How can I get them to do something?

Could I please have some advice on how to put a valid complaint to Virgin so that they will take some notice and do something?

When we got the 'upgrade' from 50Mbps to 70Mbps our stable and fast connection became impossible to use.

We waited for things to stabilise and then a couple of months ago complained when the connection disappeared for over a day. There was an area outage which was fixed but this was the start of 'intermittent' problems.

A superhub was delivered but I didn't connect it until last Monday as our connection was never stable enough for me to risk attempting this.

Monday was the last straw. Speeds were in kb/s if we could connect at all, so I got my wife to phone 150 on her mobile.

The first problem was that she couldn't understand the accent of the customer support person and quickly passed the phone to me (I have in the past done business with the sub-continent and am somewhat tuned into it).

The operative was obviously reading from a script designed to transfer blame to the customer. 'Do you use an extension cord for power? 'Have you moved the modem?' 'What router are you using?' Have you turned the power off and left it off for a full minute?' These and much more before he attempted anything.

I kept my temper and answered all his questions honestly. He then attempted to work on our modem and after about 15 minutes of trying to tell me things were working properly was forced to ask me to reset it as it no longer worked at all.

He then tried sub-script B, the 'We will supply a brand new superhub completely free of charge' script. As I'd already told him that I had one he then agreed it would be a good idea to set it up.

After less than 2 minutes of me changing over from modem to superhub, he played with the connection until he insisted it was working. A speed test of 50.6 download was according to his maths skills within a 25% loss due to me using wifi (I had already told him that wifi was line of sight and within 8ft).

I was somewhat annoyed by that time and took less than a minute to connect an ethernet cable which gave an even slower speed test than the wifi.

He played about some more and eventually got the connection to work for a few minutes at 73Mbps download and 5Mbps upload.

This took over two hours and I have omitted a lot of the operatives idiocy for brevity

The connection worked for a few hours and at 3p.m. was lost coming back intermittently after 7p.m. to 9p.m.

THE SITUATION NOW

We have a connection which we can download from our server with, using cute ftp slowly, but it works.

Our Network meter shows drops in connection at irregular intervals.

We use VOIP for phone calls to family in the USA and this has been impossible for weeks as when the connection cuts out......
We have an elderly great Aunt (92) who is in ill health and being cared for by an Aunt (74) who is also in ill health AND my widowed step-daughter, with three kids has just been made redundant. I am sure anyone (except Virgin) can see the need to sort this out.

If I phone again the connection will be sorted for 5 to 10 minutes and then continue to play silly b's

THE QUESTION

How can I get Virgin to fix the problem? It doesn't appear to be congestion (or is it?) and temporary fixes don't last.

In reply to a post by foxuk:

Could I please have some advice on how to put a valid complaint to Virgin so that they will take some notice and do something?

When we got the 'upgrade' from 50Mbps to 70Mbps our stable and fast connection became impossible to use.

We waited for things to stabilise and then a couple of months ago complained when the connection disappeared for over a day. There was an area outage which was fixed but this was the start of 'intermittent' problems.

A superhub was delivered but I didn't connect it until last Monday as our connection was never stable enough for me to risk attempting this.

Monday was the last straw. Speeds were in kb/s if we could connect at all, so I got my wife to phone 150 on her mobile.

The first problem was that she couldn't understand the accent of the customer support person and quickly passed the phone to me (I have in the past done business with the sub-continent and am somewhat tuned into it).

The operative was obviously reading from a script designed to transfer blame to the customer. 'Do you use an extension cord for power? 'Have you moved the modem?' 'What router are you using?' Have you turned the power off and left it off for a full minute?' These and much more before he attempted anything.

I kept my temper and answered all his questions honestly. He then attempted to work on our modem and after about 15 minutes of trying to tell me things were working properly was forced to ask me to reset it as it no longer worked at all.

He then tried sub-script B, the 'We will supply a brand new superhub completely free of charge' script. As I'd already told him that I had one he then agreed it would be a good idea to set it up.

After less than 2 minutes of me changing over from modem to superhub, he played with the connection until he insisted it was working. A speed test of 50.6 download was according to his maths skills within a 25% loss due to me using wifi (I had already told him that wifi was line of sight and within 8ft).

I was somewhat annoyed by that time and took less than a minute to connect an ethernet cable which gave an even slower speed test than the wifi.

He played about some more and eventually got the connection to work for a few minutes at 73Mbps download and 5Mbps upload.

This took over two hours and I have omitted a lot of the operatives idiocy for brevity

The connection worked for a few hours and at 3p.m. was lost coming back intermittently after 7p.m. to 9p.m.

THE SITUATION NOW

We have a connection which we can download from our server with, using cute ftp slowly, but it works.

Our Network meter shows drops in connection at irregular intervals.

We use VOIP for phone calls to family in the USA and this has been impossible for weeks as when the connection cuts out......
We have an elderly great Aunt (92) who is in ill health and being cared for by an Aunt (74) who is also in ill health AND my widowed step-daughter, with three kids has just been made redundant. I am sure anyone (except Virgin) can see the need to sort this out.

If I phone again the connection will be sorted for 5 to 10 minutes and then continue to play silly b's

THE QUESTION

How can I get Virgin to fix the problem? It doesn't appear to be congestion (or is it?) and temporary fixes don't last.

#

Request to speak to the onshore tech team (Glasgow/Wales), more chance of getting them during office hours if possible.

Edited by Bryer (Tue 07-Jun-16 14:23:28)

It might seem obvious but have you considered changing ISP?

I have 38Mbps connection and I can do 4K video streaming, facetime calls, Sky HD movie downloads, Netflix 1080P without any problem.

With virginmedia congestion is more common than a FTTC service over a BT line. I also found downtime fairly regular on virginmedia.

Sometimes you have to realise you are fighting a losing battle, and when you get nowhere, just move on.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Tue 07-Jun-16 15:41:39)

It sounds like you need an engineer to come out and sort it. If the problems are really that bad then they'll all be in the logs of the hub and an engineer will be able to assess them. With VM it is also often easier to get in touch with someone who can actually look into the issue properly and arrange an engineer through their 'community' forums rather than over the phone.

And may I dare to suggest you rein back on the 'I know more than you dumb support people' attitude (since it is fairly obvious you don't) and leave out the pointless bleeding heart rubbish.

Thanks for the reply.

I have wanted to change many times over the couple of decades we've been using Virgin.

The last quote from BT for installing a telephone line to the home was over £100 as a minimum and no top end.

The BT line exists and is attached to the roof but BT insist that it doesn't. I have followed up every 'free connection' offer for years but as soon as they see that the house doesn't exist according to their records 'free' disappears.....

I'm too old to sign a contract that has no maximum price, and to be blatantly honest, being on a fixed income, may not be able to afford.

We are stuck with Virgin and have been using them since they were Cabletel but customer loyalty counts for nothing.

Our connection has got worse. It just vanishes and then comes back again. Rebooting does help sometimes atm we are getting the full download after re-booting twice. by 3p.m. we will have lost connection which will come back sometime between 7pm and 8pm but have intermittent drop-outs.

Moving house may be another option but a bit drastic......

I would happily pay what we are now for 20Mbs IF it was constant and stable.

Thanks anyway, this just seems to be normal service from 'new Virgin USA' and there's short straws and long straws.....