Did Virgin fix my internet yet?

Yes, after 16 calls with technical support, 5 with customer service, 5 with complaints, 2 with installations, 1 with sales, 4 engineers, Twitter, emails, and a website - we have reached a point where my internet connection is mostly fixed.

What happened?

I asked Virgin media business to upgrade my internet connection to 1gbit, unfortunately, that didn't go well. Instead they broke my internet connection. This page exists to both show Virgin that my connection isn't working correctly and to chronicle the saga to save me repeating it. Hopefully resulting in less time spent on the phone.

What's broken?

The saga

September 12th

A Virgin engineer visited to upgrade me to 1gbit. He was here for around 2 hours, he told me that something had gone wrong. He was unable to set up the new modem, and unable to get the old one to work either. He told me I'm without internet, and an engineer will visit tomorrow to finish the job.

I called Virgin after the engineer left to try and confirm that the engineer was coming, and had what I can only describe as the weirdest customer service interaction I've ever had. Minute long silences and no real answers. I figured I'd call again next day.

September 13th

I called Virgin media in the morning and explained the problem, they told me that I needed to call after 9am for the relevant department to be open

I called Virgin again after 9am. I got told that they were going to try someting on their end. They asked me to disconnect my modem for 30 minutes and that if that didn't resolve the problem, to call technical support and raise a fault.

It didn't resolve the problem, so I called technical support, explained what has happened so far, and asked to raise a fault. They tell me they can see why it's not working, and it's because my account hasn't been upgraded to gigabit. They tell customer service can sort it out and transfer me

After 20 minutes on hold, The customer service representative can't hear me and hangs up.

I call back and spend another 20 minutes on hold. I get through to another customer service person. They put me on hold for a while when the call resumes, I'm speaking to a different person.

The different person explains to me that it's definitely not something customer service can fix, and that I need to speak to technical support. There's nothing they can do about it. They transfer me to technical support.

I speak to a technical support person and they say that it's not a technical support issue, and that I need to speak to installations. I explained that I've been transferred around the entire company at this point, and that I really just need someone to take ownership of the issue and get it resolved for me. They ignore me and transfer me anyway.

I get through and explain the whole chain of events again. They say they are going to book an engineer for me on the 15th. I point out that is a violation of the 12 hour SLA. They say there's nothing they can do and ask me if I'm free on the 15th. I get the engineer booked and ask to be transferred to complaints.

I speak to someone from complaints. They seem to not understand what a 12 hour SLA is. He confirms that the 15th is the earliest they can get to me. They say "you can't reasonably expect us to reserve technicians to do 12 hour SLAs". They assure me they'll call me on the 16th to make sure everything is fixed and discuss compensation. I give up and resign myself to waiting a few days.

September 15th

Engineer comes out, tests line, can't see a problem, yet of course, no internet. He tries swapping in the same modem I had before but that doesn't solve it either. He says there's no engineering problem. He tells me to call customer service again and that it is open until 8. He leaves.

I call customer service, turns out they shut at 6.

I call technical support, I sit on hold for 30 minutes, then they just hang up without answering the phone. It's 8pm at this point, so I call it a day and give up.

September 16th

I call Virgin again and get told the hitron modem engineer the engineer swapped me out to is not compatible with gigabit. I ask them if they can downgrade me to 500mbit, they say yes, then go away, and say no because they don't offer a 500mbit plan any more. I ask if they can swap me to 400mbit. They agree. I ask for my static IP to be configured, but they configure it as dynamic anyway. They book another engineer to swap my modem again. At least I'm back online now, albeit at 400mbit and no static IP.

The representative from complaints that promised to call me back today never called.

September 20th

Engineer comes and swaps my modem. Tells me account is provisioned incorrectly and that I'm still not getting gigabit. Tells me to call customer service to get it sorted.

I call customer service. They tell me they can't do anything and that I need to call sales.

I call sales, they say they can sort it for me, and that it'll take 2-5 days to get provisioned.

I call complaints to find out why they haven't responded to me yet. They apologise and ask for my availability tomorrow. I say any time tomorrow not between 10am and 11am. They say no problem and that someone will call me.

