Losing the will to live….. And then…

Sounds dramatic doesn’t it – but dealing with Virgin Media must have an effect upon the nations suicide rates! Luckily I appear to have survived, my problem has finally been resolved, the experience was not a pleasant one though.

I thought I would be in my grave before this was sorted!

We were almost at the 3 week mark for my issue with Virgin – I won’t summarise the story, you can look here for the trail in my blog (I have even given Virgin their own category as they are a major contributor now!).

Suffice to say the depth of incompetence here was staggering. Initial advice and action at the call centre was all wrong (and numerous ‘untruths’ appear to have been told).

I knew from my wifes experiences that I needed to escalate the matter from the call centre as quickly as I could, and I did. My email to the MD was answered personally by him within 30 minutes (and at 9.30 at night) – so fair enough I was impressed.

Added to that Sophie in the CEO’s office has been helpful and has finally managed to sort the issue for me – but she had to take over from the three ’experts’ that were given the job in the first place. Apparently the IT issue was being dealt with by the head of IT eventually!

Virgin added lots of freebies to the phone over the last 3 weeks, which are appreciated but how about actually providing decent service in the first place Virgin? I find it appalling that a company that has Richard Branson’s name on it can be so bad! And the number of people that have told me their tales of woe with Virgin in the last few weeks beggars belief!

So the matter is resolved (as far as I know) – am I a happy customer? Well I am certainly happier than I was, but Virgin really need to address a few basic issues before they have me fully back on board!

 

The Virgin chronicles – a brief update!

Nice adverts Richard - now how about sorting my problem out?

As anyone who reads this blog will by now be aware I have ‘a bit of an issue’ with Virgin Mobile/Media that has now been rolling along for 17 days. I am beginning to get slightly confused as I was originally dealing with Virgin Mobile and was under the impression that they were a separate entity to Virgin Media (certainly the deal I am attempting to use was sold to me on that basis). However things have moved on…..

I am now definitely dealing with the Virgin Media complaints department – I have a direct number if anyone needs it. I am also now onto my fourth ‘expert’ within the department – and more exciting I have an extension to ring now that will put me straight through to Matthew who is my new contact.Is this an indication that they are finally taking the matter seriously – or just that I have now educated them in the ways of good customer care?

Matthew has got off to a shaky start – I asked for any calls regarding the matter to come via my own mobile number and not my son Sam’s, (it is his number that we are trying to sort out), but he tried ringing Sam’s first. However a quick email to me subsequently saved the situation! Plus point also for contacting on a Bank Holiday!

But, we are now into week three with no answer in sight. I am told that the IT department are still ‘looking into it’, however I would hope they may move to ‘doing something about it’ anytime soon!

I think I may have finally worked out Virgins customer complaint game plan – make it take so long to resolve that when it finally happens I am really appreciative? Hate to tell you Virgin but when it is finally sorted that is only the beginning…

 

Virgin Mobile – more issues – and then a light at the end of the tunnel?

sorry - I need something to smile at!

I have been having a jolly time this week – as expected my contact with Virgin Mobile has not been productive or stress free. We started our little charade back on Saturday morning – bright and early. The task was simple (or so I thought). Transfer my son from pay as you go to a contract, something that most mobile companies should be able to do easily – but not it seems Virgin.

Since Saturday;

I have made 6 calls to Virgin.

I have spent two and a half hours on the phone to them!

I have had various 24 or 72 hour guarantees pass with no progress.

I have been ‘mislead’ twice

I have never received the promised calls back or texts to confirm the (hoped for) progress.

Oh – and although they tell me the phone contract has been set up – it hasn’t!

Getting to the end of my tether I decided to email the CEO of Virgin Mobile UK, Graeme Oxby, I doubted he would even get the email – they seem very good at deflecting complaints and then don’t act when you do complain. However I have recieved a quick reply directly back from him (and this was at 9.30 last night). So thank you Mr Oxby, I am impressed by your personal interest in my issues

So may be there is a light at the end of the tunnel? Mr Oxby has told me he will get someone from his team “to get in touch to sort things out”.

