Notorious Homo

To Whichever Dearest, Ineffectual and Highly Incompetent Virgin Media Puppet This May Concern:

After dealing with your customer service representative on the phone for 20 minutes in an experience which I imagine to be comparable to a root canal, I finally gave up and begrudgingly used the online contact form.

I’m not sure who’s in charge of your customer service procedures, but as there are people who specialise in customer services, it might be an idea to hire at least one.

Your online contact form is dismissive and un-personal.  When I have a complaint - and I don’t have thirty minutes to spend at work phoning you about it in front of all my colleagues - it would be nice to email someone and get a response; not hear from your customer service representative that someone will get back to me within five days.  I guess, though, it’s testament to the myriad complaints that must come flowing into your inboxes; a volume of angry customers with faulty services and below par customer service experiences that at its weakest could give Occupy London a run for its money.

Some eager, incentive driven sales person called me over a month ago to sell me and my flatmate and higher monthly subscription, a new Tivo box, faster broadband and the promise of better services.  So as we’re both obviously suffering from some sort of dementia, lured by the promise that Virgin might deliver faultless service, we agreed.

Before the phone call was over, Hurdle One: the next available installation date on a Saturday is three weeks away.  Now, I’m not sure how many people have the flexibility in their jobs to stay at home and wait for an installation, but me and my flatmate definitely aren’t two of them; I’d even risk a guess that the majority of your customers also are not.  Logic would dictate you might have more engineers working on the weekend to accommodate those demented customers who have agreed to pay more for your services (while actually receiving less).

So I agreed to wait.  What the hell; you guys cancelled my services for four weeks over Christmas so what’s another three weeks for an upgrade?

Your very affable technician showed up at the very reasonable time of 1030am on Saturday May 12.  He was charming, unassuming and very helpful.  He “installed” the box, and left me with a TV screen that read “Please wait - we are preparing your box for installation.”  Now I know that message by heart, because despite your technician saying it would be “up and running on its own in an hour” and “I don’t need to be here for this”, when I returned from my Saturday business six hours later, it still wasn’t working.  As I have a life and don’t have time to chase up my services on a Saturday, I thought I would restart the box and leave it while I went out to dinner.  When I came back, nothing.  Hurdle Two.

So on Sunday morning I called to let you know that my Tivo box hadn’t magically installed of its own volition.

“I’m sorry - if you had called yesterday, we could have sent someone back out to you.”

 

OH REALLY?!

  Apologies that I didn’t go out of my way to let you know that you did something wrong on the day that you did it wrong.  I believe the response she meant was:

“Apologies our incompetence has left you without TV services again, Mr Rivers; let me see what I can do to get this fixed as soon as possible.”

Let’s call that Hurdle Three.

Anyways, I rearranged another installation for Tuesday in the hopes that I could get time off work.  I couldn’t.  I rearranged to Saturday.  Another great technician came along and installed another box.  It’s still not done properly.  He says there’s an “IT problem” and that Virgin need to fix this remotely and that he “doesn’t need to be here for this.”  I call Virgin.  No issue logged.  I still don’t have services.  I’m missing Silent Witness for the second week running.  Suffice it to say, I’m not happy.  Hurdle Four.

So I have a third installation booked for this coming Saturday and you have promised that it will get sorted.  Well, we know how reliable your promises are so I’m not holding my breath; and as the likelihood that my services won’t be up and running is guaranteed to be pretty bloody high, I’ve downloaded BBC iPlayer so I can catch up on Silent Witness.

Finally, please find below the email you have sent to my flatmate with the heading “Tell us how we’re doing.”

NOT VERY WELL.

 

I look forward to your response.

Josh Rivers

I hope you’re well.  

I’m writing to let you know about the appalling, incompetent service and £20 worth of call charges I incurred while trying to sort my broadband with the Virgin Media “Customer Services” team.

Considering how much money it seems is poured into attracting new business, it seems ridiculous to me that the company can’t spend some money on basic training in order to keep & manage the customers they have.  I have attached pictures of my numerous phone calls so you can see the extent to which I pursued a solution with “Customer Services”.

My broadband, phone and TV service were all cut-off without my knowledge in December.  This was after someone from Virgin called to ask if I was moving house, to which I replied “No”.  So when I got back from doing whatever it was I was doing over Christmas, I called Virgin to get this sorted and my services restarted.

I chased “Customer Services” for ONE WEEK while I was passed on to someone else who passed me on to someone else who passed me back to someone else who passed me on to someone else - hot potato?! - who passed me on to a phone line that didn’t work.  Efficient!  Someone offered to call me back twice, and as you can see from the attached (highlighted in pink), I called EIGHTEEN TIMES between January 2nd and January 7th.  I haven’t called my mother 18 times this year and I actually care about her.

The first day I called, the gentleman apologized for the mix-up with turning my service off and said he would start it back up and to give it 24 hours.  I called back 28 hours later when I found it still wasn’t working, only to be told that it was never started up in the first place and that I would have to wait a further 24 hours for it to be done properly (again, super efficient!).  When I asked why it couldn’t be done any sooner, they explained that unfortunately there was nothing they could do.  My question was: “You’ve incorrectly turned off a customer’s service and failed to start it back up again, and the best you can tell me is that you can’t do anything about it?”  I think that question still stands.

I called back again when my services weren’t working and was told that everything was up and running - while I was looking at a black box with the “sync” sign on (which I’ve deduced means the exact opposite - it isn’t actually bloody synced).  This is when the palaver that was restarting my services really started.

Apparently the “service was down” in my area.  I repeatedly told the gentleman - who I can only presume was not based in England - to please stop telling me the service was down when I was using my neighbor’s broadband.  One of the days, I managed to get through to an English speaking person who only told me I need to register something with Customer Services so my services would start up (this is probably a good example of where training might come in handy).  Again, I called numerous times, only to be told that the service must be down in my area and that nothing was wrong with my equipment (Virgin Media on the other hand… ).

On the final day - and perhaps the final straw - I demanded to speak to the “Customer Services” manager and if I didn’t speak to him, I was going to cancel my service with immediate effect.  They put me on hold.  Picked up the phone.  Put me on hold again.  Picked up the phone and said sorry for the wait, then put me on hold again.  Finally, a gentleman came on the phone and asked me to READ OUT THE NUMBERS ON MY SMARTCARD.

I truly hope you can see the absolute ridiculousness of this situation.  I spent £20 of my hard-earned money trying to read someone the numbers on my smartcard, and above that, it took A WEEK?!?

It is infuriating to be spoken to like an idiot, and more infuriatingly - I paid for it!!  

If I wanted someone to piss on my face, I would go to a specialist nightclub.

Looking forward to your response.

Josh

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