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The great virgin escape

Any tips on how to avoid the cancellation charge? I've tried explaining to the chap that their service is sh1te but he didn't seem to want to know about it... strange that.
 
the only way is not to join them in the first place, after all they are only NTL with a different name, i spent a year with them about 3 years ago and there broadband was off more than it was on then, i had to keep using aol dial up for that year, i got away from them early because they tried to increase my £17 per month before my minimum term was up, the public should learn when a company changes its name its because it cant get customers with the old name the company does not change, they are totally useless.

i am with sky now they are great . ive been through bt and there indian call centres stay away unless you want another virgin for 12 months on your hands dont listen to there hype they are liers i had some scotsman telling me they dont have indian call centres any more and when i rung to pay my bill i got india again. STAY AWAY>
 
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Any tips on how to avoid the cancellation charge? I've tried explaining to the chap that their service is sh1te but he didn't seem to want to know about it... strange that.
Here's the text I've been posted on various forums.
I'll point out now, I'm no lawyer!


Firstly, you are going to have to get them to admit to changing traffic management. I suggest you use their 'Remote Assistance' feature. This puts you in touch with a 2nd line support person. Not an untrained monkey on first-line support.

Don't fixate on gaming. Say things like - since (approx) Friday 23rd November, I've had terrible troubles getting any VoIP/video/streaming/gaming to work, more so than usual.

Mention that you've heard it's related to changes with their traffic management - can they confirm this? If they do, you have them.

If they make reference to "gaming is not supported", then point out their own Terms & Conditions. State how support (or not) of gaming is not mentioned.

Quote 'Definition 4':
"Broadband Service" means Virgin Media's service whereby you may gain direct high speed access to the Internet via your BT phone line using ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) technology, at the best available Transmission Speed that we are reasonably able to make available to you from time to time according to the Service you have selected."

If they make reference to only supporting web/email, again, point out that this is news to you. There is no mention of that in their own T&C's. State that if this is a new stance, then it constitutes a significant change to the T&C's, and as such gives you an ability to exit (charge free) under H3(b).

Point out that provision of email is covered under D7 of their T&C's:
"provide you with a webmail service"
But, this is in addition to the 'Broadband Service' - which is defined in A4.
And anyway, it also states:
"provide high standards of Customer Support seven days a week, 365 days a year"

and
"provide sufficient access servers to ensure a high standard of connectivity to the Service"
Both of which are clearly in breach.


Now to go for the jugular...

Quote H3(b):
Cancellations and Refunds
"If... we make significant changes to the Services so the Services you are entitled to receive in return for the charges you pay are significantly altered or reduced
...
you may cancel those Services affected without penalty by giving us at least 30 days’ notice in writing."


So, going back to the admission of change of traffic management.... mention how that's a pretty significant change. And, by their own definition (in their T&C's) that means they are in breach of contract.

If they try to counter by saying that these changes were a mistake, and will be rectified soon, take none of it. Their own T&C's simply state "if they make significant changes" - there is no differentiation between good changes, and c*ck-ups. Only 'significant changes'. Which, by their own admission, they have made. I'd say blocking a provision (gaming/VoIP/streaming) constitutes 'significant'.

NB
Do not be rude.
Do not be aggressive. Take dates/times. Note who you are conversing with. Request 'Receive Chat Transcript' when you are done - and a copy of the support call will be email to you - giving you something to fall back on.

When you can, write to the cancellations dept. State all of the above. Attach a copy of the transcript.

List out in simple terms what you are after - eg. waiving of the £50 'exit fee'. Try going for more, if you can - compensation for loss agreed service.

Be prepared to take them to the Small Claims Court - in which case you can claim for more - loss of earnings (if you missed a days work to attend court), loss of agreed internet provision.
 
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Well, although the Virgin system is totally overloaded they have a rule.; if you speak to Virgin tech and they admit it's their problem you can have a free release

If that sounds unlikely we used patience. We didn't tell them their system is sh1te or whatever and the guy agreed we had done everything at our end we could do. The tech guy put a note on our file that it's all their overloaded system.

Of course he said wait a few days to see how it goes and of course it goes 3Mb/s > 300Kb/s > 700Kb/s etc. We can't take that anymore. Admittedly the disconnections are down a lot but stuff it. we saved a fortune by talking to the right guys at virgin/NTL, no Indians- straight up.
 
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cheers mcbazza! ill give that a try tomorrow. Ok i didn't actually tell him their service was *****! I explained to him politely that I was not impressed with their service, he on the other hand was not polite and kept trying to interrupt me saying "nope" all the time, very arrogant! hopefully ill get a better (trained) response from the 2nd line guy.

P.S. when did they introduce traffic management? Ive been with them since april...
 
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Your in luck there. According to the other thread (well worth a read) it was MAY they introduced the bizzare traffic management. If you get a polite. techie (eventually) have an answer ready for anything they might ask.

i wonder if there isn't an advantage in talking to the main office first. That is the people with the Mac code decisions. They will pass you back to tech but it may help that you are passed from that office. It's what we did.

G'luck!
 
