in some areas have issues. Those that don't have issues unsurprisingly aren't pasting it all over the forums.
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Nobody is saying that VM is terrible everywhere :confused:

Everybody posting in this thread that has talked about issues have stated "if you are in an area that is congested" (or similar). The problem with VM isn't that that the congestion occurs, it is the speed with which they resolve that congestion and their attitude towards their customers.
 
I'm with VM too, I pay for 10 down & more or less get 10 down, through BT copper 3.5 miles away from the exchange I paid for up-to 8 & got 2.5 to 3 down. :eek:

I do agree though the CS can suck, although IMO this depends on the location of where the support is coming from (India :rolleyes:)
 
Morfik said:
I've also had problems numerous times in North London. The issue isn't helped by them doubling speeds for publicity when the network can barely cope with the current ones.
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They are spending £200m+ for the speed upgrades, so it's not just a case of increasing the speeds for publicity.
 
i just wanna put that my 100mb is great, just upgraded from 50 and that was great too, virgin do have some major issues in some areas and see it all over here and the virgin forums but when your in an area thats good i think its a good service. i get 12.50mb downloads and xbox live/iplayer/youtube all work fine for me, bt fttc looks nice and the TBB graphs have a lot less yellow but its a very new service so have to see how the bt service works when it gets a few more people on it.

 
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