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Buck passing, or passing the buck, or sometimes the blame shifting, is the act of attributing to another person or group one’s own responsibility. It is often used to refer to a strategy in power politics whereby an entity tries to shift the blame on another person or company. If you pass the buck, you refuse to accept responsibility for something and say that someone else is responsible.
I was about to blow a gasket.
I should have put it down to it being a Monday.
So my first interaction was with an insurance company that wanted me to give them my card details over the phone without keypad encryption. They even went on to say that this was the only way I could update my details. When I refused they then miraculously offered a direct debit. I then referred to an article I had written about encryption because they were breaking the law without encryption.https://marketingagency.cymrumarketing.com/2021/11/07/telephone-encryption-to-process-payments/
My second interaction was a pharmacy that will remain nameless and a local GP which I have written about in the past. So cut a long story short for the last few months my daughters medication which is on repeat prescription was not materialising so every month for the last 4 months or so I have been phoning the pharmacy and the GP and each time each one blames the other (Its not us it is them scenario). So today I phoned the pharmacy that said they requested the medication on the 12th even though I had phoned them on the 10th and they said my daughter prescription would be ready on the 12th. I usually get a text message to say it was ready but I had nothing. so I waited until today the 21st and I was told by the pharmacy to phone the GP and ask them to fax it over, which I proceeded to do. I explained the prescription was not ready. The GP said the pharmacy had not requested the prescription and they would get the Doctor to write one out but I had to wait until 16.00 hours. I then phoned back and they said they put a request for the GP to write a prescription and for me to wait for a phone call from them to say that they have faxed it. I waited until 17.13 hours and proceeded to phone them again. This was now my third phonecall and was told they had just faxed the prescription to he pharmacy. Excited at the prospect of finally getting the prescription I phoned the pharmacy who told me the first time round to tell the GP to fax the prescription….Now you have to wait for this because it unbelievable what I was told…The pharmacy said they received the fax but it is against the law to request a “CD” by fax. At first I did not know what this woman was on about, I did not ask for a CD (thinking it was a circular disk you put into a compter) and raising my tone told her so. She then rephrased her wording and said “it is against the law to send ‘Controlled Drug Prescriptions’ by fax”. OMG I was about to rip someones head off at this stage because the woman at the pharmacy at the beginning told me to tell the GP to send a fax and the GP after three phone call should have said they cannot send out faxes. So I proceeded to phone the GP who then blamed the person for being (NEW). The pharamcy said they would not be able to collect the medication as they were under staffed. None of it was my problem and when the pharmacist asked me to collect it I said I couldn’t, she sniggered and muttered something inaudible under her breathe and I could hear her say to her colleague “she can’t pick up the prescription, in a mocked tone”.
Obviously, the arse does not know what the elbow is doing.
It is the doctor’s responsibility to write out repeat prescriptions like clockwork without being prompted or reminded, ready for the pharmacies to collect. It is also the pharmacy’s duty to follow up on repeat prescriptions that are missing or overdue. It is not up to the patient to do their work for them.
In total, I made four phone calls to the GP (27 mins) and two to the Pharmacy (14 mins) and I felt physically sick sorting out their incompetence.
I ended by saying if my daughter relapses because she has run out of medication there will be medical negligence litigation.
So in total, I wasted 41 minutes of my time where I could have been working. But the saga will continue because tomorrow I will have to phone the pharmacy to see if they collected the prescription or not.
This GP has been on my radar for a while now. But I am also feeling anger at a Pharmacy that shows little respect to people.
If you work with the public you keep your opinions and your tone to yourself. You stay neutral and you do not let your thoughts filter through. You do not show you do not like someone and you never mock or judge them. Working in the NHS you have to show professionalism, your personal opinion has no room in the workplace.
I will update you in due course. I just had to let off steam as I was starting to feel unwell.
Note From The Editor.
According to the NHS website, prescribed drugs will be sent electronically to the dispenser you have chosen. You can collect your medicines or appliances without having to hand in a paper prescription. So the pharmacist I spoke to on two occasions was full of 💩.
I have updated this article multiple times and to recap last Saturday I had a missed call and an email from the executive team to contact them. I phoned Saturday but they were busy, I then phoned again yesterday only to be told my complaint had been resolved, even though I had not spoken to anyone? (fixing my broadband issue does not fix the complaint of the previous broadband issues/outages I have experienced and raised).
I proceeded to send an email to Lutz Schuler and the Executive team and cc’d my marketing business into the conversation. I even contacted Lutz Schuler on LinkedIn and never had a response.
Below is the email I sent them yesterday, although they have had multiple emails and phone calls from me in the past. So today giving them one final last chance I phoned them and spoke to someone called Louise (who infuriated me with her one brain cell attitude that because my broadband was working fine todaythe issue had been resolved. She asked me what I was after and I said monetary compensation, she asked me for a figure and I said £400 per day. I did not mention emotional distress compensation: https://www.compensationcalculatoruk.co.uk/emotional-pain-and-suffering-calculatorIf this was to go to court, how can I put a figure on the amount of distress this has caused me, without consulting a solicitor first?
The complaint that everyone is ignoring was the past poor intermittent speeds that went over Louise’s head including me insisting on my voice recording data which Virgin is legally obliged to give me and again I felt as if I was talking to a brick wall.
PREVIOUS CORRESPONDENCE & ENTIRE COMPLAINT.
This article is for Virgin Media Broadband Evidence of a Poor Service to show evidence of the sub-standard service I have been receiving.
OUTAGES
If I have been experiencing outages I am sure I am not the only one to get an appalling service. According to Trustpilot, an astonishing 91% have given 1-star reviews. It is a wonder this company is actually still in business and trading: https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/virginmediabroadband.co.uk I was told the reason for the bad reviews is their customers are not happy with the 5g change-over and the outages.
