Well... Virgin Media sales staff are not to be trusted
That's the second time I've been lied to by their sales staff. Unfortunately, the first time I had no record so I couldn't do much about it. This time I recorded the conversation, so it's a different situation.
I got my contract today for the change of services as per my first post in this thread. I looked at the services to be provided, the start date and the monthly cost and all seemed in order. On second glance though, in small letters, the price was annotated with "Promotional period"
After very close scrutiny, I eventually found that after the "promotional period", the monthly price would rocket.
Now, that was all in the contract so you'd wonder why I feel ripped off and lied to. The reason is, in a nutshell, that I was told by the sales rep that I would not have to pay anymore than the price he quoted me for as long as I kept the same services.
I enquired further to ensure that there were no clauses escalating the price or anything of that nature and was told "No".
Being fully aware of the way in which misinterpretation can easily cause problems, I then asked the sales rep quite a few more questions such that, what might have been open to misinterpretation given his answer to my initial question was then left beyond doubt.
I spoke to VM customer services today, after I received the contract document and explained how I felt shoddily treated and that I'd been lied to and the person on the other end of the phone warned me to be careful about calling somebody a liar and insisted that one of THEIR sales staff would NEVER tell lies. He also told me "I have to warn you that this call is being recorded and that your comments so far could be used as evidence of libel." Hmm.. first of all, it would be slander, not libel but there you go. I hear the protestations of barrack-room lawyers all the time.
Anyway, immediately following this statement I told him that curiously enough, I had made a recording of my conversation with the sales rep because I didn't trust them having been lied to before.
The conversation sort of dried up at that point. A few seconds later I heard "Oh... did you tell him that you were recording the conversation?" not that it has any bearing whether I did or not
I was then asked what I wanted to happen to resolve the situation and I said that I wanted the deal I had been verbally offered. Not a chance of that, of course.
So I told him to cancel the change of contract and that I would be investigating what other providers could do and to expect cancellation of all my services in the near future.
Do you know? He really wasn't bothered. In fact he sounded bored, so much so that I believe he hears much the same sort of complaint many times in a day and it seems to me that this is acceptable sales practice for VM sales staff. If I hadn't scrutinized the contract document I would have gone blithely on, thinking they'd given me a good deal.
In fact, the slimy reprobate of a sales rep even told me, when I said how surprised I was with the deal he had just offered me, that it was a special deal he was able to put together for me as I was a loyal customer of many years standing. The chap I spoke to today said that was not the case, it was just a standard contract which, as he confirmed, had the same promotional price whether the customer was new or old.
So, there you have it. A VM sales rep told me a pack of lies and he is not to be called to account for his actions. Ergo, by inference, telling the customer downright lies is acceptable practice for VM sales staff.
I'll be asking a solicitor who is a long-standing friend to have a listen to the recording and examine the contract document to see if there is anything further to be done.
Now, I'm not cynical enough to think that all VM sales reps are tarred with the same brush, neither am I naive enough to think that any other provider would be any different so, if I can't find a better deal, I'll remain on my present contract, pragmatism always being, in my view, the best way forward.
However, had this distasteful incident not occurred, I would not be looking for an alternative.
Based upon my observations, I would recommend that anybody considering masking use of VM as a service provider might think again or scrutinize any offerings very closely.
I'm lucky to get 1.5MB Sky must still be using semaphore!!
