Opinions on Broadband providers

[Wowbagger]

Have you checked Cityfibre? It is available from Vodafone Gigafast.

Not available to us yet, despite a cable being laid 2 years ago which meant that we could not get into the house.

My latest entry into the ongoing dispute:

I telephoned CEDR again this morning to find out why the case had - yet again - been closed. Again, I had not been consulted. I was quite dissatisfied with the conversation and the person I spoke to was quite rude.

The current financial situation is that Virgin have charged me £26 for my mobile phone for four consecutive months (1st July, 2nd August, 31st August, 1st October), a total of £104. For my television, internet and landline account, as mentioned previously I was charged £62.12 on 23rd September and for the next bill, Virgin have projected a charge of £47.35. This is a total of £108.47, an overcharge of £20.47.

So Virgin currently owe me £124.47. Please ensure that they refund this money to my account forthwith.

Virgin need to link my mobile to the main Virgin Media account so that my SIM is included within the £44 that I am supposed to be charged each month. I have forgotten how many times I have had to repeat this request.

This brings us to Virgin’s non-compliance with the contract that they and I agreed on 27th July 2020, and CISAS’s dealing with this. CISAS describes itself as a “Disputes Resolution Service”. Yet according to Zak Lutaya, the person I spoke to this morning, your modus operandi is to set a “legally binding” demand to Virgin with a deadline, and when that deadline expires, you assume, without checking with either Virgin or myself, that they have complied with your demand and close the case. Virgin, of course, ignore you and you then raise another “legally binding” demand and close the case when the deadline expires.

As I pointed out to Mr. Lutaya, these demands are not legally binding if there is no sanction for non-compliance. Your “disputes resolution service” is no such thing when you do not treat the two parties equally: you are not resolving this dispute - you are putting the entire onus upon me to continue to chivvy Virgin via yourselves.

I now put you on notice that if, in a fortnight’s time, i.e. 19th October 2021, this dispute is not fully resolved to my satisfaction, I shall be taking it to the small claims court for compensation and I will be reporting CEDR to Trading Standards because you are not a “disputes resolution service” at all. You are merely a toothless buffer, an extra layer of bureaucracy between the dissatisfied customer and a grossly incompetent and inefficient company.

Yours faithfully,

[Morat]

The rules about mains and low cables sharing conduit or holes is for safety. All the cables should be rated to the highest voltage present. Having mains appear on an ethernet plug can spoil your day.

If cables are pulled through conduit or holes, one can give a friction burn to the other. A sharp object could pierce both cables.

One house I owned had a live skirting board nail for a decade or so due to a nail going through into a hole which contained five 2.5 mm2 T&E cables. It wasn't found until I needed to move some of the T&E cables, but then people don't go around touching skirting board nails very often. Had it contacted a low voltage cable, that could have made something else live.

Hmmm, that probably explains why our electrical contractors at work keep referring to fibre as "low voltage" and seem to think that putting Cat-6 in a plastic conduit makes it OK to run it next to a 60A power cable.

If you absolutely can't avoid running power and ethernet together, you can use shielded cable/patch panels/modules. They're more expensive and fiddly but the cost might be worth it if the cable runs are horrible.

[fruitcake]

An unlocked 4G USB-powered modem does the job and data SIM credit costs no more than monthly broadband subs. Mobile internet modems are sometimes sold as 'mi-fi'. You're not reliant on a house-based modem or an ISP contract, and since it's portable, it can come with you when you leave the house if you want.

[barakta]

So, Wowbagger, have you heard back from CEDR? Ombuds/regulators are all underfunded, excessively slow and often a complete waste of time. Infuriating, cos it'd be easier to small claims the fuckwits from the start.

[Wowbagger]

Have you checked Cityfibre? It is available from Vodafone Gigafast.

Not available to us yet, despite a cable being laid 2 years ago which meant that we could not get into the house.