Hmm there seems to be some confusion about as to wether they introduced the FUP for ADSL or Cable in May... anyone got a specific date as I dont want the techie to turn around and say they had a FUP before I joined... Whats the number for main office then?

Thanks
 
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The FUP has been around for some time.
But, the change in traffic management was only brought in Friday before last - but, there is no proof of that. As they didn't warn their customers, publicise it, or post it anywhere.
But, the evidence was all over the 'net from gamers on VM.net's service that online gaming was 100% broken.

Again, quoting their own T&C's:
H3(b):
Cancellations and Refunds
"If... we make significant changes to the Services so the Services you are entitled to receive in return for the charges you pay are significantly altered or reduced
...
you may cancel those Services affected without penalty by giving us at least 30 days’ notice in writing."

Breaking streaming/VoIP/gaming is pretty "significantly altered or reduced" in my book!!
 
Im with them currently i signed up 8months ago ive not actually used the service fully till i left pipex on the other line.I can say my self from tracerts that its their servers.If you look under virgin.net forum on here you can see the alfull pings i was getting and that was with 2mb service.I asked them to down grade it to see if it would help no real differance only my connection speed never changes when reconnecting.Ive never seen anything like it since dial up!
 
finding it hard to get through to them via remote assistance, keeps telling me there are no operators available and I need to give them my notice of cancelation before the 10th as thats when my next payment comes out :S, will update once i manage to get through.
 
that online help desk is weird as hell, you have to sit refreshing for ages before you get some sort of button to click and actually get onto the messenger system, the problem is their messy code which really needs fixing, sadly tho their lack thereof of doing so kinda shows us how much they care about their customers.
 
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I finally gave up on remote assistance, they were just ignoring all the messages i was leaving and i was eager to give my notice before today (10th) to avoid having to pay another months charges. I decided to phone them again and got through to tech support (as opposed to cancellation like last time), first i mentioned the voip and streaming (online radio specifically) and he kept trying to fob me off by blaming the other services (Tesco Internet Phone, classic fm etc.), i told him that they used to work but he was adament that it wasn't their fault.
Next i mentioned the high pings in Battlefield and CSS and that I had heard that alot of problems had been because of changes they had made to traffic management and straight away he admited this was true! :D He also told me that it was partially due to their 'games list' being out of date so the traffic management was counting them as P2P traffic, their list must be WAY out of date as BF2142 is over a year old and CSS is over three years old! He really didn't want to say when all of these problems would be fixed but I finally got 'maybe january some time' out of him :shrug:.
I got him to put me through to cancellations and I got through to a very helpful chap who read the note the previous guy had made on my account and straight away put a request through to waive my cancellation fee! Result! I even got his name and extension number incase things went pear-shaped. Turns out not everyone at Virgin is a trained monkey as previously thought! :laugh:
However, no im just waiting for them to charge me anyway like they did last time (it took me 6 months to get £90 back from them last time). As a precautionary method i've cancelled my direct debit with them so they will have to contact me first instead of just taking money willy-nilly, which im sure they will do sometime today as my monthly payment is now due :rolleyes:

Christian

P.S. I didn't even have to mention the T&Cs once during both of the calls but it was very useful to have them information anyway, thanks mcbazza!
 
traffic management = Overloaded Old Out Of Date Servers.

They need to spend money on making new changes to there old system to allow for all the new customers they are getting. Poor people havnt got a clue that they will be signing up to a poor service :(
 
ive just been charged by VM £50 for leaving their service. i have the L package "up to 8mb" which was fine for 3 months until the speeds dropped and dropped until finally for the last month i have been on 0.5mb.

any ideas how i can get out of the charge as i see that as a level of service far below what i should expect?
 
i m free im free and no charge paid cos they admitted they were crap lol. good luck to anyone still vm cos i think ur going to need it.
 
daveyB: Any details on how you left? Where you within your 12 months contract?

bunter: Same as above, were you in your first 12months? Did they only charge you £50? Or did they charge that in addition to the cost of the remainder of the 12 months contract?

(Id happily pay £50 to leave my contract early!)

I've moved house from good Cable Virgin to ADSL Virgin in September (stayed with virgin just so I didnt lose £60from leaving early), so ive got months to go on my contract, but would love any ideas on how to leave early with minimum cost!
 
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there is no twelve month contract on virgin you only have to pay £50 if you dont give 30days notice that you are leaving. And because ive had nothing but crap service from them since joining in october (calling up everyday to complain) and them admitting that it was thier fault then they said i didnt have to pay cos they couldnt provide the service they guarenteed.
 
I am on their ADSL service, and from looking at the webpage it states a 12 month minimum term :(

I took the "Broadband and Talk" deal as it was cheaper than just "Broadband" - I now see the catch, addding the Talk makes it a 12 month contract :(

Hopefully I can argue that I wasnt made aware of this when ordering.
 
ah yer talk and BB is a 12 month contract , however i think it just apllies to the phone give them a ring and ask. i know my mate had talk talk ( i know i warned him) but he kept the phone package and got rid of the bb side of it so you might be able to do the same. but vm are crap and will probably demand the whole twelve months paid up unless you can get them to state its there fault .
 
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