Upset you did they ?

There is much incompetence these days.

Itself annoying, but vastly aggravated by thedifficulties of speaking to somebody who is actually human and has answers and influence. These people are not just rare, they may be non-existant.

The road had 'bits missing'! This Virgin jargon filled tech speak goes way over my head! 

Virgin are doing my head in!!!!

 

For years & years I've had their broadband and been really happy.   I pay top whack for the unlimited download package (with reasonable usage)...   I do this because there are four of us in the house that all spend time online, streaming stuff from youtube, playing online games, etc.

 

We live close to our exchange...  so for years we have had a good connection speed... never had any problems.

 

Because of this I haven't had to speak to them for a couple of years, but last time I did they were brilliant...   I spoke to someone in this country...   she couldn't do enough for us.

 

 

Last few months the speed has dropped so significantly that on an evening its so bad my son & husband can't play Black Ops online through the PS3...   downloading or streaming is impossible...  loading the most basic web page is so slow its a joke.

 

So.. I went to my online account with them...    they are revamping the bit that tells me about my package...  funnily enough I could get into the bit that would let me pay a bill.   I found my way to the service forum..  and there are pages & pages of pissed off customers.   It turns out they are "traffic managing" heavy users...    throttling our upload & download capacities.   this is not what I pay my money for!!  

 

I am not even going to bother phoning them, because those that have have been put through to people in India that really don't know whats going on...   some customers have been told its their router, and been conned into buying a virgin hub... which has made no difference...  

 

I am so pissed off with them.    How dare they "reduce my service" without telling me, and whilst still taking my cash.  Its really bad.

 

i think we are going to be changing providers...   we are going to go with Sky I think.   Virgin can stick it up their backsides.

oooh!   I hadn't intended to end it on a rectal insertion theme.... 

 

must be something about Virgin that makes that course of action inevitable

My advice Prom.... 

 

cancel the Virgin order...    go with someone else 

do not i repeat            go with sky         AKA   sign your soul to the devil , i would not reccomend  sky to my worst enemy

Ditty, most ISP's reduce your bandwidth depending on usage but Virgin's customer service is absolutely non-existent now. You'll only notice it if you ever get a problem. The guy I spoke to refused to put me through to customer service (presumably because he knew how badly he fekked up). It used to be the case that Virgin were the best and looked after their customers but now they have so many they don't care if they lose people along the way. Their profit margin is huge. They now charge you for disconnections and have long periods of notice they don't tell you about unless you leave them and then rule you out of any new packages they introduce which they say are only for new customers. Loyal customers are second class citizens. They want to reel in the new ones.

 

The huge problem here is Virgin is the only reliable cable provider. Sky is not an option for us ( we looked at it) because their broadband service comes through a phone line, not cable. For evidence of how bad that is look at any site with BT users who want to kill anyone who ever had anything to do with BT. Broadband over a phone line is worse than useless and everything depends on how far you are from the exchange and how many people are trying to get online at the same time as you.

 

It's not stretching it to say Virgin have a monopoly on broadband the same way Sky has on TV the same way Microsoft has on operating systems.

 

It blows. Bigtime.

oh god!!

 

really?

 

I hate Sky as a company...   we have Sky telly... and I HATE them!

 

But I would actually sell my soul (or any other body part) to the devil for a decent internet connection right now  

 

I'm not going with BT...  the BT homehub van is outside next doors house at least twice a month digging up the path to try and sort theirs out...  

I do not think it unreasonable that as a paying customer you should be able to express yourself in your own language without having to spell things out so that the person on the other end of the phone can understand.

What if your worst enemy was Rupert Murdoch?

our connection IS over a phoneline... 

 

we don't have cable in our village.

 

But until this traffic management bollocks our connection was always really good...   

 

they are throttling us between 8am - 2pm    3pm - 10om

 

they really can stick it up their arse...   

 

 

(I am really really cross about it....         can you tell? )

 

well...   tbh ... yes..  

 

I just want the internet to work..  

 

right now I'd sign up with Robert Mugabee if he could sort out our broadband for me!

(yes, I know...  its bad...    but its true....   my principles stop where internet connection is concerned) 

I have to go to bed now...  

