Virgin Media Broadband overcharging

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 17/09/08 at 05:09:45 pm

Not a very selfsufficientish day today, I did get some elderberries, some yarrow, some plantain and some hawthorn in order to make stuff will post at a later date about that.

Just a bit of a waste of 3 hours I have had trying to sort out my Broadband bill.  You know you often glance at a DD and just think ok that must be right, it is not until you really can’t put your hands on any cash that you start to look at your transactions. I did just that recently, well over a month ago and found that Virgin Media really were taking me for a ride. – reminds me of a quick joke,

Just got stung by a bee.

Really are you OK

Not really £20 for a jar of honey.

Anyway, I was in a writing mood today shame that it ended up being spend on something so trite and down right unnecessary as trying to get money back off a massive company with millions. I wonder if I am alone in getting really bad service from Virgin Media? Well below is the email I have just written them, it is my third.

I have a few problems with my Virgin Media service and am not at all happy. I am happy with the connection but very unhappy with the level of customer service and billing and am still unsure as to what I am actually paying for. I have not had the same reply from your customer service operatives more than once so as to add to the confusion.

I am self employed and so to me time literally means money, I have had to waste a number of hours talking and emailing Virgin trying to rectify my billing. In the end I was told to speak to my bank who are in the process of sorting out my account, it seemed that Virgin media are incapable of doing so. Indeed when I first set my account up Virgin Media even tried to disconnect my telephone without permission and make me sign up with them. In fact I have never signed anything with Virgin media and certainly did not ask to sign up for the phone line.

On one of my recent calls I was assured by telephone that I would only be paying £10 a month instead of £35.99 as I have been paying. One payment of £18 that is apparently correct and one of £17.99 that is not.

I was also told that I would be refunded the extra £25.99 a month that I have been paying extra and this would be sorted out forthwith. Rather than being paid this amount I was offered a telephone package as an add on and asked to pay £20 a month and not £10 as previously agreed. I was also told that the person I had spoken to before hand was a liar and told that “I could stop emailing now”! This Sales caller in customer service clothing told me that the case would now be closed and I would have to pay £18 a month. He then gave me the number of you collections department who to be fair did look into the problem and were very polite, but did say that I should contact my bank and not you.

I await with baited breath to see what Virgin Media will do next, will I ever get a refund, will I ever pay £10 a month? Will another DD appear on my account? In the meantime I am paying interest on a debt created by Virgin Medias ineptitude and I have also lost out on the possibility of a lot of money due to having to sort out this problem instead of looking for freelance work.

I have decided to blog this so as to have a permanent record of it and also to see if anyone else has had the same problem. I have also contacted various consumer rights radio and television shows.

2 Comments

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1. I’ve also had an awful time with Virgin Media and would never recommend them to anyone. There were several times that technicians did not arrive when they should’ve done. We had to wait in all morning. Our phone line was connected so we could receive calls but not make them! And we spent hours and hours and hours on the phone to them, the employees didn’t know what they were talking about and sent us back and forth between different departments (with plenty of hold music inbetween!). Grrrr!

   Good luck getting it sorted!

   Comment by Fizzy Izzy — September 18, 2008 #

2. Well the bank sorted it out in the end and I have been refunded some of the money. I am debating some sort of court action against them to get the rest of what I think I am owed back again. I wonder if there are some people starting a class action. That would be good.

   Comment by andyhamilton — September 19, 2008 #

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