My latest entry into the ongoing dispute:

I telephoned CEDR again this morning to find out why the case had - yet again - been closed. Again, I had not been consulted. I was quite dissatisfied with the conversation and the person I spoke to was quite rude.

The current financial situation is that Virgin have charged me £26 for my mobile phone for four consecutive months (1st July, 2nd August, 31st August, 1st October), a total of £104. For my television, internet and landline account, as mentioned previously I was charged £62.12 on 23rd September and for the next bill, Virgin have projected a charge of £47.35. This is a total of £108.47, an overcharge of £20.47.

So Virgin currently owe me £124.47. Please ensure that they refund this money to my account forthwith.

Virgin need to link my mobile to the main Virgin Media account so that my SIM is included within the £44 that I am supposed to be charged each month. I have forgotten how many times I have had to repeat this request.

This brings us to Virgin’s non-compliance with the contract that they and I agreed on 27th July 2020, and CISAS’s dealing with this. CISAS describes itself as a “Disputes Resolution Service”. Yet according to Zak Lutaya, the person I spoke to this morning, your modus operandi is to set a “legally binding” demand to Virgin with a deadline, and when that deadline expires, you assume, without checking with either Virgin or myself, that they have complied with your demand and close the case. Virgin, of course, ignore you and you then raise another “legally binding” demand and close the case when the deadline expires.

As I pointed out to Mr. Lutaya, these demands are not legally binding if there is no sanction for non-compliance. Your “disputes resolution service” is no such thing when you do not treat the two parties equally: you are not resolving this dispute - you are putting the entire onus upon me to continue to chivvy Virgin via yourselves.

I now put you on notice that if, in a fortnight’s time, i.e. 19th October 2021, this dispute is not fully resolved to my satisfaction, I shall be taking it to the small claims court for compensation and I will be reporting CEDR to Trading Standards because you are not a “disputes resolution service” at all. You are merely a toothless buffer, an extra layer of bureaucracy between the dissatisfied customer and a grossly incompetent and inefficient company.

Yours faithfully,

I have just had an email informing me that a moderator, who was appointed a little before Christmas, has found in my favour in this dispute. Virgin have to refund all the overcharging (currently 7 lots of £26 for my mobile phone and a few other odds & sods for the main bill amounting to about £43 I think, and £150 in compensation for all the time wasted.

I'll believe it when I see the money. They are so incompetent that I don't trust them to pay me the correct amount.

I wish there was a viable alternative to Virgin as a supplier of of internet connection round here. Repeated communication with Andrews & Arnold have indicated that the best we could get from them is about 10Mbps. We are getting 420Mbps from Virgin.

My contract ends on 26th January. I shall be taking my mobile phone elsewhere I think, and just having a data-only connection with Virgin. We already have our landline supplied by Virtual Landline,  a VOIP organisation, for £7.96 per month.

[Mrs Pingu]

Have Cityfibre cocked up if there's a line outside your house yet you can't get it, or is it full already?

Strangely Cityfibre seem to be installed on all the streets surrounding ours but on their website they claim they can't install it due to technical reasons. Not that we really need any faster than we have currently.

[Wowbagger]

I've been told that the Citifibre cable that was laid in September 2019 was a direct route from somewhere to the Civic Centre.

I've just accepted the ruling. Only then did it tell me that the amount of compensation can be a credit to my account. Given that I want to ditch the bastards, it means I am stuck with them for the foreseeable andd when my existing contract finishes in 3 weeks time, they can jack up the costs so that I end up with buggerall.

[rafletcher]

And what do you do that requires better than 10mps? 

[Mrs Pingu]

Why can't you you just stop the contract and ask for a refund?

[Paul H]

Why can't you you just stop the contract and ask for a refund?

This.
IMNAL, though I'm pretty sure if it's a refund they can't dictate how you spend it, it was always your money, even when they had it.  They can't say we''ll give you your money back only if you spend it with us!
If it's compensation, I'm less sure, though it should have been clear what you were accepting.

[Wowbagger]

Why can't you you just stop the contract and ask for a refund?

