Virgin Bl**dy Broadband - Capped!

[macstinator]

So, i chose Virgin because it is quick, cheap and has no contract and, I thought, no limits.

So, i find out now that after 1600, my connection grinds to a halt. Running a speedtest shows that my connection is little more than that of a 56k dial up modem. Certainly not that of the 8 meg connection I am paying for. The pain is that i work via VPN from home and my network connection is painfully slow to the point of being useless.

It does not let up until after midnight. Which is ridiculous as this is when the US hits the web and unilaterally the web is slow.

I have tried to phone them but when I reach Bangalore or Delhi or wherever, i end up getting nowhere. Furthermore, they deny throttling any of their services.

Also looks like Virgin will be jumping on the Phorm bandwagon as well as selling out those who use file sharing, which, in reality, we have all done once im sure.

Looks like i will be tearing up my non-contract.

[TeeJF]

We were with Virgin for years on dial up and never had a problem so foolishly we opted for their broadband. This company are a bunch of inept, lying scrotes - their system is shite, it doesn't work properly, it drops out constantly and they never give you much in terms of speed compared to their quoted rates at all

And to cap it all, after 6 months of fighting with them we reported them to the watchdog Ofcom and they were instructed to pay us all our money back AND compensate us as well... but what have they done? Sent a debt recovery company round to chase us for money they've been instructed to refund us by Ofcom!!!

So now you know how Richard bl**dy Branson pays for his f*cking balloons... bl**dy con artist!

AVOID VIRGIN like the plague or they WILL rip you off.

[big_si]

Is that ADSL or Cable?

If it's ADSL could it be that as the connection speed will be dictated by everyone in your area connecting down the same line. When everyone gets home from work / school at 1600 that 8MB is then shared between a gazillion people?

(I've not noticed such slow downs on Cable... Dunno if it happens or not?)

[big_si]

I had a crap time with Virgin Media's customer service and got the debt collection letter too.

After a massive swear word packed rant on here I emailed their CEO and everything has been sorted within a week.

[macstinator]

ADSL. I realise that the web has variable speeds but they do cap. a quick google certainly points to it. even a slow google does.

[big_si]

Originally Posted by macstinator

ADSL. I realise that the web has variable speeds but they do cap. a quick google certainly points to it. even a slow google does.

That's pretty crappy if they do and say they don't

[Hellenic Diver]

havnt used virgin - but am an ex customer of ntl - absolute pants

[purple vonny]

I've been with Virgin for 3 years and never had a problem. Am I a minority of one?

[Ian@1904]

Been on cable for many years with ntl/virgin, we have TV, broadband, phone and three mobiles. All work fine.
When our TV box went a bit dodgy we had new one inside a couple of days.

[hogen-deifar]

Originally Posted by big_si

I had a crap time with Virgin Media's customer service and got the debt collection letter too.

After a massive swear word packed rant on here I emailed their CEO and everything has been sorted within a week.

MMMMM? And how did you figure out how to do that then Si???

I think they are aware they've got problems and when I emailed the CEO they said they'd address it. At the moment it's a free for all. You phone once, they allegedly log the call, it should get resolved. It doesn't. You phone again, you get a different person, in a different country who suddenly has had a name change to "Sharon" or "John" and they can't see the log from the previous call and because they work with calling cards they can't deal with anything out of the norm.

What CEOs from these major organisations need to do is change their customer service policy. If you are in a customer service team you should take ownership of each call and ensure it's sorted. You'd probably end up with less calls because there shouldn't be any duplication.

As long as you have no problems with the product Virgin supply, it seems that their customers are fairly happy, particularly ex NTL customers. However, the minute something goes wrong you're screwed. My problem was billing and in the end I was released from contract and saved myself about £100 in total over the 9 months I was with them. But that only happened after I emailed the CEO, after figuring out his personal email address, no one at Virgin was prepared to give it to me. Shocker, eh????

The billing problems Virgin are experiencing are a lot to do with various companies merging. Virgin, NTL, Telewest etc. They didn't change systems over, but sold it as one product; Virgin. They claim they have now gone on to one billing system and it should iron out the wrinkles.

Writing is fine IF you've got the right address. But there's a number of addresses for Customer Services and unfortunately, even if you send them a letter Special Delivery they may well file it and don't action on it. Emailing the CEO seems to be the way to go. It's a shame it had to get to this stage for so many of us. I personally liked the products I had, TV - phone - Broadband, but my billing was fubar'd. Emailing the CEO worked for me, and Si, so all I can say is if anyone else suffers the same fate with Virgin or ANY large corporation, you do the same.

It's easy to find out who the CEO is of any big firm by Googling. If they're big like Virgin there'll be loads of newspaper articles and stuff. If you know the email of one person on staff there, it's not rocket science to figure how to turn the CEO's name into an email address!

Don't give up fighting these people IF you suffer with their service. You will win, IF you've done everything right.

If you've never had problems with Virgin or other BIG corporations, all I can say is "LUCKY YOU"!!!!!