Vivid? I'm Livid (or was) A tale of woe with non-tech people

Last year we got the news that VM were going to boost speeds for existing customers. Their page at All you need to know about your broadband speed boost says "If you�re a broadband customer who joined us before 24th November 2015 on 50Mbps or below, 100Mbps or 152Mbps, we�ll offer you an upgrade to our more powerful speeds of SuperFibre 70Mbps, VIVID 150Mbps and VIVID 200Mbps"

I was on the 100Mbps service and should have gone to VIVID150, according to all the info I've had to date. When I got the price increase letter I went through to the Retentions team and they juggled my account to drop down a step in the TV packages to reduce the ongoing cost.

I was then told that the VIVID150 service was only 6Mbps upload speed, which is my main bugbear as I do a lot of uploading of radio programming for a community radio station. It's voluntary, unpaid, a hobby, before anyone suggests this is business use. As I was on 100/6 I accepted the explanation and agreed to stay at 100/6 rather than pay more for 150/6. I've since found out that was incorrect, it would have gone to 150/10.

So, I called back a couple of times. First time I was put through to 'someone technical' as the lady I originally spoke to said she did not know what the upload speeds were. Oh what a surprise, I ended up with the overseas call centre and a woman trying to tell me to switch off and back on again to get the correct speed. After she finally understood that I was not suffering an outage or problem she passed me back to the UK.

There I was told quite clearly that I was wrong, nobody at Virgin would have talked to me about upload speeds as they only deal with download - and she cut me off...

I called back, the lady contacted a technical manager at Swansea and came back to tell me that my 100Mbps download speed had an upload speed of �up to 10Mbps�. I tried to say that was incorrect but she said she was not technical and it was a technical manager who had given her the figures.

She spoke about the 152Mbps package and said she could change me on to that but I would lose all loyalty discounts and my monthly cost would increase by about £15. I'm a Taurus, and I saw red ! In October 2016 I will have been a customer for 20 years. To take off a 'loyalty' discount was unacceptable and I told her so. There was a smaller discount, for 6 months, that I had been given (and didn't ask for) which I may have accepted losing to get back to where I had been - awaiting the forthcoming speed boost.

What had happened was that the guy I spoke to originally had moved me on to VIVID100 and that negated the boost. It was no longer on my account page as 'coming soon' but instead showed that I'd already had it. The boost has gone back in my area (14) from November 2015 to February, then March and now 'between July and December' when I use the VM Checker

So I wrote to VM Complaints. They called me today and have now said that VIVID150 no longer exists ?

They cannot put me back to the 100/6 level I had before as that is no longer on their system. They say that I would not get a speed boost anyway ? Again, the person I spoke to admitted they were not technical and could only go by what info they had on the VM website. I was told that policy had changed. They had dropped VIVID150, it just wasn't available. I tried my best to refer her to VM pages showing it clearly was.

I can see that new customers only get a choice of VIVID100 or 200, in the main packages they are selling at present. It seems that is the info nthey all refer to when looking at speeds. Nobody knows anything about the 'other pages' like Your guide to traffic management where the varying speeds are clearly listed.

Am I going mad ? Am I really going to accept that the speed boost programme would not have seen me move from 100/6 to 150/10 ?

Just to finish this off with their solution. After nearly half an hour of stalemate, VM saying they only offer a 100 or 200 package now and saying that the speed boost to 150 was not going to happen they backed down and offered to put me on the VIVID200 service and they would cover the cost for 12 months. Not quite what I was trying to achieve but it seems I wasn't going to get back to what I should have had.

I really do not think the info I've been given is right - can anyone enlighten me ?

I went from 100/6 to 150/10 when moving to VIVID

In reply to a post by BuckleZ:

I went from 100/6 to 150/10 when moving to VIVID

Thanks, that's the sort of confirmation I need. I know that our area isn't due the boost just yet but that is what I was hoping for and their people are trying to tell me otherwise...

I done it all through the My virgin media website, when it said the boost was available...

