virgin poor service

[Deadyankee]

i wouldn't of minded as much as i do, if they transferred my shows every time they swapped the box. I work long shifts and the record and series link was my way to enjoy my tv, each time they took them i had hours of things i didnt watch, and often while recording things the box would freeze then we would have to pull the plug resulting in failed recordings

 

Tell me about it. There is no way of saving the recordings, I looked into it and it would appear to be a right faff. I would be handy to have some sort of cloud based account that your recordings go to as well as your box, then when you sign in if you box is replaced, it redownloads your recordings to the new box.

 

But we have found the Sky boxes to be far superior to the TIVO.

[flexeh]

Well had some replys from VM, however im a bit annoyed as alot of what i want in my SAR is not available, so i wonder if thats why they are not gonna offer me anything.

 

heres the emails

 

I first Sent

 

Dear VM

 

I am writing in reference to your letter dated 12 June 2014 and Ref: XXXXX

 

After reading your letter i am a little disappointed, it gives the impression that i had only raised issues with my service in October 2013, when in fact there were numerous phone calls and engineering visits which i believe you have missed whilst looking into this. I believe by October 2013 i was on my 4th TiVo Box, surely being on the 4th one should indicate some problems, each time a box was taken, no offer of transferring my stored material onto the new box was offered, so in fact I missed a lot of the programs and series i was enjoying through the TiVo’s supplied by Virgin Media being faulty. The TiVo is sold by VM as this wonderful box which allows you to record and catch up any-time you want, however i was unable to do this.

 

When I first opened this letter i thought it may of been from one of your staff members who i spoke to 14/15th May who said he would write to me, which now 1 month later I'm still waiting for, it’s funny how its only taken you 4 days, especially when I asked to be compensated for all the problems with the service of both the television and almost every person I've spoken to thus far at Virgin Media.

 

I'm disappointed by your response if I'm honest, because I feel the service provided was below par, in all aspects. I have written multiple emails asking if I'm being ignored which I will happily show you which perhaps has been unavailable to you whilst investigating, as it seems you haven’t been able to see them on the system, which would hopefully cast doubt about you feeling the customer service team, faults and field service team all tried their up-most to deliver responses possible at that time. The fact of the matter is some responses took over a month or took emails to chase up. If you believe all that is good customer service then our views on customer service differ dramatically. I did in fact thank Andy when a disconnection was arranged as you have quickly pointed out in your letter; however this was done out of courtesy and for all the help received as at the time he was only one of the people at VM who seemed to care about the complaint.

 

As I stated before I am not happy with the service given and that on multiple occasions that i had been ignored by Virgin Media, can you advise me of the address to send a subject access request and the admin fee Virgin charge, and if at all possible provide me with a email address for the data controller so I could look into emailing my signed SAR to. As part of my SAR I would like to know a few things:

 

would engineer notes and forms be available from their attendance and work they did

Receipts from equipment changes and what equipment was changed and when,

Names of all attending Engineers and Id Numbers.

Are Screen grabs of all notes held on my account stored.

The duration on which you keep call recordings. and when supplied would it be on disc or transcribed?

 

 

 

I look forward to hearing back from you soon

 

Regards

 

Steve

 

Dear Mr Flexeh

Thank you for the below mail, the content of which has been noted.

Please submit your request in writing specifying what information you require, enclosing a cheque for £10 made payable to Virgin Media, to

 

Virgin Media

Data Subject Access Request

PO Box 238

Wythenshawe

Manchester

M23 0WJ

 

Please allow up to 40 days for us to respond

 

From your e-mail below relating to this request, I can advise the following:

 

If an engineer added notes to a service order, these would be available

There are no receipts available for any equipment changes.

All names and ID numbers are removed before providing copies of account notes

Screen grabs will be available

Transcripts of calls are not provided.

 

Kind regards

 

VM

 

Hi VM

 

Thankyou for your swift reply.

 

I would just like some more details please over a few answers you have given as i am a little confused.

 

As you have said there are no equipment receipts, will all equipment changes be recorded on a account, including Tivo box numbers, as i will need this information to back up the amount of times ive had items changed. There should be a record due to paring the box and card details.

 

Regarding engineer forms, as part of my SAR i will be requesting the notes they complete at the scene as well as any they have fed back to the office, if they didnt feedback to the office then these notes will be the only record. The notes at the scene are carbon copy paper and the customer is given a copy at the time, so there should be a way to have these as part of the SAR, as these will also depict dates and times of attendance and also signature of myself and the engineer confirming work carried out.

 

Can you advise the lengh of time you keep call recordings, if you do not provide transcripts? as i would like these, as a communications company i would expect the majority being recorded.

 

I look forward to hearing back from you

 

Regards

 

Flexeh

 

Dear Mr Flexeh

 

I'll try and clarify what we do and do not supply when a customer requests a DSAR.

 

1) You may ask us for dates when equipment was replaced

 

2) The field engineer service notes are kept for 3 months then shredded

 

3) We do not provide transcripts of calls. Not all our calls are recorded. Where we do record them, it's for training and quality monitoring purposes. As such there is no requirement to keep them for any specific time frame. Historically these calls are used for the purpose above and then deleted, usually within 30 days.

 

Kind regards

 

VM

 

I was always led to believe things should be kept at least a year not 3 months like he suggests with engineer notes. Also as a telecommunications company i would of thought they kept calls.

