I Hate Virgin Media

I have recently signed up with Virgin Media broadband. I have previously been a customer of theirs and vowed NEVER AGAIN! However as I live in the city there really isn’t much choice – so begrudgingly I signed up. What a mistake. My blood boils (and my money evaporates) ever time I have to contact them… which is a lot. There are lots of reasons to hate Virgin Media, but here are my top 5:
  1. Installation – I paid £30 for installation, which consisted of a ‘technician’ turning up to my house and plugging a modem in. I tried to get a web page up which didn’t work and when I turned around he wasn’t there any more. I caught him in his van and got him back, but I soon realised that he had no idea what he was doing. He also refused to call technical support because ‘it would end up costing HIM money’.
  2. Pricing – It’s not cheap, add on to that that they have a hidden £1 charge because they send you paper bills. Signing up for ‘e-billing’ is the solution – but they don’t tell you about this and be dammed if I know how to get on it from day one, so I ended up paying £1 for the first month.
  3. ‘Contact Us’ – Not only do you have to contact them all the time to sort out your service, but the only number is a premium rate one! To get signed up on e-billing I paid £5 in phone bills sorting this out, because after all no-one knows what they’re doing. Even the numbers listed on www.saynoto0870.com are all blocked.
  4. Overcharging – the one thing companies should be able to do right is bill their customers the correct amount. Not Virgin Media! They charged me my first bill (£51) twice! I gave up contacting them and went straight to the bank and got them to reverse the charge.
  5. The service – their service really is appalling. Ask anyone who is with them and they will tell you they are not getting the speeds they are paying for. And don’t get me started on the fact that their ‘Unlimited’ packages that actually are limited.
Add to this a confusing web site which never actually does anything (you need to phone about 10 different people to sort it out) and you’ve got yourself a near heart attack. My advice – Virgin Media, really really really really don’t bother.

11 thoughts on "I Hate Virgin Media"

  1. Kurkosdr says:

    My roommate already has Virgin Media and the apartment split-bills, so I am stuck with them. What a horrible company. The internet occasionally runs at sub-dial-up speeds for several hours, the router is garbage and stops sending/receiving data, and this happens on all ky wifi devices which never had a problem with BT’s router I had in a previous apartment, and you need the account holder’s last name to disable the parental control/censorship filter, a filter they enable at the time of registration without bothering to ask the account holder if they even want it. Oh gawd, it is like the post office. Stuck with bad service and no way to get out of it.

  2. mick potts says:

    I will never ever use virginmedia again.rude,lying dishonest crooks who change info at their end to maximise their profit,even though they deceive the customer.Still waiting for written apology and scratching of final part monthly bill as a “gesture” of apology ,even sent me 2 months bill for broadband PLUS £10 late fee even after my notice period ended!.Never EVER give them your bank details on phone and if you must use them then insist on contract being sent first.had everthing done to me,including putting me on new 12 month contract even though it was merely a house move.I also had trouble with the router,it would disconnect service every 20 seconds and just found out from customer service that I had old router using newer update download speeds which didn’t work and which they had no intention of telling me any of these things mentioned(see first sentence!!)

  3. Jayne says:

    Well, I was a customer with Virgin Media several years ago and I can only say that (remembering to be polite) that they were absolutely appalling, we’re without service for three months and after numerous calls to VM, it remained unresolved, no network, connection was hit and miss for TV ! I called and spoke to at least 4 advisors who were rude and very unhelpful, saying that Richard Branson no longer owned Virgin ????

    i was told after asking for the complaints procedure that I could find it on the web page, not an easy process, I feel sure that it makes it as difficult as possible to complain, a Joke, I called again and was told that I could not access the previous voice recorded messages, it ended badly, I was not compensated for the lack of service and had to pay more to get out of the contract.

    Virgin still post out the usual Publicity Garbage and really enjoy tearing it up and putting in the recycle bins, never again #richardbranson

  4. Ghost says:

    Well I had a chat with the very friendly (and thankfully knowledgeable) tech who came to upgrade my broadband and he told me that they have just switched to a computer controlled routing sytem for their installations (morning and evening) However it would appear that there are a few “bugs” in the system. The techs should get around 12 installations a day, however the system is allocating up to 20. This is not the techs fault as they can only do so much in a day but this does mean that anyone who is at the end of the list isn’t going to get the job done. I would suggest making sure your appoinment is booked for the morning otherwise it’s probably luck until/if they sort it out.

  5. JAGS says:

    Mark / Gazza – The same happened to me. To save money I decided to move from Sky/AOL. I was due for TV/BB installation on 19 January between 1 – 6. Waitied until 5:30 and phoned them to find out where they were. Got told appoitment had been “rescheduled” to 16 February. This was the first I knew of it – I lost a days pay and wasted all afternoon aticipating their arrival. 13 Feb they call me to confirm they are coming on 16th, the on the 15th they leave a message to say cancelled due to sickness, re-scheduled to 26 Feb. I’ve now got a Freesatbox and have no intention of ever paying for TV again. I will be canceling the entire package and going with PlusNet for £17.45 including line rental.

  6. Gazza says:

    Mark, Just reading your message fills me with fear! The exact same thing happened to me today. I received two calls from Virgin Media this afternoon to confirm the installation and asking if I had any questions. So felt quite confident all was OK. Then at 3.30pm, get a phone call from some guy saying the installation for tomorrow has been cancelled due to a system problem that has over-booked installations in my area. He was no use and not worth the next few minutes I spent venting my opinions. Spent the rest of the afternoon voicing them to a number of VM sections but the same rubbish. And to make matters worse, the installation date I’ve been given is mid-March! So them overbooking installations put’s us at the back of the queue again??? Some service.

    Their installation service seems to be a real shambles. If this is how they treat people before we’ve paid anything to them, I cannot think how things will go once it eventually gets installed.

  7. Mark Roberts says:

    Virgin just cancelled the installation the evening before it was due for the 3rd time! that is 3 days off work for nothing and I am no scheduled for 9 March. i going bto go back to BT but I am also going to eventually get Virgin to install and then cancel within 28 days so that i make it as painful as possible. have also managed to get the Chief Execs email so he will be getting a few messages from me. I really, really hate them