Virgin Media Fibre - Rubbish Service in SW11 Post Reply

[sw11man]

Hi there

Has anyone else been receiving absolutely rubbish and intermittent service from Virgin Media (we have a fibre optic connection) over the last few weeks? My old BT copperwire broadband connection, whilst much slower, was far more reliable! I should add, as my username suggests, that I am in the SW11 area, BTC.

I know this is a "classic" complaint, but the connection has been dropping almost daily due to faults in the area, and considering how expensive it is now that the 12-month teaser rate has finished on our package, I'm annoyed at how intermittent the service has been recently.

I just wanted to see if anyone else has been suffering with this ultimate "1st-world problem" and whether anyone has managed to negotiate money off their package (any tips please!) or indeed has switched providers (any recommendations please!)?

Cheers

[norfolkgirl]

Yes!
I call them almost daily. We got a new router last Tuesday. They were also fixing the dodgy tv signal that day (multiple lines across the screen). But on Friday I spent 2 hours on the phone talking to customer services and a manager in the technical team - he tried various things but ultimately couldn't increase our speed to more than 2.5mb. We pay for 20...

It reduced me to tears which I know is ridiculous but it's been awful for at least 6 months - I know because I've been on mat leave this whole time and sitting In a silent house because the tv, wifi and radio (via Sonos) won't work is quite depressing.

I'm trying to work out how local the issue is. There's an area fault tonight which they said would be fixed by about 2am btw. If you call them they'll text you when it's fixed. A customer service manager is supposed to be calling us back as we've made so many complaints and the technical guy could see how often there have been issues. In Feb a technician who came out checked the usage and it was over 90% more than 13% of the time so they were doing something to increase capacity which I have been told was completed in march... but it hasn't solved the general problems. Will let you know how we get on with any kind of refund.

We're on the Wandsworth common side of Bennerley rd. but friends up the Clapham Common end of Bennerley don't seem to have issues at the same time as us or anywhere near as intermittent service.

Would be great to get a picture of where the issues are. Although in sure they can see for themselves if they bothered.

[sw11man]

@norfolkgirl I'm so sorry to hear about the troubles you've been having! How annoying, especially when as you say, so many of our devices now rely upon having a stable reliable internet connection in order to work. I found myself retuning an old FM radio to break the silence on Monday.

We're on the Wandsworth common side of Kelmscott, interesting that users on the other side of the valley are not experiencing the same issues.

Well to update you on my position, I managed to secure a hefty £6 off the bill on Monday.. watch out Martin Lewis! I also lodged a formal complaint, but I have serious doubts as to how effective that will be..

As a side note, in researching how to make an effective complaint, I stumbled upon this gem in the Daily Mail, which you may find amusing (if of course your internet connection allows you to access it!):

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... tters.html

[lydia249]

We are near the top (the common end) of Nightingale Lane and ours has also been rubbish! Last time we called they said they were doing some "improvements" which would be done by the end of the week but I'm pretty sure that was a week and a half ago and its still awful.

We pay for 40mb I think and also have fibre optic lines but we're lucky if we get 2mb!

Will be phoning today to complain again. Definitely thinking of changing as this has been going on for about 6 months now - it was great when it was first put in about 3 or 4 years ago.

[szerma]

In the same boat as other posters. Awful service over the last several months and it always seems to be another "area outage", many of which have lasted days at a time.

What can we do to put pressure on Virgin? I am not on Twitter but I hear this is an effective way of putting pressure on a company.

[Tri_Fit]

I have actually probably called them 10 times in the past 12 months. Virgin have left me absolutely frothing at the mouth in frustration.

It seems to me that this is a management decision -
Fix ongoing issues vs bear the cost of:

Increased call centre costs (because people are calling all the time)
Attrition and "save" costs
Paying technicians for home visits (they really hate this)
Paying people off for "lost days" of service (£2 / day or so)
Replacing the odd router here or there.
Bad PR

Clearly, it's cheaper to bear all these costs rather than to address the problem.

The only thing that would change this is if Virgin's "pain" outweighed actually fixing the issues.

The only thing(s) that I could actually see that would fix this would be a class action lawsuit of some sort or such bad PR (a la United) that they had to do something about it.

I suspect neither is likely.

The only other thing to do is to call them, ask for technician. Ask for a refund for the days your internet has not worked. Threaten to leave (and get £££ save cash, etc.) The problem with this is, who wants to call Virgin all the time? No one. Which is exactly what Virgin is banking on.

[Fisherprice]

I got so fed up with Virgin that I did in fact cancel. We were paying £30 per month for just broadband and the service was terrible.

I called up to tell them I was probably going to leave and they didn't offer me anything special to stay. I spoke to Sky and they gave me unlimited broadband and the full tv package (including sports and cinema and all the box sets etc) for £50 per month. I couldn't believe it!

So we have switched and the service is pretty good. Definitely a big improvement on our Virgin service.

Of course right after I cancelled and was set up with Sky I had a Virgin rep call me offering me all sorts of deals to stay. When I told him it was too late he even had the audacity to say that I should have made clearer I was going to cancel because only his area would be able to offer these better deals and was actually really pushy and hostile that I wasn't going to relent.

I'm so glad we cancelled. I wouldn't keep the full Sky package when it goes up (current package is 12 month contract), but otherwise its so nice not to have to constantly deal with the dropping connection and high fees Virgin charged.