Yet another admin failure of Virgin Media

    I am really sorry that I have had to resort to contact you once again (you resolved a complaint of mine, one of many
    with yourselves, going back to January last year. This latest admin 'cock-up' has left me with no alternative but to
    seriously consider defecting to Sky after the many years I have persevered with your company after it took over NTL.

I was sent a flyer through the post a couple of months ago concerning an offer of experiencing a whole month of your XL
tv package free, which after checking with your call centre that no-extra money would be debited from my account unless
I agreed to continue with the package after the 28 days was up, I decided to go ahead. Anyhow, during the month it
became obvious that your package was not what I expected. Being your top package I was expecting Sky Sports to be
included for that sort of money so I therefore phoned and cancelled within 21 days, thus reverting back to my old package.

On 3rd August, to my horror, I discovered you had debited £19.83 too much from my account so I immediately
telephoned you call centre. The first gentlemen I spoke to on 3rd August basically told me that you had debited
the extra in respect of the XL package even though I had cancelled within the cooling-off period. I explained to
him that I explicitly asked when thinking about taking up the offer whether any extra would be collected unless I agreed
to continue with the XL package and was assured that this would not happen.

He refused to put me through to his manager to initiate a formal complaint and instead, cut me off, or at least he
thought he had. Instead I stayed on the phone, as I  initially thought I was still talking to me, but it became obvious
very quickly that I was in fact listening to him talk to the next customer in his queue. I heard the entire conversation
and found it very interesting that the customer was complaining about the very same thing that I had.
After this call I was sill being ignored so I hung up and telephoned back asking to speak to a manager.
Eventually, I got put through to Ross Steel and explained everything that had gone on to him.

After refusing at first to refund my money, eventually after I told him that I would not hesitate to contact yourself,
as I had done previously to get things sorted, he agreed that he would request a BACS payment to my account from head office.
He assured me that the £19.83 would be in my account within 5 working days.
In the meantime, I advised him that I was cancelling my direct debit instruction.
I also asked him to raise a Data Protection Act breach with your Data Protection Officer,
which he confirmed would be looked into.

By the 12th August, 7 full working days later, the money was still not in my account so I phoned your call centre and
asked to speak to Ross Steel. I spoke to Chris in Customer Services at 10.10am who advised that he could not put me through
as he didn't have a number for Mr Steel but would send him an urgent email for Mr Steel to phone me back today.

By 14th August, still no money nor phone call from Mr Steel. I therefore phoned your call centre once again and spoke to
supervisor Stephanie Kelly at 2.25pm. She advised me that Mr Steel shouldn't have promised the BACS refund as it cant be
done. I was fuming at this point as she was telling me that no refund would be issued, instead I would have to wait a
month for it to be adjusted on my next bill or that it could possibly by refunded by debit card, which she later said
was not possible. I demanded to be put through to Mr Steel or his manager and was told once again this was not possible.
Instead, she promised that she would chase Mr Steel and ensure he phoned me back today. If she could not get hold of him,
she assured me that she would make sure someone called me back without fail.

17th August, surprise surprise !! still no refund nor phone call. Now at this point I was about to give up and refer the
matter to Neil Berkett via yourself but I thought I would give them one last chance. This time I spoke to Gail, a
Customer Service Team Leader on your Bell Tel call centre. She promised me a call after speaking to Ross Steel or his manager.
Fair do, she did infact phone back and told me that Mr Steel had made a mistake and shouldn't have promised an refund as
it cannot be done. I know this is false information as your company have the facility to do adhoc BACS payments to any
account you like. Any small size company upwards has this facility. Anyhow, I advised her that I would take this matter
up with yourself now. When I also asked her what had been done about the DPA breach, after looking through the notes she
advised me that nothing had been noted in this respect. I find this astonishing as Ross Steel had advised me in a
conversation on 3rd August that the call handler who had thought he had cut me off had probably placed me on conference
call option by mistake and he would ensure that a potential breach was logged.

Today I telephoned your call centre to reinstate my direct debit instruction and to add insult to injury they refused !!!!
saying that I was in debt by £11 and I had to pay this before the new mandate could be set up. I asked when this
amount was owing from and was told that it is not even due until the 5th September. I asked why the new DDI could not
pick this up and was given no reason accept  that it could not be done.

I have be left once again, totally stressed out by these dealings with your admin teams and I think it's time I looked
elsewhere for my services.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Paul Cottam
Tel: 015--------
Mobile: 075--------
    

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