I await with interest.

 

What is it with Virgin Mobile?

I have a history with Virgin Mobile (VM) – if you have a moment and want a laugh you can read about it here. I had hoped that we had reached a position with them whereby things were back on the straight and level. Sadly we are not, my conversations with them over the last two days frankly beggar belief.

Just to set the scene, my sons mobile has been on a pay as you go basis with Virgin Mobile since he has had it. He is now developing a social life so it’s time to transfer to a monthly contract. Virgin Mobile offer a £5 deal for Virgin Media customers that provides 3000 texts and 100 any network minutes (plus unlimited calls to other virgin mobile numbers) – a good deal. So we decided to take them up on it, and this is when our ‘fun’ started.

To be fair my wife did warn me it wouldn’t be straight forward, her experiences are pretty torrid with VM, I should have listened!

The initial call to transfer was made at 8am Saturday morning – but we were told there was a credit score issue so it had to be transferred into my name. Strange we thought, as the two phones already on that account are on direct debits for a paltry amount – but we played along. We were told the transfer would be done in 24 hours and then we could sort out the change in tariff.

So Sunday morning comes and we make the call – only to be told it would now take 72 hours – call be old-fashioned – but I wasn’t impressed, I requested to speak to a manager.

After 30 minutes on the phone to the manager we learnt that a credit score had not actually been done on my wife – so that was a blatant lie from our first phone call – and that the number was now ‘locked up’ in the transfer between my wife and I, so nothing could be done currently!

We are now awaiting a call to tell us the transfer to me has happened, but it ‘may not be until tomorrow’ – not good enough VM!

I have no issue with Virgin Media, they are great to deal with, but the constant pain from VM is getting very tiresome. Why don’t they care about how they treat their customers? I will update this as soon / if the matter is resolved.

As usual I am not holding my breath!

UPDATE 1

As expected the promised phone calls did not materialise, so I had to chase Virgin Mobile. I was told that the number was still ‘locked up’ and they would now have to escalate it to the IT department – but that would take up to another 72 hours.

So currently we are looking at a potential 6 days to achieve something so simple that most companies do it in minutes – but not VM!

I did have to speak to a manager again (but you knew that already didn’t you!). Time to see if things start to move a bit quicker?

UPDATE 2

It is now Thursday evening, the contract is not set up still! I have made two and a quarter hours of calls to Virgin, many promises have been made – and broken. I am promised a call by 10 tonight, am I to be surprised?

UPDATE 3
I have emailed the MD of Virgin Mobile – and received a reply – things are looking up!

 

Spam texts!

We have all got used to (and in most cases managed to filter out) spam emails – at work our spam filter removes a huge amount of spam – around 90% of the mail arriving at our domain is spam!

There is now however a new and more annoying spam – the spam text – as far as I can ascertain this is illegal but they are landing on my phone in increasing numbers. Today I received the text shown here, I know it’s spam but I assume they must manage to get some people to reply at which point I assume they ‘reel them in’ in somehow.

The number used is 07427 046793, hopefully publicising it will make it easy for people to find it as spam on the web.

If you get spam you can report the texts to your network – details below;

Vodafone –  Forward the spam message to VSPAM (87726).

Orange - forward them to 7726 free from your Orange phone.

02 also allow you to report on 7726.

I would also try forwarding the message onto 7726 if you are with T-Mobile or Three.

Perhaps it is also time for the networks to try to stop this misuse somehow – they must be aware of ‘mass texting’ passing through their systems?

 

Network coverage – finally some truth?

The sample map

I have blogged before about my ‘issues’ with regards to 3G coverage in the UK. The phone companies would all like our business so all claim to provide good coverage for smartphone users. My personal experience suggests that no one carrier is massively different to another – all of them are sadly lacking, particularly in the more rural parts of the UK.