Quite possibly I can. I've contacted the arbitration mob (who state that they are not an ombudsperson) to make that point.

[Wowbagger]

My dog they are a bunch of obfuscating bastards.

I started a Whatsapp chat with Virgin at 8am. They were still insisting that my contract is from August 2021 - Feb 2023, despite the fact that I have just won a dispute against them based on he contract I agreed on 27/7/2020. The chat ended at about 3.30. I didn't get anywhere, other than to learn that the contract they are working to is not the one I agreed to and the one to by which the arbiter's decision was made.

Talk about losing the will to live.

[rafletcher]

Time to write to the Graun’s money pages?

[Wowbagger]

Time to write to the Graun’s money pages?

Not a bad idea. I'll probably do that tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to transfer my mobile number using a PAC code. Message back from Virgin: "Sorry we can't give you a PAC code just now. Our team is on hand to help - please give them a call on 789". Have they put my number on a watch list as a prisoner likely to abscond? I haven't got the mental strength to deal with the bastards again today.

[delthebike]

We have just ditched Virgin earlier today.     It took one 10 minute call, after they tried to keep us on with offers etc. Contract will end Mid February and we well have a BT fibre essentials broadband and landline, with our usual number - the one that BT gave to us when we first moved in 50 years ago, plus the extensions, - and we'll have access to BT wi-fi hotspots. A bit cheaper and enough broadband to do what we want now without noticeable slowing down.

Dammit! There goes the home network configuration again. 

Good luck with your exit Wow.

[Wowbagger]

Do you have a faster non-Virgin connection than we do, Del? Ours is rubbish.

[TimC]

I don't know if it's helpful, but when I moved into my current house in the sticks 6 years ago, I discovered that Open Reach had laid a fibre mainline not 100m away. I asked for and got an FTTP installation - without charge - while most properties nearby were getting by on a <1mbs 'broadband' copper connection. I have 300mbs reliably just now, with 900mbs available if I wish to pay for it. I have looked at other providers, but pretty much all have said 'max 10mbs' as their fibre maps are way out of date. Even showing them screenshots of speedtest data doesn't persuade them - computer says 'no'.

[rafletcher]

We've got a redundant BT fibre "cable" running right through our village.  It was intended as a dedicated line for, and indeed initially used by, the new Arla facility down the road, but it proved unreliable (so said the Openreach engineer who visited us last week) so another route was taken. Why we can't get hooked into the old one is anyones guess.

[TimC]

For mine, they had to install two telegraph poles to fly the cable over the rural A-road that the fibre mainline was under. Fortunately there was a junction box within reasonable distance, but it still must have cost them a packet (probably offset by government grants for rural broadband improvements). Of the 20-odd houses and the pub in the hamlet, only a couple have taken advantage of the FTTP, so I doubt OR are making any profit from it!

[Canardly]

Have a look at Pulse 8 Wow. They have an online speed forecaster, no contract and rates seems to be reasonable. Phone line is included.

[Wowbagger]

Have a look at Pulse 8 Wow. They have an online speed forecaster, no contract and rates seems to be reasonable. Phone line is included.

Thanks. I phoned them but they can't offer anything better.

I have also looked at my Virgin account again. There is a £393.35 credit in there, but of course they have reinstated my old contract (less mobile). And next week, that contract runs out and the monthly charge goes up to £78 or so. So in 5 months, that credit will be used up.

The question is, should I let them tie me into a new contract at a lower price, which will no doubt last 18 months, at about £50 a month?

[Wowbagger]

A 4g hub arrived from Three this morning. I plugged it in and turned it on, and it just worked seamlessly. The Wifi access points around the house all work and at the last count we got 41Mbps download and 36 upload speed. We tested it with a Signal call with Kim and we were both agreeably surprised at how well it worked. There will have to be a Zoom call at some point to check that. Our VOIP "landline" seems to work extremely well. I shall have to do a separate review at some point, but as a replacement for the awful Virgin, and for £14 per month for unlimited data, it seems to be very good indeed.

