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Recently, I decided to see if I could get a better deal for my broadband. I'm currently with Tesco and, to be honest, it's not the best deal around. I was certain I had arranged a 1Mbps download speed but subsequently discovered it was actually 0.5Mbps. Ordinarily, not a problem except it takes around 8 hours to download the map updates for my TomTom. For this service, I am paying just shy of £18 a month!

So, I decided to go with Virgin, Virgin are actually my current internet service provider, with Tesco placing a layer of their branding over the top. I found that by going direct to Virgin, I could get 4Mbsp download (the maximum available where I live), free anytime telephone calls and free mobile calls and texts until 2010 for £9.50 a month for the first 3 months and then £19 thereafter. Seemed like a good deal, so I went for it.

However, I have had an unbelievable devil of a job getting my account set up. My MAC address has been supplied by Tesco on the 2nd of June 2009 and since then I have been struggling to get anyone at Virgin interested in sorting out my issue. I simply get transferred from one depart to another and to another...all at my cost on an 0845 number. I had the odd email after kicking up a fuss to tell me that my direct debit has been arrnaged and that's about it.

I chased them up again today, only to find out that no progress has been made. What's the issue? Well, while I'm with Tesco currently, Virgin provide the service and for some reason I am unable to two concurrent accounts at the same time on thier servers, so they are unable to transfer me.

I asked the girl in Customer Services if everything was just to difficult for them and should I just walk away. Without actually saying it, she said yes. What I mean here is that she did nothing to reassure me that they were going to be able to remedy the issue. She going to ask someone technical to give me a ring back....sometime.

Anyway, my MAC address has now expired so is no longer valid. I'm really angry with the shoddy treatment I received by Virgin, especially as I'm trying to join them...and it seems that I'm the only one who's making an effort and spending the money (though 0845 phone calls) to secure my custom.

Clearly, Virgin do not want my money!

Anyone else had a similar experience or tales of woe regarding Virgin Media?

Nothing but good things to report here.

Superb in the 2 years I have been with them.

Sorry.

Perhaps they've got all the customers they need?

I have found the Customer Service with Virgin Media overall quite poor. I have found good service from them about 1 in 10 times! However, what can you do?? It's either Sky or Virgin and the previous issues I have had with Sky have put me of for life!!

 

Well, I've sent the CEO of Virgin Media (Neil Berkett) an email complaining of the poor experience I have been given. Hopefully, the issue can be sorted......might help others in similiar situation even if it doesn't help me right now.

I know Virgin are big.....but surely no business wants to put barriers in the way of customers spending money with them. After all, had I been welcomed into the fold, they'd have secured regular payments for 18 months.

I dunno. Perhaps the deal is too good so they're delaying?

Virgin is just Telewest and ntl, and both of those companies were amongst the worst ever in my experience. I even wrote to the CEO of ntl, a 4 pager expressing my exact thoughts, no pulled punches either. 

 

JoelSim:

Virgin is just Telewest and ntl, and both of those companies were amongst the worst ever in my experience. I even wrote to the CEO of ntl, a 4 pager expressing my exact thoughts, no pulled punches either. 

 

Did you get satisfaction (other than venting steam)?

PJPro:

JoelSim:

Virgin is just Telewest and ntl, and both of those companies were amongst the worst ever in my experience. I even wrote to the CEO of ntl, a 4 pager expressing my exact thoughts, no pulled punches either. 

 

Did you get satisfaction (other than venting steam)?

Of course not. I decided I would never again buy anything from a CATV company.

 

So now you're with....

PJPro:

So now you're with....

BT for phone, and have Freeview. I don't know who the broadband is either. 

Much like me...

My first broadband provider was Tiscali who were the devil incarnate, not only hopelessly incompetent but all service related calls were charged at premium rate so you could rack up £s just trying to get through. When you did get through they usually ended up blaming your printer or any other device plugged in. Eventually I just used to leave the connection problems to resolve themselves. Quicker and cheaper.

Second provider (10 seconds after Tiscali contract expired) was Waitrose who were b----y marvellous on the service side but reliant on BT (of course) for infrastructure, so there was not much they could do about the poor speeds once I was 'upgraded' from my (by then reliable) fixed speed 2meg to ADSL2 after about 8 months with them. (Those first 8 months on a fixed 2meg speed were bliss and nothing went wrong.)

I was 0.8 miles from the nearest digital exchange but only got 500k out of a possible 8meg.  BT would not allow Waitrose to return me to the fixed 2meg speed. BT sent an engineer who admitted that I was lucky to get 500k given how noisy the circuit was between my BT terminal box test socket and the local exchange. He also re-assured me it would probably not improve in either of our lifetimes and said to allow 10 days for the signal to 're-train' back to 500k !

The next day I arranged for Virgin Media to install cable. 3 days later I was installed and Waitrose given their last month of payment and direct debit ceased. (I really felt bad for Waitrose guys as they had tried very hard and any profits from the service charge went to a nominated charity.)

Virgin Media accidently set up an extra account number for my install which confused us both for a few minutes on the phone until the reason was discovered and they 'apologised' by refunding the £25 install fee and giving me 2 months free service.

There have been two outages (to my knowledge) in two years and both times it took less than a minute to get through to them - free of charge - and as soon as I gave my surname and post code and phone number they knew the reasons for the outage and gave estimates of outage time and reasons and what was being done to sort it out.

Another time I had an email based technical question about setting up new accounts on a Mac. A very knowledgable Mac 'expert' had the answer in a few minutes and talked me through it with no further problem 

[update]Oh yes, sorry, when I started on Virgin Media cable I was on 4meg. And it was always 4meg when I speed tested it. (Well at least 3.9 or thereabouts typically.)  Then the following summer they upgraded us all to the 10meg service for the same monthly charge. That is always very close to 10 meg when tested, although TBH I rarely speed-test anymore as there is never a speed problem.

I could never have contemplated working from home with any BT landline based service whereas Virgin cable has allowed this with only one night shift in two years where I had to go to the office due to an outage.

I have used supanet for about 9 years, last 4 at 8Mb speed, and its damn fast that much I do know. It's now costing me £13 amonth including evening and weekend telephone calls. Never had an outage, rarely ever hasd to reboot the rerouter, only issues I have ever had was sorting out my account when I moved house and that has eventually been sorted out after a couple of phone calls. A couple of ex coleagues had virgin accounts and nothing but problems.

Im on Virgin Broadband, and have got to say im not impressed.  Download speeds dip heavily and ping has become very inconsistent as of late.  Apparently o2 have been voted best provider in the UK. Might be worth giving them a call.