Virgin Media - Appalling Service

Hi all,
Just wanted to share our absolutely appalling experience with Virgin Media broadband over the last year:

x-posted from the Virgin Media Community forum:

Previous shenanigans described at:
http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Speed/W6-Area-21-Getting-3mbit-out-of-70/m-p/3360856

Our internet went down on the Saturday again 15th of April - It is now the 19th of April, and we still haven't got service restored. The estimated fix time has been extended 6 hours every 6 hours from Sunday. Currently it's listed at

Overall, we've had appalling service the last 6 months. The internet has either not been working or been extremely slow during peak hours (Read: <1 mbit instead of 70, as measured by multiple speedtests on wired connections).

For this, Virgin has kindly agreed to take £5 of our £42 bill this month. It's a complete joke. When I asked to transfer to the customer relations department to talk to someone regarding our monthly costs, they offered us a rebate of a whopping £2.50 a month if we decided to sign up for another 12 months.

The quite rude guy at the retentions department couldn't understand why I wasn't interested in signing up for another 12 months with Virgin, and promptly hung up on me after I told him I wasn't interested in any sort of deal that extended our contract period.

I guess we'll be voting with our feet on this one, I'm absolutely appalled by the service from the accounts and retention departments. At least the poor guys at technical support were very apologetic and understanding.

Overall, I'd stay as far away from Virgin Media as I can. The service is either not working or extremely slow (Read, less than 1mbit out of 70mbit payed for) during peak hours. Their customer support is in shambles and they can't keep promises.

Best regards,
- Tobias

In your circumstance I'd make a note of the person you spoke to when you instructed cancellation - time, date and if known, the person.

I'd then allow the 30 days or whatever it is and then stop paying for it. I've instructed cancellation. No record of it? That you hung up on me and terminated the call without acting on my instruction is your problem. It *is* cancelled. I provided you with all the necessary information to act upon my instruction.

When I got the first letter/bill/whatever that made it clear the cancellation hadn't been actioned I'd respond in writing with the above and indicate that I would charge my standard hourly fee of £60 to cover the cost of dealing with any future correspondence on the matter.

When it got sent to a debt collection agency I'd drop them a standard letter denying any alleged debt, so by law they then have to throw it back to VM, and I'd send VM an invoice.

If that wasn't paid then I'd claim for my time and costs as above in the small claims court.