Virgin media issues

[bkcin]

Hi Buggz

 

I left Virgin Media last year due to utilisation issues in the S5 area.

 

My fault was registered in March 2014 but the actual utilisation issue actually started in February 2014.

 

They gave me target fix dates of September 2014, October 2014, November 2014, December 2014, January 2015 and April 2015 all of which were missed.

 

I made a complaint in May 2014 which was resolved with £50 in July. I made another complaint in November 2014 but in December when they offered me more money I refused and told them I wanted to go to deadlock.

 

After this I contacted the Communications and Internet Services Adjudication Scheme (CISAS) and raised an official case against Virgin Media with all the supporting facts such as time spent on the phone, the failed promises of fix dates, the number of times I had to take days off work for them to come and 'fix' my line, being unable to watch my Nexflix and NFL subscription packages ect.

 

Virgin Media tried their best to wriggle out of the issue and I didn't get the £1000 compensation I'd asked for (all those things above added up with extras and interest) but I did get £500

 

I'd suggest getting all your facts written down, start doing speed tests on a nightly basis and saving the results etc. make a complaint to Virgin Media today then in a few months time when they come back to you go streight to deadlock and contact CISAS

 

It's a lengthy process and requires a lot of detail but it is done via email and the end result for me was £500 compensation.

 

William

 

I'd personally just switch to a new provider and actually receive a decent internet connection.

 

Your suggestion requires you to suffer from a poor internet service for several more months whilst also messing around logging things and writing emails/making calls all to possibly receive a small amount of compensation.

 

There's more to life than that surely! Sometimes it's better to just see the writing on the wall and move on.

 

That said, it is good to see that the ADR process worked out for you.

[louca001]

Your suggestion requires you to suffer from a poor internet service for several more months whilst also messing around logging things and writing emails/making calls all to possibly receive a small amount of compensation.

 

Not really, I had a connection monitor on my server so I could automatically collect speed and outages etc. the speed was largely ok during the day while I was working from home but it was terrible on an evening and especially at weekends.

 

I wasn't really doing it for the compensation, I wanted CISAS to force Virgin Media into doing the work that they promised and would have hapily continued to have broadband from them but in the end they just silenced me with money and said they wouldn't do the improvement works so I switched providers.

 

If everyone hit them where it hurt, in the profits then they'd soon do the improvement works.

[Buggz]

Hi Buggz

 

I left Virgin Media last year due to utilisation issues in the S5 area.

 

My fault was registered in March 2014 but the actual utilisation issue actually started in February 2014.

 

They gave me target fix dates of September 2014, October 2014, November 2014, December 2014, January 2015 and April 2015 all of which were missed.

 

I made a complaint in May 2014 which was resolved with £50 in July. I made another complaint in November 2014 but in December when they offered me more money I refused and told them I wanted to go to deadlock.

 

After this I contacted the Communications and Internet Services Adjudication Scheme (CISAS) and raised an official case against Virgin Media with all the supporting facts such as time spent on the phone, the failed promises of fix dates, the number of times I had to take days off work for them to come and 'fix' my line, being unable to watch my Nexflix and NFL subscription packages ect.

 

Virgin Media tried their best to wriggle out of the issue and I didn't get the £1000 compensation I'd asked for (all those things above added up with extras and interest) but I did get £500

 

I'd suggest getting all your facts written down, start doing speed tests on a nightly basis and saving the results etc. make a complaint to Virgin Media today then in a few months time when they come back to you go streight to deadlock and contact CISAS

 

It's a lengthy process and requires a lot of detail but it is done via email and the end result for me was £500 compensation.

 

William

 

Hi William

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply! I think I'll take your advice too. This is my 6th ISP in about 15 years and all of them bar one has given me grief. So I think it's time to take a stand give them some grief for a change.

 

Thanks again!

 

Buggz

[louca001]

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply!

 

You're welcome Buggz

 

You might want to try FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet), usually called fibre broadband or VDSL (Very-high-bit-rate digital subscriber line)

 

It's more expensive but only uses traditional phone lines from the cabinet to your house the rest is fibre optic so quite fast.

 

A 38Mbps package is about £14 + Line Rental per month. Vodafone and Plusnet are quite competitive in this market both having packages that cost approx £310-340 for the first year (£26-28 a month) and both having all of their primary support right here in the UK.

 

Vodafone have the added advantage of a higher upload speed though, 10Mbps where as Plusnet guarantee 2Mbps.

*last time I checked

 

I've been on a Vodafone 38Mbps package for about a year and it's always 35Mbps or above and the full 10Mbps upload.

[Colt]

Hi all, for some time now I have been having an issue with Virgin media. The issue is with them over subscribing in the S6 area (this may also effect other areas. I pay for 100mb broadband, and over the last year I have set up a free acocunt on http://www.speedtest.net to keep a track of my broadband speeds. I have just chacked and my speed as I type is just over 7mb, my average speed since setting up the speed test is 18mb.

 

The reason I am writing this is, the Sheffield Virgin media customers are probably getting way lower then you pay for. When speaking to Virgin customer services at the weekend, they have now resulted in saying "I don't want to say this, but because we cannot offer you a fix date for the issue. You are more then welcome to leave, because we cannot offer you the service you are paying for". So for over a year I have been getting £7.50 knocked off my bill, it has now got to a point where when I a using my broadband to game online with friends. They are getting over 25mb with the likes of Sky, Plusnet and talktalk and I am struggling with around 7mb (paying for 100mb).

 

My advice for you is chack your speed (anysite you choose), create an account if you can and keep a log. Call Virgin media and report your issue, demand a reduction on your bill untill you have had enough, then leave.

