Virgin they may be, Innocent they are not! (virginmedia.com)

Member Name: weebill

Product:	virginmedia.com
Date:	13/02/08 (92 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Their unlimited 20 meg broadband is unbeatable.

Disadvantages: Poor range of channels in hd and terrible customer service.

After being a telewest customer for 3 years and being very happy with their service I was a bit wary about the virgin media takeover and it turns out I had every right to be. Although I can never say enough good things about their internet service which has never failed me and has stayed exactly the same under virgin as it was under telewest the rest of their services are going to the wall.

Included in my package under telewest I had the 3 for £30 bundle which contained 2 Meg broadband, a basic TV package which had all the frreview channels plus uktv and the other UK channels and my phone line. The services were always acceptable and I never had any problems with any of them then along came virgin with their promises of fantastic new deals and excellent customer services, unfortunately I was taken in and decided to spend more on this stuff than I ever would have dreamed but it all seemed so promising.

I was talked into the v.i.p package which was being offered at a one off discount joining price in the first month and if taken in the first month then the price remained throughout your time on the package. The price was and still is £65 a month and for this I got and still get 20 meg broadband, the full TV package which includes every channel except the movies, sports and pay per views and a phone package which means I can call anyone anywhere including mobiles at no extra cost. This sounded great especially as the right price for this service would rise to £89 if taken after the offer ended however all was not rosy for me.

My first major problem with virgin was when Mr Branson fell out with the powers to be at sky and lost the rights to show certain channels one of which included sky sports news of which I was an avid viewer as I love to keep up to date with what's going on in all sports. I could not believe I no longer had this channel especially as it was available to my son and others through their free view box`s at no cost. Then came the fact that the main thing they had plugged about the box I was getting was its ability to handle hd tv which I thought well I might as well have as I had heard good things about, what they had failed to tell me was that they only had one hd channel available (bbc1 hd) where as on sky you can get a large selection of hd channels.

When I asked about this I was told there would be more to follow but it may be sometime away, I asked how long sometime was and was told no one could answer that. This brings me to the customer service in general which has been very poor. I have had to contact them several times, the first was when my modem kept switching itself off which was not there fault as it was my old original telewest modem and well things get old and stop working so I just asked if they could come out with a new one and it seemed to be no problem they would be out the next day I was told, however no one appeared and when I called back they had no idea what I was talking about. Eventually after 4 days my modem was replaced and I was back online properly but then came the most unbelievable problem over the slightest of things. I set about ordering my self a pay per view movie typed in my code they had given me to be told it was invalid so I phoned up and was immediately connected to the movie I wanted and a new code given, very simple I thought until I noticed that the following days I was still connected to this movie when I went to that channel I phoned and explained and they said I had put my code in to order it and then I had requested it the next night by phone. I made them aware of the fact that it had refused my code and that I had phoned on the same night, I was told not to worry about it I would only receive one charge. When my bill came through for that month I had been charged 5 times for the one film and to cut a long story short it took eight phone calls and five weeks to sort this out and have my money refunded which I feel is simply not good enough.

Although I do have many complaints about the service I intend to stick with it for now and see if they improve. Hopefully I will not need to get in touch with them too often and things will just run smoothly. The one thing they do have largely in their favour is their fantastic broadband service, I have had a few internet providers and virgin are without doubt leaps and bounds above them all so hopefully they can bring the rest of their services up to that standard soon too.

Summary: If only they could have the rest of their service up to the standard of their broadband.