The email i got:

Thank you for choosing Virgin Media

Order date: Sunday, November 8, 2015
Order ref: WSxxxxxxx
Hello RYAN,
Thanks for upgrading your Virgin Media package. To help you keep track of your order, there's a summary of what you chose further down the page.


Your order
VIVID 150 Optical Fibre

Hi,

They're talking pish!

However when you renegotiated your price and contravt wth retentions they would have applied the new VIVID100 (100/6) to your account...

This means you would appear as a new customer on there system, meaning you won't get the free boost as I'm sure you already know...

The only way this can really be fixed is if your account was reverted back to the original agreement, however that won't be possible if the deal has been in place longer than 14/30 days...

Basically, there's not a fat ot you can do but learn from te experience, I did something similar back in 2010/11 when 30/60/100/120 tiers came about.

Taking the free upgrade to VIVID200 was probably the best that could come from this and maybe look at your choices at the end off the current deal.

I knew as soon as they announced the latest speed boost and VIVID services that these sport of problems would arise... stupid idea from Virgin that in some cases may force people to upgrade there services... for example:

My grandmother is moving home soon and currently has the 70/5 service with Virgin, now if she takes that with her there's a 95% chance she will lose the 70/5 and be reverted back to 50/3 unless she opts for a higher tier (100/6)

This sucks as since the free upgrade her Skype Video Calling with myself and my cousins has improved drastically and is more stable but losing that 2Mbps will result in a drop in quality again...

I'm hoping that as she's been a customer for best part of 20 years, like yourself they will give a generous offering, specially based on her low usage or it might be more viable to move her over to FTTC (Which will become available to her once moved)

Sorry to here your another customer of Virgin's that been let down.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

They're talking pish!

Yep, figured that one out.

I will be looking very closely at other providers at the end of this 12 month period. I really don't fancy having to argue the toss with Retentions over this - I doubt very much that they would let the 'deal' continue and that means a big price hike is in the offing.

I really cannot understand why someone with a bit of technical knowhow can't be involved, to leave it to non-tech people astounds me. They simply cannot deal with a matter they know nothing about. They've had a letter from me, detailing the issue and even giving links to their own web pages where I've got my info from.

Because VIVID150 isn't part of a new customer offer they cannot give it to me ? Crazy !

It I possible for the profile of 150/10 to be applied to your account however it does require someone with knowhow to do it and also requires upper's permission to do it...

The thing is that so much has changed at Virgin since the days where I needed to do this that it may be impossible to do it, systems changed so that the profiling of accounts became somewhat more automated meaning that things like freebie Multiroom boxes where not really something that could be just thrown on to an account anymore.

If this has a similar if not same affect on broadband profiling I don't know but assume it would...

If it really bothers you then I would make another complaint and hope someone different can look into it, the chances of getting this reversed though are very slim and they will just offer you cancellation without early termination or an offer like you've already got.

May I ask if its upload that's important to you or does having a download speed above 100Mbps also matter...

I've just looked at my grandmothers new address and decided that whilst her line might only be capable of 30-40mbps download her upload should be 8-12mbps so looking at putting her on Sky!

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

May I ask if its upload that's important to you or does having a download speed above 100Mbps also matter...

Upload is the issue. I look after a lot of radio shows for a community station where hour long audio files are passed to me for processing. I download them from various sources, adjust the level if needed, tag them then upload to the station server. I can be uploading as much as 12Gb in a day. I usually wait until well after midnight to avoid any capping, which still goes on with uploads.

Download speed of 100Mbps was fine, I'll probably not notice much difference on 200 as many remote sites are slow anyway,

Making another complaint will do nothing, they'll just look at the notes and chuck the second letter in the bin...

So a 38/9 connection with no limits would be suffice for you then?

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

So a 38/9 connection with no limits would be suffice for you then?

Possibly, but changing to a BT line means having one put in, there hasn't been one to this property since about 1995. Have to factor that in when looking to change provider.
Plus we have a contract with VM until December, when they last jiggled the account about.