 

I have work tomorrow      (yes, I rejoined the working side of society last week)

 

 

I will pop back tomorrow evening and see how much stick I have got for selling out for the sake of online gaming & watching videos of cats doing cute things

I'm with you on this one Ditty.

Internet is a big part of my relaxation time - therefore it needs to be right.

Similar thing happened to someone I know, had booked the installation weeks in advance, the website had said that cable was available in the new area..etc. Day of installation came, engineer turned up - and there was no cable in the area. The website and Virgin were wrong. But they tried to charge the customer for the pleasure of them being wrong. Inevitably Virgin were told to take their wrongness and shove it up their arse.

Thats the thing - you check the website, it is available, so you think YAY!

However in this case I think the engineers are at fault as next door do have Virgin

 

I don't mind them being wrong. I want them to be wrong three weeks before they came to do the installation, not on the day, so they can either tell us they can't help or do something about it. I forgot to add that the Indian call centre bod in defence of Virgin pointed out that there was somebody at number 6 on our street with fully active Virgin Media installation. Number 6. Next door to us. It seems the bits missing on the street did not affect our new neighbours.

 

How the f*ck does any company employ people who, given 4 weeks notice wait till the day of installation before deciding there's a problem? This is what prompted my colourful exchange with the call centre bod.

Just to let everyone know, my father-in-law has secured the storage contract on BT's Indian call centres' anal passages, recently. 

Ah the call centre people are a delight, too. Especially the Indian and Birmingham call centre staff. I don't think I ever spoke to anybody at Virgin who actually cared whether you had service or not.

 

The shame is that technically, what they offer is brilliant. Where I live the average d/l speed is 18mbps whereas Sky crawls in at around 8. The service doesn't get affected by weather and the on demand service is good, too. I'm with Sky now cos Virgin got on my last nerve, I just couldn't tolerate having to talk to a bunch of incompetent, illiterate and mostly incoherent muppets any longer. At least with the internet there is the the option of logging off, with Virgin you had to talk to them.

 

That's because it's cable. Anything other than cable internet in 2011 is madness but if you want it, you're going Virgin. That's why they've lasted so long. Sky have cornered TV, Virgin have cornered broadband. Let's write to Cameron and Clegg about monopolies. They'll suggest buying Mayfair and saving your get out of jail free card till when you really need it.

Ditty, I'm a bit confused as I thought Virgin was cable only

They do both El Loro - its just that cable is the big seller

Thanks, Issy

I switched from Virgin to BT recently, and so far everything has been ok *touch wood* Much better, more reliable service

 

Ditty, I used to have sky when I lived in Newcastle and never had any problems, if you already have the TV they'll probably be a good deal for getting their broadband too -and you can always get Mr D to haggle a bit I would have gone sky again, but the broadband isn't in my area apparently

Well we have Virgin, and have had Virgin since about 1990, (although they were 'Telewest' then.)  Apart from maybe half a dozen times in the past 10 years, when we have the internet off half the time for about 15 days in a row, and spend an hour a day on the phone to them, we are OK with them.  When they work well, they're hard to beat. 

 

They have tried our patience in the past, but I have to say though, that we have struggled to find anyone cheaper: we have unlimited broadband, and there are four of us using the internet, we have all the digital tv channels of course - around 80 to 100 I guess, (excluding the sports and movie channels because we're not into sport and don't want to pay fifteen quid extra to have the movies when we have probably seen most of them and would rarely watch any anyway,) and of course the phone, with unlimited landline calls, all for £55.00 a month for the lot. 

 

This is very hard to beat, so on the whole, we are OK with them, but I do sympathise with anyone having issues, because we have had them in the past... we did change to Sky and BT phone around 2006, for a year or so, but to be honest, the bill for the same stuff that we're getting now was about £90 to £100 a month, and that was not even including unlimited landline calls.  So we went back.

