March 29, 2024

How Virgin Media broke our wifi & tried to charge £10 a month to fix! #ipad #iplayer

The wifi was working before I called Virgin Media

All our devices were connecting to the internet.  The only problem was that a new ipad was refusing to play BBC iplayer. It worked for a bit and then froze. We’d had Virgin Media broadband for years and I decided to phone them and see what they advised. Maybe there were issues with the new ipad. Maybe they knew the service had issues at the moment.

A pleasant man in India said he would just change the wifi router channels and everything would be better. It was just a case of different devices splitting the bandwidth. Could I give him remote access to our PC?

I followed his instructions and soon he was controlling the cursor and digging around in the router settings. I learned as he worked that he was a big cricket fan, that it was 1.30am where he was and Manchester United was the football team he supported. It’s strange when someone the other side of the globe knows more about English footie than a fully-paid up Englishman.  After a while he asked me to reconnect the ipad. It didn’t work. No problem, he would do something else. He fiddled again. I waited.

‘Can you try the ipad again? ‘This time it will work.’

It didn’t. In fact there was no internet connection at all. It was no longer a case of BBC iplayer not working, the wifi didn’t work at all.

Thanks to the Virgin Media technician the wifi no longer worked at all

He put me on hold and continued altering settings. I could see in the corner of the screen everytime he tried to connect. Each time the computer gave an error message.

‘OK try the ipad again,’ he said, which didn’t seem likely to work as the PC had just refused his commands to connect to the network. ‘There is a new password,’ he added, which he told me. I tried. Still no internet connection at all. He tried changing more settings.

‘Can you try the laptop?’ he asked.

I did. It didn’t work.

‘What is the error message you are getting?’

‘None, there is no network to connect to. It is just greyed out.’

On hold again

‘Let me put you on hold.’

I had now been on the phone to someone in India for 45 minutes and all that had happened was that the wifi didn’t work at all.

‘I’m sorry we haven’t been able to fix your issue,’ he said. It was an apology which forgot to include the fact that he had made things much worse. ‘We have been on this call for 45 minutes so I will put you through to a higher level to fix this fault.’

He put me on hold. Loud music blared through the phone. I expected to be transferred to someone else, but when a voice returned it was my old friend with whom I had spent my longest phone call of the year so far.

‘Hello? They can fix the issue, it will cost £10 per month and it will cover any issues you have with your computers or mobile phones.’

Virgin Media offer to fix the issue they have caused for £10 a month!

I wasn’t expecting that. When you phone a helpline for a product you own and have been paying for for years you expect them to help you, not make things far worse and then try and charge you to fix it. Especially not an ongoing monthly fee.

‘I don’t want to do that,’ I said.

‘You don’t want to do that?’

‘No.’

He paused and considered.

‘Let me put you on hold.’

I was put on hold again. I shook my head with the sheer effrontery of the situation. Did Virgin Media treat all its customers like this?

After a while he was back.

‘They say that you have corrupted wireless adaptors and they need updating. You need to get a local technician to fix them.’

Virgin Media advise finding a local technician to fix the issue they caused

Amazed at this turn in the conversation I repeated what he had said.

‘A local technician?’

‘Yes.’

‘To update the wireless adaptors?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can’t I download updates?’

‘A local technician will be able to help you do that.’

I don’t have a local technician. Or rather I am the local technician.

‘Where do I find the things to update on the computer?’

‘They are the wireless adaptors. A local technician will help you. It has been nice talking to you.’

He had been pleasant. But he had also ruined our wifi connection.

He hung up. I smiled in amazement at what had just happened.

I had phoned up for advice on getting an ipad to play BBC iplayer. I had been left, an hour later, with a wifi system that didn’t work at all. A lot of people could have been very inconvenienced. I was very inconvenienced.

I try and fix the issue myself

Luckily I know a bit about computers,  although that mainly involves turning them off and on again. I went back into the router settings. I changed this and fiddled with that and with a lot of luck and no thanks to Virgin Media the wifi came back to life. The ipad started streaming again. It froze again of course, but at least we were back where we started. Strangely I was glad to be back in exactly the situation I had been trying to fix over an hour earlier.

Can you help with ipad/wifi issues?

So does anyone have any idea why an ipad refuses to stream BBC iplayer properly? Please leave some pointers in the comments or I’ll have to call my ISP for advice…

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