I have switched the Virgin hub off. Interestingly, despite them telling me that my Virgin account had been credited with almost £400 in overcharges and penalties, as well as the contract offering everything at £44 per month having been reinstated, somehow they still managed to lift £54.35 from my account today. There seems to be no connection whatever between the people who have been dealing (or, rather, not dealing) with my complaint and the staff who obfuscate over Whatsapp. Once I have calculated the final figure, I shall write to them this evening in strong terms about what a massive pile of steaming ordure they are, and that I will expect every penny of their overcharging, and the penalties awarded, to find its way into my bank account pdq, and if it doesn't I will take them to court.

[Wowbagger]

My letter to Virgin:

Dear Miss Brennan,

         I acknowledge receipt, via CISAS, of your letter dated 12/1/2022.

Firstly, let me say that, as a letter of apology, it is totally inadequate. You refer to “having let me down on this occasion”, but the occasion to which you refer was a whole litany of errors, omissions, obfuscation, evasion, excuses and untruths lasting for the entire 18 months of the contract which a member of your staff proposed, and I accepted, on 27/7/2020. An apology carries within it a promise to improve, but if anything the behaviour of your staff has deteriorated throughout. I have wasted vast amounts of valuable time in attempting to clarify the situation and make sure that I was charged the correct amount, but although, via CISAS, Virgin paid lip service to doing the right thing, that intention was never conveyed to the staff with whom I had to deal. This would appear to be company policy, so your “apology” is not accepted.

In your letter, you state that there will be £150 in compensation added as a credit, and a refund of £89.70, for which I should allow 2-3 working days. I have checked my bank account and I can categorically state that, 13 days later, no money has been refunded. Even in the face of the CISAS arbitration service, your statements unravel. Your company is entirely untrustworthy.

Furthermore, I was informed last weekend, via WhatsApp, that the amount of money to be refunded/credited to me was £393.35, a figure much closer to my records. I asked your staff member how that figure was arrived at, but whenever I persisted with a question, the member of staff terminated the conversation and handed me over to someone else, which required a very long delay and submitting my security details again. This seems to be standard practice, to wear down the customer into submission. On 15th January I opened a Whatsapp chat at 8am and closed it at 3.30pm, the only useful piece of information that I was able to glean being the amount (but not the breakdown) of what you owe me. (The amount of £393.35 stated in my WhatsApp chat of 15th January at 14:12, by staff member Jeric).

I asked your staff what I would be charged at the end of my existing contract and I was told that it would be £81 per month, and that was the lowest figure that they would be prepared to offer. Yet Virgin does offer contracts at £24.50 for new customers, rising to £44 after 18 months, for 100gb but no phone line or TV connection. This was the package I wanted. Why was I not offered one of these? The answer is quite obvious: Virgin are price-gouging in order that the compensation I have been offered would run out more quickly. This is sharp practice of the worst kind - paying yourselves my compensation.

It is for this reason that I have now cancelled my direct debits and will not be renewing my contract with Virgin, terminating a 25-year relationship with your company. I therefore expect you to refund the £393.35 you owe me to be transferred to my bank account, since a large percentage of that money consists of the amounts you overcharged me. I expect that money to arrive in my account no later than Tuesday 15th February, three weeks from the date of this letter. If it does not, then I will pursue Virgin through the courts.

Yours sincerely,

[Ham]

you missed the bit at the end: "In that event I shall hold you entirely liable for any additional costs incurred. Legal action will be instigated without any further notification. this is my last letter before action."




Best of luck

[Mrs Pingu]

Not sure if this is relevant
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/01/virgin-media-is-actively-offering-customers-discounts-which-unde/?utm_source=MSE_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=25-Jan-22-d092d8c6e324e04a071-61f072e50dbc60a163cef6688e128cb1&source=CRM-MSETIP-d092d8c6e324e04a071&utm_campaign=nt-hiya&utm_content=9