 

Must say though, I am also sick to the bloody back teeth of ringing them, (and other companies,) and getting people whose first language is not English.  I am pretty sure they cannot understand everything I am saying, and I sure as hell can't understand them!  And it's true that they appear to be reading from a script... I have said something like 'did you get my last payment?' or 'Do you have a record of how many times I have rang?' and they say 'hmmmmmmmm, have you tried switching it off at the wall, waiting ten seconds, and switching it back on again?'  Their answers, half the time, are NOTHING to do with what I asked!  To be honest, I could do their job with no training, because they don't know jack-shit about the subject in question: all you need to do is to be able to read about half a dozen different paragraphs off the script given to you!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then you end up being rude and swearing at them which does nothing to help your cause and makes you feel even more frustrated...

I can't be arsed with foreign call centres. If a company won't speak to me in Britain, I don't do business with them.

We've been with Virgin since 1997 (though they were Videotron then and I only started it cos I got all the tv free cos I worked there). We've had the odd breakdown, never more than a couple of hours. And the one time we had a ream problem with channels freezing they were out within a couple of days to relay an upgraded cable.

I work for Virgin..mobile tho... well through an agency...virgin were supposed to be taking us on after 13 weeks (this week).. just been told they are extending the contract with the agency for another 6 months..... oh joy......bastards

 

BTW.. dont go with talktalk either.. their call centres are all abroad cause they took the contract from us,, their british call centres, mass redundancies....

oooh! 

 

I was expecting to come back & be the internet pariah for admitting I would throw my principles out of the window for my broadband to be back to how it was.

 

 

Up until a month or so ago, I would have been in here posting that I have had Virgin for years and have always been happy with the service...  I was!  for a long time!    Its this new traffic managing thing they are doing..     I object to being traffic managed when we are not excessively using the internet.. its just that there are four of us living here that use it.   What the hell am I paying for an unlimited download package for if they are going to limit it?

 

 

 

Clumsycat - My BIL worked for Virgin Mobile (he managed the concession in the Virgin Superstore in Piccadilly Circus - their supposed flagship branch)...     he left them a year or so ago...   they had a less than amicable parting of the ways due to a sudden change in their staff management style..   they went from being a decent employer, to a really unpleasant employer overnight.

I'm with sky and it's fab! We have the whole telly, phone and broadband package and it has never let us down. I may be a soulless devil, but I'm a soulless devil with internet that can cope with all our demands!!!

Interesting ....

 

And you live quite near to me as well... 

 

 

*starts packing up soul ready for delivery*

Update. We are going with Sky for TV and BT for broadband and phone. Sky's broadband package comes through a phone line which is fine if all you want to do is browse the internet and absolutely useless for anything else. Ditto BT's 'Total' broadband package which is just as bad. We've had it before, Total Bollocks would be a fairer brand name imo. However, they have BT Infinity which is apparently superfast. Virgin now say they can't give us broadband at all without digging up three driveways which by law they are not allowed to do so without cable, BT Infinity is the only other fast option.

 

I know nothing about it. It might be pants. We have till the day of installation to cancel if we decide against it so I need to find out a bit more about it. To lull myself into a false sense of security I intend to research BT Infinity on the internet and totally believe every positive comment I come across and ignore anything negative. That should work.

I will wait to hear what this BT Infinity wizardry is like then Prom... 

 

(I still disagree about the phone line broadband though...   until recent non phone line related problems ours was trouble free - although I do virtually live ontop of the phone exchange, which I am told is why ours was so good)

The problem with phone line broadband Ditty is your connection depends on how close you are to the exchange and how many people are online at the time. It sounds like you got lucky being close but typically, with phone line broadband you'll get between 6 and 7mb speed at best and it can and often does go way below that. I had so many arguments with BT over their 10mb Total Broadband package that speedtests I ran showed me it was performing at 2mb a lot of the time which affects even minor things like your browsing speed.

 

If you don't download a lot or don't use streaming much you'll probably be okay with Sky. There is no traffic management with Sky if you are in their catchment area which is a plus too. I just really, really don't want to go back to slow broadband having used cable for years.

I used BT 30MB unlimited usage when I lived up country and never had any problems at all - occasionally had to reset the router but that only takes a matter of minutes..

My problem with BT was them booking a day to install a phone socket & then not turning up! 

 

Is that the Infinity package slim? It might be the same thing and they've just rebranded it.

Not sure Prom - I just said I wanted a connection that allowed me to use it as much as I wanted with no restrictions - cost me approx £30 a month