September 21st

A complaints manager calls me at 09:40. Trust Virgin to call minutes before the time I said I'm unavailable. They want to upgrade me to try and resolve the problem now, but I know that doing so will knock my internet offline. I tell him clearly I have a meeting in 20 minutes, and that what they are doing will knock me offline. He disagrees and does it anyway. He then puts me on hold for 10 minutes. Someone else answers and says they are ready to talk me through configuring the modem .. it's 09:55. They tell me I'm currently offline. "Really? after I specifically said not to do that?" I check and it turns out I'm actually still online. They are confused as to how exactly how I'm online, then they say they might be able to call me back some time today.

They call me back. They say they have resolved the problem and that I'm definitely provisioned at 1gbit now. They send me instructions on how to configure the modem for the static IP. I ask for the representatives name or some way to contact them in case this process doesn't work, but the call unexpectedly terminated.

I follow the instructions, however the section for configuring the GRE Tunnel ("VMB IP Service") is missing, and thus I'm unable to configure it. I also run a speedtest, turns out I'm still on 400mbit. At this point, I just decided to give up and stop calling Virgin.

September 22nd

Someone from Virgin complaints calls me and asks if my problem has been resolved. I say it hasn't. He puts me on hold to go check my accounts history. He says that he's going to have the account torn down and rebuilt, and that hopefully that'll sort it. He says he'll get back to me on the 26th to see if the problem is resolved. He also emails me so I have one point of contact and am not bouncing around between departments, yay.

September 26th

The same person calls me back and says the problem should have been resolved in the past 30 minutes. I run a speedtest, and unfortunately no, still 430mbit. He says he's gonna put me through to someone at tech support, and that they'll resolve it for me. He also says he's gonna call me back in an hour to make sure it's resolved.

I speak to the technical support guy, things don't go amazingly. They asks for the speed of my cables, I reply that it's all gigabit cat5e. They again ask for the speed. He's still confused. After a bit of back and fourth, it turns out he doesn't know what gigabit means. I explain to him that one gigabit is equal to 1000mbit. Eventually, they say they are going to run some line tests and call me back within 3 hours.

Neither the complaints person, nor the technical support person call me back.

September 27th

I email the complaints person explaining that I didn't call back from him nor the technical support person. I explain the interaction with the technical support person, and explain how my network is setup. I also tell him that I've ran some tests on the same cables the modem is using and I'm getting >900mbps, so we can rule out my cables and my equipment, and that the problem lies between the modem and Virgin.

September 29th

I create this page in the hopes that someone from Virgin will see it, and save me from my suffering. I email the complaints person again with the link, and tell them that they will know they've fixed the problem when this page changes to "Yes". I also tweet it at @vmbusinesshelp

September 30th

@vmbusinesshelp replies asking me if it's working today. I reply with a screenshot and link to this website, and tell them that no, it is still not working. They give me the number to call technical support / faults. I explain I've spoken to that department 10 times so far with no resolution. They ask me to DM them, but then don't respond to the DM

October 3rd

@vmbusinesshelp finally replied to my DM at 9:23 this morning asking for my business name, first line of address, and postcode. I replied at 09:24. They never replied after that.

October 4th

Good news, we made it through the security questions with @vmbusinesshelp. We had a brief conversation, they raised a fault and said someone will contact me within 72 hours. I told them that raising a fault is probably pointless, as they'll send an engineer, who will test the line. The engineer will say that the line is working fine, that it's an account issue, then leave.

October 7th

Unsurprisingly, nobody from Virgin called. I messaged @vmbusinesshelp to inform them that nobody has contacted me.

October 8th

Recevied a bizarre bill. 20ish line items, 5 x "5 static IP addresses", 4 x "Fault response Time 12-hour" 4 x "VOOM Gig1", 2 x "VOOM 400", etc etc, in a seemingly random order, not sorted by date. Apparently I owe Virgin £50 for an "install charge". 4 x "Fault Response Time 12-hour" is interesting considering I've only had 3 engineers visit. Perhaps Virgin is sending another engineer?

October 9th

Received a text message from Virgin media saying they are sending an engineer on the 15th, my hunch was right. Although given the "Fault Response time 12 hour" on my bill, I'd have to say that me and Virgin have a rather different definition of "12 hours". I imagine this engineer will say the same as the last two, that the line is fine and that it's an account issue.

