Whirlpool

Im curious as to how many virgins had their service working great for the 30 day trial only for it to go down the pooper later after the 30 day trial and put on a contract.

DanKai writes...

Im curious as to how many virgins had their service working great for the 30 day trial only for it to go down the pooper later after the 30 day trial and put on a contract.

I was in the original period which got extended to 60 days because of the first teething problems. So its hard to say that it was ever good. It came good for a while, then went way bad for a long time and is now OK with some phone drop-outs, latency and occassional very slow page loading problems.

Dancing Bear writes...

I was in the original period which got extended to 60 days

same

went way bad for a long time and is now OK with some phone drop-outs, latency and occassional very slow page

same, postcode 2251.

Things will get better, then worse again, then better, then worse until such time as I can swap to a better alternative. Virgin just don't deliver a consistent service. The price of Virgin's parent & network carrier Optus wireless fusion at around $89/mth proves that the Virgin product is designed to be cheap & nasty. It will never be acceptable on a permanent basis as it is designed to be a 2nd rate service. You get what you pay for and $60/mth is not enough to support the capacity requirements for a decent service. Rather, the Virgin offering is a very cost effective means for Optus to utilise spare capacity on its network without damaging its brand (too much).

the virgin lovers want to feel the love

I understand there are some people who have no better options but is it surprising that the network is becoming congested when 7 of the 19 people who have responded so far signed up to a 24 month contract when their trial period was poor (quite possibly a sign there was already congestion in their area)?

I do feel sorry for people who were told it would get better than what they experienced in their 30 days, but an unfulfilled promise should be good grounds for a penelty free exit.

Those who signed up to a poor service without assurances of improvement probably have to wear it or pay the exit costs.

I have to put up with GPRS speeds evey weeknight, but I have no other option atm for internet to I regrettably have to put up with it. If I had any other option I would have given Virgin the flick instantly.

AFCfan writes...

Those who signed up to a poor service without assurances of improvement probably have to wear it or pay the exit costs.

We were all promised improvements on this site, by Robert and the then other Virgin reps. We accepted that there would be some teething problems and the truth was that most of the original problems were somewhat resolved in that first 60-day period. We accepted that some were harder to resolve such as the searching issue and the III's etc. We wanted it to work and were willing to work with Virgin to make it work. We were promised that the long phone support delays would be fixed within weeks as they were hiring new staff.

To be specific, many of my original issues related to poor signal strength (they only decided that high 90's signals were marginal after they experienced this occurring). I fixed that problem by spending $150 on a high gain aerial. Then they oversold my area – so that congestion became the issue, etc, etc, etc.

AFCfan, I understand your point about signing up for 24 months on a promise, but then you have to admit that at that time the promises were pretty bloody convincing. I actually think Robert et al's intentions were genuine. Its been the delivery and overselling etc that have failed. What is it that mum used to say " the road to hell is paved with good intentions". I think that also applies to Virginal Hell.

Has never ever worked properly. It is a second rate service and most likely always will be. Unfortunately with no chance of a wired internet connection the choice is between Telstra and Virgin. I know Telstra offer a better wireless service but won't use them on principal. It took me 7 months to convince the boss to switch from Telstra to Optus so no intentions of crawling back for internet.

As soon as a better alternative comes around will give Virgin the flick and make them force me to pay the cancellation. Will probably give it to them in random bursts of 1c to show them how their internet connections are.

I agree Dancing Bear. As an early adopter I accepted there would be teething problems, which there were and many were sorted though maybe not as quick as promised.

Nowadays the main problem seems to be congestion and I am not blaming VBB for that. I was using the Optus 3G mobile from home this afternoon and had several call dropouts and a couple of connection errors while trying to make calls. Optus (who is VBB's parent company) needs to take responsibility for that. Overselling the tower capacity together with firmware issues both on the VBB modems and the towers is something that should not have been permitted.

I understand most ISPs oversell capacity on the basis that not everyone will be online at the same time. That's sort of fair. But the problem when a 3G service is oversold is not that speeds just slow down, but get you get kicked off and have no connection. That isn't reasonable.

And I suspect that is why Robert is now the only VBB rep who occasionally shows up here now whereas we used to have regular contact with 2-3 of them. They have realised that the problems are now totally outside VBB's control and they can't fix them.

its not looking good for virgin...

aff67611 writes...

Unfortunately with no chance of a wired internet connection the choice is between Telstra and Virgin. I know Telstra offer a better wireless service but won't use them on principal.

As soon as a better alternative comes around will give Virgin the flick and make them force me to pay the cancellation.

Am I the only one that is pretty disgusted with this attitude.
Aff67611, You know your service sucks but are choosing to keep it. You have a responsibility to honor the contract you agreed to.

Reneke, the contract agreed to implies that I will be provided with a stable internet connection. Virgin has not held up their end of the bargain therefore I can leave whenever I want.

aff67611 writes...

the contract agreed to implies that I will be provided with a stable internet connection. Virgin has not held up their end of the bargain therefore I can leave whenever I want.

You still need to be able to either show Virgin the service isn't as advertised, or has degraded since the trial period, and/or show you are willing to or have had the provider assist in making the service work. It's not quite as easy as just calling them and saying you want out.

Mine was actually the other way round.
It was a crap(ish) for the trial period (but expected it like that from reading these forums) BUT about 2 weeks after the trial period the service improved ALOT!
(which made me realise how crap it really was during the trial period!)
I think it was because they said they did a major upgrade on the network (joined up july)

Skiffie writes...

You still need to be able to either show Virgin the service isn't as advertised, or has degraded since the trial period, and/or show you are willing to or have had the provider assist in making the service work. It's not quite as easy as just calling them and saying you want out.

Actually, only a bush lawyers opinion but to me it seems that notwithstanding the 30-day trial period, if the system is not delivering the contracted service, then you are entitled to terminate the contract (after giving them a reasonable opportunity to fix it). It really doesn't matter that you accepted a low grade of service during the trial – for example, you might have believed that there were upgrades/fixes underway and taken that on good faith.

The product has to be able to deliver 512K broadband and a reliable phone service. (Yeah I know there is fine print about the 3G network and the 512K being an expected average etc, and that does have a bearing, but less than dial-up speeds, for example, or being unable to open web-pages for significant periods of the day, would all be a failure to meet the reasonable expectations of the reasonable person in the street test).

Dancing Bear writes...

if the system is not delivering the contracted service, then you are entitled to terminate the contract (after giving them a reasonable opportunity to fix it).

Yep, I guess what I was aiming at DB, not unlike me to foul up a good argument. :-P

The key is though, you have to communicate with, and give Virgin the opportunity to resolve the matter.

Skiffie writes...

Yep, I guess what I was aiming at DB, not unlike me to foul up a good argument. :-P

Actually Skiffie, I wasn't disputing what you had said. Thought you said it quite well. Just attempting to emphasise the issue in relation to the 30-day trial as some here have reported comments from Virgin CS people about that being the measure and seem to have implied that it has to be worse now than then to be an issue for cancellation and that just aint true.

Skiffie, I completely agree. I have contacted Virgin a few times, by email and phone. I have all responses by email kept on hand. Only half of my emails were answered, and every one of them was a generic response. A friend of mine was in the same boat as me, he was able to upgrade to ADSL and he managed to get off with no cancellation fees. All it takes is to stand up for what is right.

So nearly 60% of customers have had the dodgy trial work and then go crap. Anyone else smell something off with this?

DanKai writes...

Anyone else smell something off with this?

It's not a scientific vote :)