WHY ME?

[Border_Collie]

This tale is really for Virgin Media Customers but could be helpful for others to pass on to people they know who have it. So you don't have to read a load of twaddle you can look down for 'bold' paragraph.

Having a BT phone my first venture with broadband was with them and my TV through normal aerial. The reception is really poor so I decided to try Telewest, as it was then. Things were OK until I started having trouble with BB being down more than it was up, many telephone calls never resolved the problem I decided to try Sky, more goodies for less £££'s but it meant going back to BT for phone and BB.

This all worked for a while but then Virgin took over Telewest and they had a good deal with fast BB and loads of channels, so I opted for that.

Time passes and I heard about Freeview, the old DVD Rec/Player was on its last legs so I bought a new one with built in Freview. But, and there's always a but, I found my area is in a blackspot. I went to the site, typed in Post Code and House number and was greeted with 'You will be unable to receive Freeview now or after the change'.

Over a period of about 4 months I found when switching to a channel it said something like 'You have 30 days before you stop receiving this channel without increasing the subscription'. This happened with 4 channels. So I was paying £48 per month in total for less and less. I heard about Freesat and looked into it and found I could purchase a box, plug my Sky dish into it and get loads of free channels.

Our TV was getting abit old in the tooth, had it a number of years, and noticed Panasonic advertising built in Freesat, that sounded OK to me so started looking. I ended up on the Tesco Direct site and found a nice Panasonic TV. I carried on looking and came across a LG with freeview and freesat built in, for £100 less, so ordered that.

It arrived and I set it up but couldn't find a freesat connection. I contacted Tesco and they informed me their site was wrong, no built in freesat. I could however purchase a freesat box from them for £97.

I'll cut the story short here other than to say I sent the LG back, paid the extra £100 and had the Panasonic delivered. Plugged it in, switched on and it found all terrestial, freesat AND some freeview channels.

I went on line to BT and ordered their phone and BB.

I telephoned Virgin to cancel my subscription and thought it would be straightforward but they don't like losing customers.

I explained I now had Freesat and he said he could arrange for me to keep phone and BB with Virgin for £27 per month, about £4 per month less than BT. I explained I would be able to receive upto 13Mb download with BT compared to 10Mb from them, he said he could upgrade me to 20Mb. I asked if that included free phone calls 'anytime' and he said he could include that also. I insisted I wanted to cancel Virgin and he said he could include 110 channels TV.

I asked him to confirm what he'd said I'd get for £27 per month..... He said '110 TV/Radio Channels, 20Mb unlimited download BB, free calls anytime including to Virgin Mobiles'.

I would recommend anyone with Virgin should telephone and say they want to cancel and see how much more they are offered. If you say more or less what I said you should get a lot more for your money or the same for less. Nothing to lose just dial 150 on your phone.

I then asked 'If you can do all that for £27 per month, why have Virgin let me pay £48 per month for a lot less for goodness knows how long'? He said they hadn't the manpower to advise everyone. 'In that case' I said 'you'll have one less to deal with because I still want to cancel'.
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Formerly known as Lost_Property
And NO that's NOT me in the Avatar.

[MaFt]

yup - good old retentions department. they always buckle and give you what you want!

i have some bizarre deals with them at the moment and am happy with the service for phone and internet (although i'm tempted to try get 20mb upgrade)

i'm lucky in that i have a very good freeview signal so i got rid of cable tv a long time ago - there's enough channels for what me and the family want (to be honest we watch more dvd's than tv).

but, like you say, if you're not happy with the service (i.e. paying nearly double what you could have) then no point sticking with them

[DennisN]

I do know that whenever I want to speak to them, I always press the "I'm thinking of leaving" button, in some vain hope they might switch the bluddy music off and answer quicker!

So I decided to get HD - having seen ads for freeview HD I said I want freeview HD, for free. They said it's free, you just have to pay £50 for a HD box. So I paid. They said they'd send a box for me to replace myself, bearing in mind I'm no MikeAlder I said wotcher mean, replace myself? They said simply take the plugs out of the old box and shove them in the new box.

So it came and the instructions said Don't use the old cables, use these new ones. So then I discovered there are more holes with cables attached in the old box than in the new box, so I rang them up. He told me to use the HDMI cable.

So it gave me a signal on the telly - just the Virgin logo and nothing happening when I pressed the buttons on the shining thing. So I rang them up and they said they'd send a signal and I should wait 20 minutes and it'd be fine. It wasn't. So I rang again and they sent more signals and after 20 minutes it wasn't fine. So I rang again and got more signals, but she agreed this time she'd ring me after 20 minutes to see if it was fine. After one and a half hours, I rang and said she hadn't rung me back and it wasn't fine. So another she said she'd have to put me through to the correct department, so I went back to music and being a valued caller and somebody will be along soon. Then it went to somebody, who turned out to be a recording saying they're closed until 9am tomorrow (Saturday). So I rang again on Saturday and they said they'd have to get a man to come round and the first appointment available would be Tuesday afternoon between 1 and 6pm and if I wasn't there when he came, there'd be a bill for £20 for a missed visit. I tried saying I'm self employed and if I have to stay in I lose a day's work, but that was of no consequence to them. In the meantime, get your telly working again by reconnecting the old box. Have a nice day. The old box would no longer work because the signals they'd sent had jiggered it up. So no telly until Tuesday.

So I told everybody I wasn't working Tuesday, waiting in for a man in the afternoon, 1 to 6pm. Two men arrived at 11am and said they'd been given me for 8am to 1pm. Fixed it and said they didn't understand why we were sent things for DIY replacement, because it's often a problem. Oh, and why did you get HD, because I'm in the business and it's no better than steam telly. I said the shining thing has very small buttons for our aged rheumy fingers, could we have one with fat buttons. No, that's the only one we do.

The remote shining thing doesn't control the volume. There's a bit in the book about what to do to get it to do it, and I did it all and it didn't. As an alternative, you can do other stuff, so I did and it still didn't. After that, it says if the remote still won't control your volume, you'll have to use your telly remote control, because your telly isn't compatible with our remote shining thing. My £700 posh telly isn't compatible with their crappy 25p remote control?!!!

I have decided I shall ring them up again and be cruel to them and this time I shall want a shining thing which both controls my volume AND has buttons we can both actually see at arms length. Maybe I'll ask why the hell they still haven't offered to upgrade me from 20 to 50mb broadband.

I can't vote in your poll because there isn't a don't know.

Guess what, polling day tomorrow, I've lived in this town for just about 40 years and yesterday evening for the very first time, my MP came and knocked on our door (well, his minion knocked and he ran up when I answered it) and shook my hand. There's a first time for everything (but my numbers didn't come up on the lottery again tonight).
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Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

[dhn]

How far is Mike A. from you and does he make house calls?

p.s. I feel your pain. The satellite company I use here is just as crappy ..
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David

[DennisN]

I once met some Canadian girls. Their light switches are upside down. They said their next door neighbour was only about 80 miles down the road, so I supposed MikeA is next door but one. He has been known to make house calls, but last time he did screwdrivering for me it was in a bar where he took a 910 apart and fitted a new battery (in about 10 minutes - it'd take me that long to find a screwdriver). And it all went back together again, with no bits left over (I watched like a hawk).
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Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

[dhn]

So that was YOU he talks about in the bar!!
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David

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