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back to article 100s of Virgin Media customers hit by handset repair glitch, telco admits

Virgin Media has admitted to The Register that hundreds of its mobile customers were left without their handsets for weeks due to a "glitch" with its repair service. The company has also confessed to us that it was yet to process roughly 100 outstanding repairs for its frustrated subscribers, some of whom have been complaining …

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  1. Terry 6 Silver badge

    Ghastly bunch

    I used to really like having a VM phone.

    But in the last few years they've got horrible.

    The broadband/TV/Landline service I get is still great.

    But the mobile service became expensive and terribly bureaucratic.

    But they won't negotiate a better contract for a good loyal customer anymore - just giving a standard, small, discount that still leaves the price higher than the opposition - presumably they see loyal customers as suckers

    When things go wrong they don't want to know.

    And they don't seem to care.

    When you ask for a reasonable resolution to something they've got wrong they just say no. And of challenged you get a "We can't do that". Which I personally find really annoying because of course they can. At least saying "won't" would have been honest.

    Most recently they c****ed up transferring the phone number from my daughter's phone to her new supplier. And then wouldn't answer the emails from that supplier to them. Until I had to contact them myself and threaten going to the ombudsman. And it still took them a couple of days to respond.

    But they never used to be like that.

    And the other VM services I have are great.

    2 0 Reply
  2. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

    I know I'll get downvoted but...

    On the other hand, I've only had two Virgin broadband outages in almost 3 years, and they've just put me onto a faster broadband only package - but for £12 per month less than I was paying.

    So not all bad.

    6 0 Reply
    1. Phil W
      Reply Icon

      Re: I know I'll get downvoted but...

      Partly because you were expecting downvotes and partly because I agree, have an upvote.

      My Virgin broadband, phone and TV service has been pretty much flawless since it was installed 3 years ago. The one time I had an outage of any significance it turned out that it was scheduled maintenance and I'd thrown away the notification they sent me thinking it was junk mail.

      The cause of the outage was obvious when I went outside and saw 2 VM vans down the street with dozens of cables hanging out of the cabinet.

      My only slight gripe was that when my contract was up I had to ask them to put me on a different tariff that gave me faster broadband for less money, they had no problem doing it when I mentioned it though.

      5 0 Reply
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Re: I know I'll get downvoted but...

      "and they've just put me onto a faster broadband only package - but for £12 per "

      They've been screwing my parents over for years but not letting them know they are on a crap, expensive service (been on them since the Telewest days)

      Had a running battle over how new customers, even after 12 intial discount period still get better deal than they can.

      Online bod offered an even worse service than if they simply upgraded online, but you cannot get like for like package with new customers, making an upgrade extremely difficult to compare.

      Final part will be the canceling the service method.

      0 0 Reply
      1. Test Man
        Reply Icon

        Re: I know I'll get downvoted but...

        "They've been screwing my parents over for years but not letting them know they are on a crap, expensive service (been on them since the Telewest days)"

        Why is it their responsibility? Surely your parents should be making sure that they are on the cheapest deal come renewal?

        1 5 Reply
        1. Blitterbug
          Reply Icon
          WTF?

          Re: Why is it their responsibility?

          How is it not Virgin's responsibility? It's a business model beloved in these latter days of deregulation / unbundling, and it's called 'taking the utter piss'. Furthermore, do you not have older / elderly parents who come from an era where BT was the only game in town, and from whom you rented a line / handset for life? If not, can't you at least empathise with those of us who do, and who have to pitch in and sort out utter disgraces like this on a regular basis?

          3 5 Reply
  3. Phil W

    Guestimating customer service

    "I reckon there should be around 100 cases which haven’t been processed"

    I reckon you should find out before making public statements rather prefacing them with "I reckon".

    3 0 Reply
  4. Tsung

    On another note..

    An employee had a Nokia 635 phone where the screen failed (nothing would appear). The warranty repair on that was extremely quick/efficient from Microsoft. Phone collected Tuesday, returned fixed and working Friday.

    VM are constantly sending me large letters with offers for their mobile service (junk mail I never requested and asked several times for them to stop sending). It all goes in the recycle bin now.. unread.

    2 0 Reply
  5. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

    @ Lost all faith...

    "They've been screwing my parents over for years but not letting them know they are on a crap, expensive service (been on them since the Telewest days)"

    But do you and/or your parents not bear some of the responsibility of ensuring that they are on the best service plan for their needs on a regular basis, rather than naturally assuming that they are being, as you put it "screwed"?

    By your measure I'm assuming your parents are the sort of people who simply accept the renewal costs as stated by their insurance providers rather than shopping about?

    I have no sympathy.

    4 5 Reply
    1. Lee D Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: @ Lost all faith...

      My thoughts too.

      The local petrol station must be "screwing me over" for not telling me there's a better deal a mile down the road. And all those dedicated server hosts are screwing me over for not suggesting I migrate to a 500Gb hard drive package instead of the 1Tb (when I'm using 499Gb, for example).

      And so on and so forth. If you cared, you'd check. Get off your backside and take some responsibility rather than waiting for some government legislation to kick in for these companies to deliberately lose profit informing you that you could get a better deal elsewhere.

      My milkman didn't tell me that semi-skimmed was 1p cheaper a pint or that he does discounts if I buy more than 10 bottles a day... I'm being screwed over!

      Even though I never bothered to ASK.

      1 3 Reply
  6. J.G.Harston Silver badge

    They *repair* mobile phones? Don't they just chuck it in a spares bin, swap the identity and send back a replacement?

    4 0 Reply
  7. Christoph

    They did try to notify their customers

    They sent a text message to their phones

    0 0 Reply
  8. Frumious Bandersnatch

    can I upvote the article?

    It deserves it for the Dylan Moran/Black Books pic alone.

    1 0 Reply

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