Here is the full email I sent. I will not publish Neil's Email adress here on this forum.

Also, I will not disscuss the 100Mb trials here at all. So please do not even think of asking. Thankyou.

Sent: 03 November 2010 23:50

To: Berkett, Neil

Subject: Poor Customer Service

Hi Neil,

I am writing to you directly so as you can see about some issues that have come up, but are not being taken seriously.

Where do I start?

1) Cap on uploads in the evenings and Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

When I upgraded to 50MB February 2008, I done so on the understanding that there was never going to be a cap put on it. This was how it was sold to me.

It was only by chance, that I was invited to be part of the 100Mb pilot testers, that required me to look at the on line forum. It was here that I noticed an announcement about speed caps, and that limits were going to be placed on certain types of users. These changes were to take place as when network upgrades had been put into place to give the 10:1 DL/UL.

Having looked back at all my emails from VM, there is not one to say about VM changing my contract. With these changes having been put into place without written warning, then I would say that Virgin Media are in breach of contract. If I as a customer wish to make any changes or cancel my contract, I have to give Virgin Media 30 days’ notice. If that is the case, then Virgin Media should at least afford me and the rest of its customers the same grace, or wait till our 12 month contract is up, then apply the new caps.

2) Poor Customer Service.

If you care to look at the forums, you will see plenty of complaints about low speeds in the evenings, maybe a couple where it involves daytime.

I was affected very badly at the end of September, beginning of October by very low speeds in the evening, even to the point where I had no Internet service at all.

A lot of the replies given by the forum mods was a standard thing saying that there was a fault with the modem. IE: Power levels too high or too low. If that was the case, then the problems would also had occurred during the day.

I eventually phoned India and asked them to put me through to Tech Support UK, where the guy I was dealing with was very helpful, but he just could not figure out at first where my problem was. His words to me were “Although my power levels were marginal, that should not be giving me the problem that I had”. The guy arranged for a tech person to come and see me the following week. The very next day, Sunday, A VM van went to the green cabinet just round the corner from me, and low and behold, everything started to work ok. However, for the last 3 weeks, I have still had to suffer very low download speeds in the evening. Speeds have been averaging around 25Mb. That represents a 75% loss of service. I do not live in student land either BTW.

3) Poor Online Info.

At one time, when there was planned outages or faults occurring, one used to be able to go to the status page and it would give you a list of current faults, outstanding faults and planned outages. Now if you go to the status link, all it ever gives you is a green tick for your account, even when there is a fault. I would recommend that VM go back to how it used to be with showing faults and planned outages.

4) Customer Relations.

What customer relations? Somehow, Virgin Media have lost their way over the last year as far as customer relations go. Why the big secrecy about Network upgrades? There is nothing published at all about these, but I know that these are the main reasons why most of us have been having major problems in the evenings. What is so wrong about telling your customers and keeping them up to date? At one time, VM used to tell us things. At least we had an idea as to what was going on. More to the point, When? But not anymore.

I have been in customer orientated jobs for the last 38 years now. In that time, I have learnt that to keep your customers and to have potential customers recommended to you, you have to have a very good customer service base. That means understanding what your customers want from you and what you are prepared to do to help them. I appreciate that there are some people out there that don’t deserve to be treated like a customer, but that is a very very small percentage. I have been a loyal customer with the advent of NTL, then Virgin Media for the last ten years or so. Apart from a couple of problems, I have always found the service great, more so, once 50Mb came along. I must have gone about 18 months with no problems at all, until just recently. Yes, I still want to remain a customer, however, Virgin Media have got to look at their customer relations, or lack of it should I say.

I look forward to your reply.

Yours,

Here is the full reply.

I'm really sorry you're having such a poor experience with us at present, Neil has asked me to investigate this for you.

Firstly, we do not currently have any plans to introduce traffic management for our 50mb customers, however, this may change in the future. If we do make a change we will contact you in advance and you will have the option to cancel your service with no penalties or upgrade to a level which may not be traffic managed.

If you're having problems with your 100mb trial there is a dedicated line for you to call to report any issues and details of this should be shown on any trial documentation you have received. This is a new product and is something we are testing so as such there may be some teething problems and we really appreciate your patience and help with this. As you might have seen we are starting to roll this out across the country within the next few months so any input you can give is really helpful to ensuring our service is the best it possibly can be.

At Virgin Media we aim to be as transparent as possibly and we are continuously updating our network, however, this isn't something our front line staff would necessarily be aware of. I'll certainly speak with our internet team to see if we can go back to updating the site with planned outages and repairs that may be taking place.

Thanks

Heather Robinson |Chief Executives Office

Virgin Media, PO Box 238, Wythenshawe, Manchester, M22 0WJ