The BBC have recently carried out an extremely interesting experiment to show what 3G coverage really is like across the country. They commissioned an app for Android phones that once installed provided information back to a central database of signal strength across the UK. The results are now in and available on an interactive map, and certainly to me look pretty accurate! If I check my home and my mother’s home postcodes the signal strength reported certainly reflects my experiences. It is reported that those testers able to receive a data connection only got a 3G signal 75% of the time.

More importantly it is generally less coverage than is shown on the networks own maps! Have a look for yourself, the link below takes you to the relevant webpage into which you can enter your postcodes – you may be surprised by what you find.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14582499

About the map;
1. 42 million locations have been recorded
2. White space represents areas where no tests were conducted
3. Each tile represents a maximum area of approximately 200m x 200m
4. A green tile means that handsets spent most of their time on 3G in that area
5. A purple tile means handsets spent most of their time on 2G

As usual the network operators are staying quiet, isn’t it about time that they came clean and admitted that their coverage is nowhere as good as it should be?

 

Told you so!

I blogged earlier this week about our experiences with Vodafone at work after a good few years with O2 – my conclusion was that they could do better, much better!

To be fair following a direct email to the MD of Vodafone by my colleague Tim Garratt they have done! We now have an account manager (apparently we should have had one before, and the man we thought was our account manager actually wasn’t – confusing!). Anyway our new (or is it first?) account manager (Nathan from Newark) has so far sorted out our issues and has given me his direct mobile number for future contact - so all in all a good start. Just a shame its 12 months late!

My other ‘beef’ with Vodafone was their claim to have the best network – I don’t think they do (O2 was better) and it appears I was right! Ofcom have just released their results from testing the major networks and guess what?

On average, mobile download speeds were found to be quickest on the O2 network

Now this was no small-scale test, they carried out 4.2 million speed tests across the country and found the average download speed across all networks was 1.5 megabits per second (Mbps), rising to 2.1Mbps in better coverage areas.

Interestingly Orange fared worst in the research with its average download speeds slower than any other network. T-Mobile also came out slower than Vodafone, 3 and O2.

As well as achieving success in the download speed tests, O2 also recorded a lower average latency than 3, Orange and Vodafone. Latency is calculated by the time it takes for a data packet to travel from a user’s PC to a third-party server and back again.

The tests were done from ‘dongles’ rather than smart phones, but still give a clear indication of who gives the best service – and sorry Vodafone it’s not you!

 

Vodafone 12 months in

I realised this weekend that we have been with Vodofone at work now for almost 12 months. We had been with O2 (since the launch of the iPhone in the UK) and the move to Vodafone was on the back of a great deal (they wanted us) and the promise of much better coverage of the UK.

So, how has the first 12 months been?

My great hope was that Vodafones ‘famed’ coverage would be much better than O2′s. Unfortunately I have to report that I have actually been very unimpressed! In my view it is not any better than O2, and in many cases is worse!

At home on O2 I had a fantastic 3G conection – on Vodafone its poor, GPRS at the best (luckily I have a wireless router so can use my excellent Virgin broadband connection).

Out and about it is possible that the basic phone coverage (for voice) is slightly better. But 3G coverage is not, and in some cases it is worse than their competitors! As an example when I visit my Mother in Malmesbury in Wiltshire my iPhone on Vodafone is GPRS only, my wife is on Virgin (who I believe use T Mobiles masts), she gets a full 3G signal!

So thats a fail for signal on Vodafone. What about customer service?

On O2 we had an account manager (as we do on Vodafone), he was always easy to get hold of (even when away on maternity leave!), any request was quickly and efficiently dealt with (we have 35 iPhones so often have issues).

Our Vodafone account manager models himself on the Scarlet Pimpernel! He is difficult to raise and when you do finally get hold of him he passes you onto someone else – he was much more attentive when trying to get us away from O2!

