2011inJanuary moved house and from sky to virgin media lived there 6 months and no choice to move again as landlord wanted to sell property. MOVED OVER TO NCLE and thought my contract would have just moved with me to which only could take phone and broadband as no cable telly in area. Nobody explained that my contract would start again for 18 months even when upgraded to free phone after 6 and weekends and still not advised of contract. Until i moved to SKY 2 months ago which my original cntract expired. Still no letters or bills to clear account or advised a cancellation fee was outstanding. Telephone call on 4 march from a debt collection agency advising i owed virgin £60 which £40 was fee and rest was calls made. AS nothing recieved from virgin or any explanation why or when my contract was changed a telephone call to virgin was made on the same day. No reason given why no contact with us by post, email or telephone was never recieved. SO BEWARE IF YOU ARE WITH VIRGIN MAKE SURE YOU ARE NOT TREATED THIS WAY.

I switched from Sky due to problems watching catchup tv such as bbc iplayer- the buffering made the service unwatchable. However after having billing issues (the price I was quoted mysteriously increased when the paperwork came through- took several calls to sort out), price increase of above 5% and lack of functionality I will be seriously considering switching back once my contract finishes. Customer service at Virgin awful- call centre abroad that makes dealing with anything remotely complicated such as billing issues extremely frustrating. Price increase of £4.84 on a bill of £84- if only my salary rose at the same rate! Functionality of Virgin tivo box awful when used to the easy menus from sky.

Have had a standard TV and broadband package since they were Telewest. Decided to change to a V+ HD box, to cancel my Sky sports package, and to upgrade the TV channels to XL. The box was delivered fine and I waited for the 02nd Dec to get the HD service running.

THU 02 Dec - Connected V+ box and called to get box connected as per instructions. Box went through to P£:70 then stopped. Called help desk (India or similar) and after going through a few different people was told to reboot the box (did it a few times) but it did not work, told that it was a problem with the box and an engineer was booked for Saturday PM, but was told I could not change back to the old box so had no Virgin TV service at all from then until Saturday evening.

FRI 03 Dec - Received an automated call to confirm the engineer booking for Saturday PM which I responded to and got automated confirmation of the booking for Saturday 13:00 to 18:00.

SAT 04 Dec - No engineer arrived so I called help desk (Indian or somewhere similar) at about 18:30 and was told that 'engineer could not attend because of snow & ice', I said that there was no snow and ice and why had he not called to cancel, they just repeated 'engineer could not attend ', again I asked why he had not called or phoned and I had stayed in all day but again got 'engineer could not attend ', I said in that case swap back to my old box and Virgin could have the V+ box back, was told that I would be charged to reconnect the old box at which point I could stand the stress and frustration no more so told them I would be complaining and ended the call.

To avoid me having a heart attack my wife then called and got through to Scott ??? on a help desk in Scotland, what a difference! He investigated what had happened, gave a £15 refund (not enough for all the hassle and inconvenience but a nice gesture), arranged an engineer for Tuesday, and it was a completely different customer experience (he was pleasant, helpful, apologetic, and understood English, not just spoke it parrot fashion from a script). The problem then was that I took over the call and was handed on to a technical help desk who I could not properly understand but who did get the old box reconnected, when the XL services did not come up I was told that the full XL package would be available on Sunday.

SUN 05 Dec - Checked the Virgin box and the Sports package had gone but the XL package was not on it, just the basic ten or so channels. I could not stand the thought of more frustration by getting through to a non UK help desk again so decided to wait until the engineer comes Tuesday.

MON 06 Dec - Got a letter from Virgin hoping I was enjoying my HD channels!!!!!!!!!

TUE 07 Dec - Engineer arrived and the box had not been set for my areas before being sent so it would never have worked without it being set properly. At least he got my HD channels etc going.

My recommendation is to not change or get Virgin services until they have only UK call centres. 0/5 for the non UK 'help' centres (a wrong description if ever there was one), 4/5 for the Scottish call centre and the engineer.