Bye-Bye Virgin
I’ve now been without my landline for a couple of weeks now. Although, I didn’t realise it for some days, as I was away and also because most of my friends phone me on my mobile number.
So on Friday, I did what I should have done when I moved in; I signed up with BT.
Today after a very long phone call, I cancelled Virgin. I did eventually get someone sensible, but as I had to ring on my mobile and I phoned them for perhaps twenty minutes, I suspect it wasn’t cheap.
It did however cost me over seventy pounds to get rid of them.
Hackney council today wrote to me saying that I could get rid of five heavy items a year by just giving them a call. If disposing of Virgin and their useless service were so easy.
Incidentally, all of their cabinets round here have had their doors stolen.
A Typical Virgin Cabinet in Hackney
In my experience, electrical equipment doesn’t like working in exposed conditions.
I shall now be using BT for phone and broadband, Freeview for television and the pub for watching football on Sky.
How Not To Contact Your Phone, Broadband, Energy or Media Supplier
My Virgin Media service is terrible, so I want to cancel. As an example, I haven’t had a landline for about 10 days now. Every time I try to get through to service, I end up on hold listening to terrible music. It’s probably cost me several pounds on my mobile. In one case they tried to see me more services. If I want more crap, there are many much better places to buy it, where I get some service.
As an aside here, could my terrible Virgin service, be due to the fact that their connection cabinets round here have no doors and are open to the elements.
I didn’t have the phone number to hand, so I did the obvious and typed “Virgin Media Phone Number” into Google.
After the adverts trying to sell me more Virgin services, there are some helpful companies that can connect you. I obvious don’t want more crap, so I ignored the adverts and as the helpful companies looked a bit dubious, I read about them first.
They are call referral services with expensive numbers and cost 10p a minute from a BT Landline and considerably more from a mobile. As I’ve only got my trusty Nokia 6310i, I didn’t even think about ringing them.
Virgin Media were the fifth in the list and there were about 10 of these call referral services.
By the way the number to ring for Virgin Media is 0845 454 1111.
Formula One Goes Partly to Sky
I’m actually not that bothered as I can get Sky on my cable. Especially, as they have said they are not going to have adverts during the racing. At least it didn’t go to ITV, who have so many adverts they can turn the best television into gibberrish.
My problem with Sky, is that I can’t get it over broadband, unless I sign up to their broadband.
I only want Sky Sports, so would be happy to pay on a pay-per-view basis over the Internet.
As to Virgin Cable, it’s crap, as the box is very unuser friendly and the channels are laid out illogically Since I’ve moved, I haven’t recorded anything at all, but I have watch a few programs through iPlayer on my computer.
Foolish Virgin
I got two letters today addressed to the occupier from Virgin Media today in addition to a prioperly addressed piece of junk mail.
As they still haven’t transferred my old number from my previous house to this one, I suppose I’m now 60% of the way to changing to someone else.
How Do You Banish Virgins?
Virgin Media is an frustrating company in that it designs so many things almost to annoy.
I’m using my Samsung Network at a friend’s house and some of the connection software for my home broadband keeps opening Virgin Broadband windows in Internet Explorer. Delete them and they reappear and often seem to replace something I want.
I do wish I’d installed Sky and used BT for my phone lines.
This is not to forget their rather inferior TV system, which is not up to the standard of Sky Plus and the fact that they still haven’t transferred my number from Suffolk.
I’ve just solved the Virgin windows by deleting the Virgin Media hub from this computer. So don’t install it, is my advice. I haven’t installed it on my laptop and that works fine, so I think it’s one of those unnecessary pieces of software companies like you to install, so they can track what you are doing or lead you to spend more money with them.
Has the Banking System Failed Us This Christmas?
I don’t have any specific issues, but it did seem that all of my payments and transfers seemed to be taking a day or two longer than normal. But then it is some years since Christmas and New Year has fallen squarely on a Saturday and Sunday. As I’ve moved, I also had set up quite a few utility direct debits, so perhaps I was putting a bit more strain in than most.
So perhaps if they did fail us, it was more in the matter of communicating the strain the system would be under.
If I have a personal issue, it might be with Virgin Media, as I can’t find any trace of my payment to them in my bank account. But this morning, I woke up with no TV and broadband. It is now working properly, although they haven’t been able to transfer my number yet.
So I think, I’ll be on the phone again on Monday.