October 15th

Engineer came and tested the line, he got 1.1gbit through it. Then he tested through the modem and got 450mbps, once again confirming that yes, the line is working and that it's quite clear I'm still on the 400mbps plan. He told me he is unable to resolve the problem as engineers work on the physical infrastructure and this is an account issue. I asked if he could call Virgin and try to liase with them to get it sorted, he said that he's not allowed due to GDPR. On the more amusing side, Virgin sent me an email telling me that it's fixed now, of course, it isn't fixed and the saga continues. I sent a DM to @vmbusinesshelp to let them know what happened.

October 17th

I decided to call the number on the email to let them know that the fault wasn't resolved. I went through to technical support and was told that the engineer had swapped the modem around. I said no, they haven't. He then put me on hold to read up on the history, and found a note from the engineer saying that it's a provisioning issue. He then put me on hold again. While on hold, my internet connection died. I asked if they had done anything to cause my internet connection to go offline. They said no. They said they'd call me back in 30 minutes. I waited for an hour with no call back, no dice. Called again and spoke to a new person, they ask if they can call me back. I say no, given the amount of missed callbacks before. I ask to speak to a manager, no dice. They assure me they'll definitely call me back within 2 hours. They assure me a manager will call me within 2 hours - neither happens. I've moved this website onto a server elsewhere given the internet connection is down, but it also means that speedtests of course won't update, since I have no internet at all now.

October 17th

Double update! I decided to start calling randomly and just read the saga over the phone. I tried customer service first. They said they are sorry and that they can't help, and transferred me to technical support. So I read them the saga again, it takes about 15 minutes to read this site to them now. After patiently listening to my suffering, the technical support person said "Oh my god, I have no words". They put me on hold for a moment then ask me to login to the routers admin panel. VMB IP service is back! he did indeed press a button on his end. I enter the credentials but it doesn't connect. After some back and fourth, they say that they will do an account rebuild. I pointed out that someone had already done this (see September 22nd). They tell me no, nobody has actually done this. They say it should fix the issue. This person has actually made some progress, at least VMB IP service is coming up now. I agree to get a call back. A couple hours later they call me back and confirm that it's ok for me to have my static IP change and get a new account number. "Sure, no problem" I say. Of course, I didn't get a new account number and static IP last time they "rebuilt the account" which lends more credence to the fact that it never happened on the 22nd. I leave the modem with the GRE tunnel disabled, so at least if the internet comes up at all, I'll come online and pick up with a dynamic IP. A few hours later, that's exactly what happened, and at gigabit! For a few fleeting hours I had an internet connection, and it was glorious, it was even actually gigabit, too. Then I got a call from them to set up the static IP, GRE tunnel credentials, should be easy, right? Entered the details in and I wasn't getting connected to the internet, but I thought perhaps that was a problem with the setup on my end. I asked if there was any way I could contact the same customer service person, nope. I asked if they could call me back tomorrow, "maybe". I resigned myself to the risk and let him go so I could try some stuff to make sure it wasn't a configuration issue on my end. Big mistake. I spent the next 4 hours trying everything I could think of. Modem says it has a WAN IP, modem says the GRE tunnel is connected, all packets get dropped at the modem. According to the modem, my static IP is 80.235.233.200/29. .200 belongs to Virgin, .201 is the Hitron modem, and .202 through .206 inclusive are my 5 static IPs. I tried using my unifi gateway with IP 80.235.233.202, subnet mask 255.255.255.248, router 80.235.233.201 - no dice. I tried the same and a few other things with my laptop connected to the modem, also no dice. We are back to no internet.

October 18th

Called Virgin technical support again and started reading the saga again. They got bored about half way through and interrupted. We had a chat about debugging the static IP, he confirmed that how I've set up my unifi USG is correct. He had a look at the modem and was confused as to why it wasn't working. I decided to ask them to just disable the static IP and leave me on dynamic. Which they did, and finally, I am officially back online, and at gigabit too. Virgin has, finally fixed my internet. I don't know whether I'll go to the ombudsman or seek compensation yet, I am worried that Virgin might touch my internet connection again if I do.