 

After getting a letter saying the bill is going up £3.25 (it think), I have demanded a deadlock letter (I have had a complaint open a while) and I will be reporting the issue to CECAS (ombudsman).

 

As much as I have liked Virgin media, after 13 years I am calling it a day. They continue to oversubscribe in S6 and Sheffield in genaral, also falsly advertising to offer the fastest speed guarenteed.

 

Worst point about it, is that most of you will have been paying your bill with out even knowing you have not been recieving the speeds you pay for.

[gnomi]

We have had the same issue for 4 years. They used to give us 'fix' dates, but when they came and went, the date would move on again.

My son is an online gamer and an IT technician so monitors the speed. We have just had another new router with promises of 200mb speed!! ? We rarely reach 10.

Do you have any recommendations for different suppliers?

 

---------- Post added 05-09-2016 at 19:10 ----------

 

Also, can you let me know who I should complain to please? We are sick to death of being fobbed off..

Edited September 5, 2016 by gnomi

[Colt]

We have had the same issue for 4 years. They used to give us 'fix' dates, but when they came and went, the date would move on again.

My son is an online gamer and an IT technician so monitors the speed. We have just had another new router with promises of 200mg speed. We rarely reach 10.

Do you have any recommendations for different suppliers?

 

---------- Post added 05-09-2016 at 19:10 ----------

 

Also, can you let me know who I should complain to please? We are sick to death of being fobbed off..

 

Hi. I am looking in to changing suppliers right now. I am thinking of going with sky for 12 month at the moment (that way I get a dish fitted for free sat, as the TV antenna is rubbish. Also they are giving away a free 32" LG TV for new customers, which would be good as the PC monitor is packing in and I can have the playstation on that too. ), then may be Plusnet.

 

I do not think there is going to be any ISP better then the other, bacause all the rest rent the line from BT and way. So if Virgin media were on top form, they are the king of broadband speed.

 

I have had verbal fixed dates for over a year, and as you say, they have come and gone with no fix in sight. Recently I have had a written fix date (off the top of my head it were 17th August), but as you can guess, its still not fixed.

 

The best way to start the complaint is to create a complaint, ubt do not let them try and talk you down from it. A few weeks later they called my wife (who is clueless), to try and get her to close the complait (because they can not have them open too long befor it has to go to the ombudsman). As time wet by, they wrote to me telling me they were closing it, so i called them and gave them a mouth full. It came out that because they did not have a actual fix date for the issue, they had to close and either carry on giving money off the bill, or I leave the company. So I demanded a dead lock letter (which you need to go to CECAS the ombudsman), i think the supervisor were a little shocked that i knew about it, but had no choice to issue one.

 

---------- Post added 05-09-2016 at 19:22 ----------

 

I did say that in time I will get the message out that they are falsly advertising and ripping people off and I will take the issue to social media and local forums and new paper to make every one aware of the issue.

Edited September 5, 2016 by Colt

[gnomi]

Hi. I am looking in to changing suppliers right now. I am thinking of going with sky for 12 month at the moment (that way I get a dish fitted for free sat, as the TV antenna is rubbish. Also they are giving away a free 32" LG TV for new customers, which would be good as the PC monitor is packing in and I can have the playstation on that too. ), then may be Plusnet.

 

I do not think there is going to be any ISP better then the other, bacause all the rest rent the line from BT and way. So if Virgin media were on top form, they are the king of broadband speed.

 

I have had verbal fixed dates for over a year, and as you say, they have come and gone with no fix in sight. Recently I have had a written fix date (off the top of my head it were 17th August), but as you can guess, its still not fixed.

 

The best way to start the complaint is to create a complaint, ubt do not let them try and talk you down from it. A few weeks later they called my wife (who is clueless), to try and get her to close the complait (because they can not have them open too long befor it has to go to the ombudsman). As time wet by, they wrote to me telling me they were closing it, so i called them and gave them a mouth full. It came out that because they did not have a actual fix date for the issue, they had to close and either carry on giving money off the bill, or I leave the company. So I demanded a dead lock letter (which you need to go to CECAS the ombudsman), i think the supervisor were a little shocked that i knew about it, but had no choice to issue one.

 

---------- Post added 05-09-2016 at 19:22 ----------

 

I did say that in time I will get the message out that they are falsly advertising and ripping people off and I will take the issue to social media and local forums and new paper to make every one aware of the issue.

 

I will definately make a formal complaint. We have been fobbed off for years. Whenever I call, the knock some money off the bill but that's not good enough! Thanks for posting this, I will also share on Facebook etc. Cheers for the advice.

[RyoHazuki]

Thanks for all your useful and informative posts here. It looks like we're going to have to do something too. Really poor service in the S5 area. Terrible download speeds both on wireless and directly wired for some months now. Lucky if I was hitting 500Kb/s updating my Android box today. In fact it struggles along at under the old dial up speed for the most part.

 

It's been like this for a while, and we've phoned up for engineers and jumped through the hoops on the phone but it makes no difference. I even tried removing the Superhub and reinstating the original modem and my TP Link router (which was new) and this hasn't affected things.

 

You wouldn't mind if it wasn't for the letters you get. "We've given you a speed boost!", which may be effective for a day or two before it's back to the old crap speeds. I've seen us hit 6Mb/s only the once. And then after that "You're bill is going up"!

 

Suffered it for too long, going to start keeping Speedtest logs as stated here. Got to do something.

[Crosser]

In general VM download speeds have been OK for me, for years.

 

However they have just "upgraded me" from 30MBPS to 70MBPS .... just now I got 31MBPS from the optimal server on Speedtest.net and less from a random one in Chicago.

 

They are lying AGAIN!