Virgin Media / UPC

Trinity10

Oh Dear, how do I start. We have been customers of NTL/UPC and now Virgin Media since we moved into our home 6 years ago and for the last year and a half our internet/tv/phone keeps disconnecting. After many fruitless, logged telephone calls with UPC we've had 3 engineers come out to our home to say there's no problem. My husband is an engineer and knows quite a bit about technology and kept saying that the problem was outside our house and not inside. Finally an engineer checked outside and yes, there's a problem with the cable and needs to be changed. This was over 6 months ago now and it still has not been replaced. The frustration is tv programmes on 'serieslink' record aren't recording or there's fuzz on the tv or there's no programme information (so you can't see what's on)or there's no internet or no phone. We have spoken to Virgin Media so many times now and no-one is willing to sort the problem out. And it took 3 hours one day for my Husband just to get through to the Irish desk!!! So we've decided to ditch Virgin Media and they say we can't that we signed up to a new contract over the phone last July and are in contract till this July!!!! Like what, seriously, with the bad connection and awful customer service? Oh we could cancel but it would cost us 200 euro to get out of our contract. I don't remember saying yes to getting locked into another contract for a year and they put up their fee by 5 euro so surely this is a breach of contract on their part for changing it. Fed-up, frustrated and looking for a bit of advise. Thanks

L1011

Ask for recordings of the contract agreement in June - if they don't have proof they'll drop the demands.

You had a period of time to cancel without penalty after the price increases but didn't use it, so the chance is gone.

"fuzz on the TV" isn't possible with digital, though. Signal degredation makes it look like lego blocks, not fuzz. If its actually fuzz either the box or your TV is faulty.

Trinity10

Thanks I'll ask for the recording.
Yes, they told us on the phone when we tried to cancel we had a period to cancel but didn't so the cool off was over.
The 'fuzz' isn't the tv, we've had the problem before and they changed the box and it was fine for a while.
Many thanks

L1011

Take some pictures of the TV and upload here. If the box is replaced and it actually appears as "fuzz" it is, unfortunately, your TV.

If its macroblocking (like this: http://smg.photobucket.com/user/_A600/media/xbmc/screenshot000.png.html) its the incoming connection but I would never consider that fuzz.

dub45

Trinity10 wrote: »

Oh Dear, how do I start. We have been customers of NTL/UPC and now Virgin Media since we moved into our home 6 years ago and for the last year and a half our internet/tv/phone keeps disconnecting. After many fruitless, logged telephone calls with UPC we've had 3 engineers come out to our home to say there's no problem. My husband is an engineer and knows quite a bit about technology and kept saying that the problem was outside our house and not inside. Finally an engineer checked outside and yes, there's a problem with the cable and needs to be changed. This was over 6 months ago now and it still has not been replaced. The frustration is tv programmes on 'serieslink' record aren't recording or there's fuzz on the tv or there's no programme information (so you can't see what's on)or there's no internet or no phone. We have spoken to Virgin Media so many times now and no-one is willing to sort the problem out. And it took 3 hours one day for my Husband just to get through to the Irish desk!!! So we've decided to ditch Virgin Media and they say we can't that we signed up to a new contract over the phone last July and are in contract till this July!!!! Like what, seriously, with the bad connection and awful customer service? Oh we could cancel but it would cost us 200 euro to get out of our contract. I don't remember saying yes to getting locked into another contract for a year and they put up their fee by 5 euro so surely this is a breach of contract on their part for changing it. Fed-up, frustrated and looking for a bit of advise. Thanks

There are many threads on the VM forum about series link

Under the consumer directive when you enter a new agreement online or over the phone the company concerned are legally obliged to give you a considerable amount of information specific to your agreement in a "durable format" otherwise the contract is not valid. Did you get this information from UPC/VM at any stage?

Confirmation of contract
The trader must provide confirmation of the concluded contract to you in a durable format, such as a letter or email. It should include the information mentioned above, if not already supplied in a durable format. It should be provided within a reasonable time after the contract was concluded, and at the latest:

When the goods are being delivered or
Before a service is provide

dmdrennan

Same issue here - Originally using UPC and still have a UPC modem (cisco epc3925) - now with virgin and need to reset model often and reconnect pc to internet very often and this is extremely frustrating, would it improve if I got a virgin media modem?

icdg

We don’t drag up old threads.

Additionally, the query is not really appropriate to the Cable Television forum, and had it been posted as a new thread, would have been moved to Broadband.