 

i like the bit "you may ask us" thing is they could always change the date that is why i wanted the engineer reports.

 

is there gonna be any benefit of this SAR that has info i want not included?

 

Cheers guys

 

Steve

[rebel11]

Hi flexeh

 

Contact the ICO as their should be an industry standards for the telecommunications industry regarding data retention. It does sound very poor indeed.

 

http://ico.org.uk/concerns/getting

 

http://ico.org.uk/for_organisations/data_protection/the_guide/information_standards/principle_5

[flexeh]

Hi flexeh

 

Contact the ICO as their should be an industry standards for the telecommunications industry regarding data retention. It does sound very poor indeed.

 

http://ico.org.uk/concerns/getting

 

http://ico.org.uk/for_organisations/data_protection/the_guide/information_standards/principle_5

 

See do you think I should SAR first and see what I get or just go straight to ICO? Thing is would engineer notes be classed As a none important thing.

 

See problem is I'm gonna have VM telling me what dates things were changed and not really have any wiring backing it up.

[rebel11]

You are seeking to get information from the ICO, give them the information that you have been provided in the two emails from Virgin Media, they should be able to tell you if that is acceptable. You are trying to find out if they have fallen short.

 

See do you think I should SAR first and see what I get or just go straight to ICO? Thing is would engineer notes be classed As a none important thing.

 

See problem is I'm gonna have VM telling me what dates things were changed and not really have any wiring backing it up.

[flexeh]

had a couple more email correspondence with them. Have lodged a ICO complaint / querie so waiting for outcome.

 

Heres the email i sent following the latest i recieved and see VM reply which i feel is pretty rude tbh, i also dont think its worth a SAR as key information i want isnt going to be there.

 

Hi VM

 

Thank you for your email back, sorry its taken a while to get back to you but I've been busy with the kids. I have some further questions and statements which I am hoping you can help me with before I submit my Subject Access Request.

 

Apart from you telling me what dates i had new equipment, is there any screen prints or any confirmation on the exact dates? I would prefer something which showed the dates rather than just being told as such.

With Field service engineering notes, what happens to them, are they submitted word for word?, as 3 months is not a long time frame to hold documentation in reference to accounts. In the line of work i do we are required to keep documentation for at least a year if not more depending on what it relates to.

Call recordings or transcripts are not available? That is a little surprising to be honest especially as you are a communications company, I know other company's that sell worthless items but still keep call recordings for a period of time. I do appreciate you must receive a lot of calls daily however I would expect a percentage of those to be kept for a while

In your letter you state " I do feel our customer care team, our faults team and our field service team tried their up most to deliver the best responses possible at the time. I also feel that all three of your complaints were handled professionally and competently" - Can you give me reasoning behind your thinking on this. As I had emails ignored, were promised responses which were never received and i was totally blanked for periods of time, this also includes a request i made to the faults team to chase up the progress on returning a box to me which they never got back to me.

 

I appreciate that if i was still a customer you would more than likely agree with my statements and offer me some form of discount to my monthly bill which one of your colleagues offered previously. I believe that the disagreement with my side of events and i'm "not cared about" any more is only due to the fact i am no longer a customer. However the one thing ive always thought highly of is the broadband service and despite my bad experience thus far i would still entertain the idea of one day returning just for the internet.

 

Look Mr VM, despite what your stating in your email, the service i was provided wasnt the best despite what you state, all your vans say "love our customers" but where was the love for me, i was a customer. I dont want to go down this route I wanted acknowledgement of the failings and to be dealt with fairly. i have tried numerous times to sort everything out, and its only got to this stage now due to the fact of the amount of times ive been ignored. I had better things to do than chasing ignored correspondence's, like spending time with my 2 young children and I dont think me asking to be compensated

 

I look forward to hearing back from you

Dear Mr Flexeh

 

Thanks for your latest e-mail , I've answered the specifics you listed accurately and in line with Virgin Media policy.

 

1) We can tell you the date of equipment changes, but there's no screen print we can provide.

 

2) It's Virgin Media policy to keep engineer notes for 3 months, then destroy. I'm sure various companies have differing policies regarding how they keep/store/dispose of information

 

3) Virgin Media policy is to use any call recordings for the specified purpose i.e training and quality monitoring. We have no requirement to retain call recordings for any other reason. Again various companies will have differing policies regarding how they conduct their business

 

4) I don't fell it's appropriate for me to give you my reasoning for stating how I believe your previous complaints were handled.

 

I'm sorry you're still upset over the service you received when you were a customer, but Virgin Media will not be offering you any compensation relating to your former account.

 

I'm sorry this isn't the response you hoped for, however it is the company's final decision.

 

I feel I have answered all your questions professionally and in line with Virgin Media internal policies and procedures. I also feel there is nothing more I can offer you by entering into correspondence relating to your former account and the previous complaints recorded.

 

As such Virgin Media will await your formal request for the data subject access request you mentioned below.

 

Kind regards

 

VM

[Ladyin_blue]

Hi flexeh, is there any update?

[flexeh]

Hi flexeh, is there any update?

 

 

Nope decided not to SAR as whats the point they dont have any thing i actually want to progress this. I did lodge a complaint with ICO however nothings been said yet

[Ladyin_blue]

Nope decided not to SAR as whats the point they dont have any thing i actually want to progress this. I did lodge a complaint with ICO however nothings been said yet

 

They are horribly slow with their replies. I think its intentional