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Virgin phone calls; oh dear ! Incomprehensible

Mike Reed

pfm Member
Had a call a few days ago about the transfer of my landline to VOIP. A lady with an accent and intonation you could cut with a knife. After a frustrating struggle for 20 odd minutes, I gave up and asked politely is someone else could call me.

Next day I had a call which emitted a repetitive bleep, drowning out any message; I mentione this and hung up.

Yesterday I had another call from the same woman whom I guessed was Filippino (I was right). Similarly, I simply could understand what she was saying; odd words, yes, but syntax and context, no. Again, I politely told her and asked again for an alternative call. I felt bad and mentioned it could be a connected distrtion between voice and phone (it wasn't).

Had a similar taxing long conversation 3 years ago with a chao from the Filippines; managed this one eventually, one word at a time. This lady is actually worse.

Why oh why do Virgin employ people to converse in English who are manifestly incapable of coming across? Baffling and thoroughly annoying. May have to report this on their community forum. I don't know why this compromised transfer has to happen, as BT (and others?)can avoid this.
 
Same problem here. Scottish accent, which doesn't help. If I end up having to have a conversation with someone in an overseas call centre, I'm ****ed. :(

I try and pass the call over to my wife if she's available.

I ended up being locked out of my NS&1 account a few months ago, after talking to a lady who was interrrogating me with security questions. Neither if us could understand the other.
 
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Call Virgin Media during 'office hours' Monday to Fri and you should get through to a call centre in the UK NE.
 
Never ever worked for me, Virgin are just about the worst for customer service although British gas give them a run for their money.
 
I have never had an issue with VM customer service; prompt, coherent and polite. Easily resolved my issues.
 
When I tried to close my deceased mother's account with Virgin Media I had five people in a row who simply could not understand that I didn't want to move the service to a different address. And they kep passing me to someone else to have exactly the same discussion. Finally lost my rag with them which elicited an apology eventually.
 
I have never had an issue with VM customer service; prompt, coherent and polite. Easily resolved my issues.

you are lucky you can get through !!! can tak up to an hour

I have had to call BT a few times and am MEGA impressed at speed of answering , the other day the engineer told me to ring as he was walking toward the front door and they answered before he got there .... amazing !!!
 
Never ever worked for me, Virgin are just about the worst for customer service although British gas give them a run for their money.

Worst I've ever experienced was BT, the non-business side, absolutely terrible the business side was very good however.

EE are brilliant BTW they use people from the NE of England who are excellent on the phone.
 
I've had the same problem Mike. I was informed by VM letter that I had to make an appointment to change the copper wired phone over to voip.

I rang 150 and got the usual bot gauntlet that leads you nowhere.

Eventually I got through to someone far away that didn't seem to understand the situation. I was then passed to someone who told me it would be tomorrow.

I looked on my account details and a Virgin 360 self install box had been ordered for tomorrow but no engineer.

When I rang again, I got someone very intelligible in Sheffield UK that said an engineer was booked for mid February for the phone reconnect.

Some confusion seemed to occur because I accepted their TV deal (full package, worked out cheaper) in the process which we didn't have before.

So I'm still waiting for the change over with fingers crossed.
 
I confidently predict total chaos for many people who want to keep a landline with their current number once they are switched over from copper to fiber. Some service providers like Plunet won't be providing voip services at all, so their customers will be stuffed.

Separately, but similarly, it will be the same for people with 2G/ 3G mobile phones (surprisingly large numbers, plus loads of M2M users) as 2G/3G is switched off.

The Regulator(s) seem to think it should be left to service providers to sort out - well yes, up to a point, but some clear publicity would be good. Most people I talk to have no idea what's happening on either front.

I guess we will all just muddle through.
 
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Up to a point the isp's assume that most people have mobiles which "should" work in a power cut.

I've been asked several times by VM about whether I am dependent on a wired alarm or whether I need special provision for power outage.

I can't say I am.
 
I confidently predict total chaos for many people who want to keep a landline with their current number once they are switched over from copper to fiber. Some service providers like Plunet won't be providing voip services at all, so their customers will be stuffed.

Separately, but similarly, it will be the same for people with 2G/ 3G mobile phones (surprisingly large numbers, plus loads of M2M users) as 2G/3G is switched off.

The Regulator(s) seem to think it should be left to service providers to sort out - well yes, up to a point, but some clear publicity would be good. Most people I talk to have no idea what's happening on either front.

I guess we will all just muddle through.
And what about 4G phones in areas of no coverage. Just yesterday I had only one bar of 3G coverage in a Manchester suburb, not exactly a wilderness.
 
And what about 4G phones in areas of no coverage. Just yesterday I had only one bar of 3G coverage in a Manchester suburb, not exactly a wilderness.
Yes there are all sorts of anomalies like this waiting to trip us up.

I try to keep abreast of developments on ISP Review. Quite good for non-experts like me :)

Some interesting stuff on 2G/3G switch off here
 
So if your internet goes down you can’t use the phone to report it.

Absolutely but this is considered to be progress !!!!!

Mind you, you can't use a l/line is a power cut, but doubling up the possibilities one will be incommunicado is really technological stupidity i.m.o.

I have had to call BT a few times and am MEGA impressed at speed of answering ,

Yes, I was quite surprised at BT call-handling, after spending 35 minutes, again struggling with a South African girl with a Welsh name simply to get a quote. This surprised me as this was the first time I've considered the S.A. accent as remotely problematic. Maybe her staccato delivery and voice interacted with my landline phone. Within a few minutes to BT I was speaking to an English chap who answered questions in a transparent and straightforward way. Call over within ten !!!!

So I'm still waiting for the change over with fingers crossed.

That's interesting, Minio, as I've just secured an all-in-one package, although we've always had one. It was whilst arranging this (with an English lady who was really efficient with the new tariff etc.). She wasn't sure if ordering the back-up box for the changeover would initiate an engineer booking. It obv. had, otherwise I wouldn't 've got those garbled calls, but I'm now between the Virgin devil and the deep blue sea of landline security.

If I don't hear soon, I'll need to wake them up on their community forum; that does elicit a response from both posters and moderators. Cut off from making calls is 28th Feb., I believe; rather short notice!

I confidently predict total chaos for many people who want to keep a landline with their current number once they are switched over from copper to fibre.

Not sure about this, Mike. When we switched from BT to Virgin 1n 2009 we had to have a new number (and all the long-winded communication hassle that entails). BT told me that I could opt NOT to go over to VOIP if I joined them, but it appears there are no exemptions for Virgin (still the only full cable company, I think). It's a retrograde step and I wonder if Virgin won't need to pay landline charges (to BT?) afterwards, but maybe that's just the cynic in me !

Up to a point the isp's assume that most people have mobiles which "should" work in a power cut.

I've been asked several times by VM about whether I am dependent on a wired alarm or whether I need special provision for power outage.

Everybody and their dog considers a smart phone is universal and I get incredulous comments at Sainsbury's and elsewhere when I say I can't avail myself of their apps. Reminds me of Spike Milligan's 'walking backwards for Christmas'. With their 'emergency' back-up box (whatever that is) you can, as far as I can make out, only phone 999 or 111. To my mind, there are a lot more emergencies which can arise for which those numbers would be useless !!!!!
 
I hate calling call centres in general. I’ll always opt for a ‘chat’ where possible. Not only is it easier to understand the other person, but I also get a transcript of the entire conversation.
 


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