So my overall impression after 12 months with Vodafone? Could do better! (and the grass is not always greener on the other side!)

 

Virgin mobile still appear to be ‘incapable’ of billing correctly!

Some while ago I blogged about my wifes problem with Virgin mobile and their total inability to sort out what would appear to be a simple matter of billing her correctly.

2008 advert - did they know something?

At the time of my blog I said that Virgin had sorted it out for two months as they corrected that months billing and put a credit in place for the following month – but I would wait for the proof that it was correct at month 3 before letting out my breath!

Well, surprise surprise – the two months have now passed and we have a problem again! The bill is wrong and yet another call is needed to get it sorted – will they get it correct this time or are they trying to lose us as customers?

The call has been made and the situation is sorted for another two months – it’s still the fault of the IT department apparently – they are very slow it appears!

In all other respects I have found Virgin to be excellent – but there is only so much that one can take! The advert shown here was from 2008 and used in Canada – but seems rather apt in this case!

We currently have three mobiles, TV, telephone and internet package with Virgin – I have to say that Sky have some nice deals on at the moment and I am sure other mobile companies can’t be as bad at billing as Virgin – can they?

Come on Virgin – I am sure Richard Branson would have something to say about this if he was aware!

 

iPhone 4 – Design over practicality?

I blogged recently about iOS4 and the fact that we were about to get new iPhones at work on the back of our contract renewal and move to Vodafone. (It is fair to say that I am a bit of a geek when it comes to gadgets – and particularly PDA’s).  

So last Friday when the new phones were delivered to work, I was quite excited (sad I know!). Our Vodafone sims didn’t go live until Tuesday of this week, so I had the weekend to reinstall my iPhone from the back up of my old 3GS and have a play!   

First impressions were good;   

iPhone 4 - Design over practicality?

 

 The display is very good, the best I have seen on a smart phone and pin sharp. (It reminds me of the VGA display on my old Loox 720 pocket PC which was well ahead of the opposition in its day.)   

The build quality is also excellent, it feels much more solid. However in my opinion it does not actually feel as comfortable in the hand as the old 3GS. It also feels much heavier (although apparently it is only fractionally heavier).   

Call quality also seems better.   

However, there are a few ‘issues’ as far as I am concerned;   

iOS4 is great, I love the folders etc.   

But, since upgrading my 3GS two weeks ago, and also on my first iPhone 4 (more on that later), my phone does not ring when connected to the bluetooth in my car! I have to have the radio on so that when it cuts to silent I know I have a call coming in!   

Signal strength – this is something that has made the press, the ‘correct way to hold the phone’ story;   

Yes, it does appear to have an effect on the signal if you hold it ‘wrong’. But I have found that having a case actually makes little difference. It appears to be more related to covering the bottom end of the phone with your hand. If I hold the phone sideways and by its top only, I can get a 3G signal at home. If I hold it ‘normally’ it drops to basic GPRS!   

It is difficult to judge this accurately at home, as we have changed from O2 and their 3G signal was much stronger where I live. I have not had any problem with voice calls at home, so cannot fault that. However a smart phone lives or dies by its data, a lack of abilityto pull in a good signal for this is significant in my view.   

I do wonder if in trying to build what is without doubt a very ‘pretty’ phone, Apple have caused itself some issues?   

I particularly worry about this because of my experience this morning!   

My iPhone 4 (which was less that a week old) stopped working completely!   

It would not link to iTunes or reboot. It also had lost its identity, it had no IMEI number! I am lucky as we have some spares at work, so I will be back up and working shortly. However, my previous iPhones, a 3G and a 3GS both worked without a problem over 3 years. I am a careful user (some would say excessively!)   

I use my iPhone to carry lots of data and to organise my life (it is a PDA after all), I was looking forward to iPhone 4, it was Apples third version which is normally when they get it right.   

I am left wondering if this is the one that will disprove the rule. I really hope Iam wrong…………..