Solving the Problem of Watching Sky or ITV Pictures and Getting Radio 5 Sound
As you may know from this blog, I’m allergic to two things; gluten and adverts. I don’t like having to continually switch whilst watching sport on Sky or ITV to BBC Radio 5, to avoid the annoying adverts and get a continuous commentary. In many cases too, the ITV coverage is not up to scratch and vital parts like goals are missed. To be fair to Sky, there’s nothing wrong with their coverage in general, it’s just the adverts, often for products that contain gluten. So they are a double irritant.
Virgin cable gets around this problem in some ways, because it has a Back button, so you can constantly use it to flip between, your preferred video and audio channels.
For Christmas I was given a pair of wireless headphones by Sennheiser, that plug into the headphone socket of a television or radio and give a good sound quality within range.
So I have plugged them into my Roberts DAB radio for good Radio 5 sound and just put the television on the corresponding video channel.
There are some other advantages.
- I can get good commentary all over my house and even in the road outside.
- The range also solves the tea and toilet break problems, as never do I have to miss any of the action. This works well with sport, but you’d probably need to pause the television for a break, whilst watching a serious drama.
- I’d also be interested to know to, how serious music lovers would find the quality of the sound through the headphones.
- I now adjust the volume on the headphones, so that if say I was watching something very loud, then I’m the only one gets the loud noise.
- Obviously, if you are watching with someone else, you just unplug the headphones and watch normally.
It strikes me that various families would find different ways to use one or more of these devices to avoid problems amongst themselves or with the neighbours.
To be fair, I know that the headphones are a good deal cheaper, than the cost of using a solicitor to fight an ASBO caused by a loud television. And not everybody likes Abba!
But whatever, they made a very good Christmas present for me!
A Media Survey for Virgin
I always fill in surveys honestly, so when Virgin asked me how my broadband, TV and phones were going I told them in that way. I gave their service a score of 3 out of ten and said I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else. They did allow me to give reasons and this is what I said.
1. I am still waiting for my previous BT number to be transferred. If I have to change it, then it’ll be an expense of several hundred pounds to change web sites and stationery.
2. The Virgin Media box has a poor interface, which I find irritating compared to my previous Sky+ box and Freeview recorder. Despite my stroke, I have a fearsome memory and if say I want a channel, I just type in the three-digit number. But with your box you must click OK as well. As I only watch and listen to about six channels anyway, that extra button is a real irritant. I have not used the record function yet, as it seems way to complicated. Remember, I made my money as a software designer, so I know about interfaces and your box interface rates about 1 out of ten.
I would give you 1 out of ten, but the support staff have been trying hard to get my number transferred and I think they are getting as frustrated with the non-transfer as I am.
I do hate surveys which just take scores as these can’t give meaningful results, when customers have had problems. They seem to work on the we know best principle and if you don’t like it tough!
They also had another box for comments at the end of the survey. I said this.
Because I’ve had a stroke and can’t read small print or use the telephone too well, I’d like to be able to e-mail problems in. What is the e-mail please? I also need that number transferred. BT say you haven’t asked them to do it and you say that BT sy the number isn’t active and other things. Something is seriously wrong. Or is it me, I once tried to transfer a number from Vodafone to O2 and it ended up with Orange. Only when Orange phoned me, did I realise why my late wife’s new mobile phone didn’t work!
James – Blogging as the Anonymous Widower
It will be interesting to see if I get anything more than the standard response.
Dissappointed with the Virgins
I say virgins, as all of the services are not really up to scratch. Or at least what I expect.
- The broadband has now failed five times and I have to switch off the modem and reboot every time. As it improved when I undid all the connections and reconnected them, I think it’s all down to a bad joint. But it’s annoying.
- They still haven’t transferred my previous landline number to the new connection.
- But the biggest problem is the design of the box that provides television. I give it about four out of ten, whereas I’d give my previous Sky-Plus nine. The reason it would only get that, is that it lacks the back button, which the virgin has.
- I’m also paying for ESPN and it’s not being delivered.
They will be getting an ear-wigging today.
Installing the Virgins
Men living alone have curious habits. But two things they need are decent broadband for the Internet and football on the television.
As the new house is in a cable area, one of the reasons, I visited yesterday was to get the cable connected.
By twelve and ahead of schedule, they were both working, after installation by a competent and charming young lad, who didn’t seem to make any mistakes, except leave a cable in his van and go back to retrieve it.
I also got a speed of 54 Mbps, when I’m only paying for 20!
So virgins aren’t as expensive as they used to be!
The Anonymous Widower 