This issue I have been experiencing has been ongoing and somedays I get really good speeds whilst others are absolutely diabolical. This tells me there is nothing wrong with my equipment as they have sent out two modems in the last two years and it is them I suppose saving money. I have had poor speed since the beginning of lockdown. I am not getting my money’s worth and am losing business hand over fist with this company.
So I received a text message from ‘Virgin Media Broadband’ to say that on Friday 11th March in Roath Cardiff there will be scheduled maintenance. They never stated what time or how long it was going to go on, only to apologize for any inconvenience caused. That is not good enough especially when people rely on WIFI for multiple reasons including home security. Not everything revolves around browsing the internet.
So oblivious to the message I received Monday morning I noticed my internet was very intermittent from lunchtime going into the afternoon and proceeded to phone them to sort it out. The person I spoke to said I had to do a hard reset of my modem (putting the pin into the tiny hole) which I explained I could not do as I had to be online.
As the afternoon progressed I struggled to get a decent connection, could not do a screenshot as I could not connect, and decided to bite the bullet and do a re-set around tea-time. Oh boy, that ended up being such a bad idea and a total disaster as I ended up with no wifi signal at all.
So I proceeded to call them again and I was put through to a call center where the woman was as useful as a chocolate fireguard.
She blatantly refused to help me or put me through to her supervisor.
There were long pauses where she simply ignored me and she casually said I would have to wait until maintenance was done on Friday.
I responded I rely on the internet for work and need to be online and her attitude was very blasé, where she said there was nothing she could do.
I explained that she obviously did not know who she was speaking to and what I do and am capable of doing.
I quoted the domain name www.irenata.com which is the shorter version of this website and the domain is forwarded. I prompted her to read my reviews on Virgin Media. I did this purposely as I wanted to hit home that anyone that disrupts my business is liable to be sued and I would take Virgin Media to court.
She replied and said I would be entitled to their compensation of £8.00 per day and that is all. I told her what she can do with her £8.00 and that I would send an invoice for the loss of business. It is as if they read off a script what they have to say to a consumer and I was not having any of it. Unlike any other consumer that may just report them to Ofcom and apparently my connection is being monitored, she was unaware of this, I will go one step further and put a dent in their business if they disrupt mine. If they have bad reviews on Trustpilot imagine how much business they will lose if I share this on LinkedIn and every other social media platform I can think of.
So far I have tolerated them and have a backup mobile hotspot of unlimited data with O’2 but by coincidence considering these two companies have merged, I have been unable to access my hotspot for some time now, and to think I pay £80 per month to Virgin and £40 to O’2 you would think I would get a good connection from either one of them but I don’t.
Within minutes of me ending the call yesterday, my broadband internet was working again and I had a very fast speed.
I was angry because my business is being disrupted. I could not perform my duties. I am still behind with my work even as we speak today.
Below are a couple of PDFs of all my screenshots to date.
Before I ended the call I told her to remember my website as I would share all the posts I have made about Virgin Media and share them on Social Media, stating if I lose business then it is only right Virgin Media loses business too.
So today by coincidence I receive an email to say my contract is up and if I want to leave I need to give them 30 days’ notice. I have not been in a contract for a few years as I begrudge being tied down to this shoddy outfit of a company. I will leave on my terms and not before.
Here are all the other posts I have written about this company:
Throughout this week I have had blue murder with this company and where I am supposed to have two bandwidths I only have one. Before I had 2g and 5g and I could choose the one that I could connect to, now I have only one choice 2g.
From what I can gather I think my SSID has been reset to 2g rather than split.
The blame-shifting is unbelievable insisting the problem may lie with my router but as the screenshot shows since maintenance was done in my area yesterday, my speed has miraculously improved, which shows there is nothing wrong with my router.
Furthermore, in order to stay online, I pay for a backup hotspot from O2 which merged with its cowboy boy outfit of company, and ever since the merger, my hotspot has not worked so I phoned O2 and they said it was nothing on their end as all my settings were fine and they transferred me to Apple who told me if I am trying to connect via wifi the problem is to do with Virgin Media setting even though Virgin Media was not having any of it.
So I totally lost it with Virgin on Thursday at approximately 16.51 hours as the first person I spoke to was no help at all so I asked for a copy of the phone recording and he all of a sudden did not understand what I was asking. He was in a call center so I asked to speak to his supervisor who answered although I could not hear very well as there was a party going on in the background with people cheering. He told me it was a meeting. Whatever the excuse, the customer who is already distressed should not have to listen to it.
I stated I wanted a copy of the previous phone call plus the phone call I had with him and he said I have to wait 30 days. I am not holding my breath. Furthermore, I said if my broadband was not working I would sue Virgin Media and he said he has put that on the system.
This is not how you treat your customers if you want to keep them!
Below is the screenshot in a PDF of all my speeds:
This is my screenshot for today 12/03/22 proving there is nothing wrong with my router or my wiring, cables, etc.
UPDATE 18TH MARCH 2022
I received an email today screenshot below for Virgin Media claiming they have not detected any connectivity issues.
So in response to this, I have embedded the screenshots of my speeds, week commencing 14th March 2022 to today.
They are trying to pass the buck because:
I have also proven in the PDFs I do get good speeds!
So it is nothing to do with my equipment or my cables.
If they claim there could be a problem with the cables they can check from outside the property as I am not giving access to anyone entering my property.
Now Virgin cannot ever claim they were not aware of this as every time I phoned I made reference to my website (www.irenata.com (which forwards to this website) which is part of a group of websites that I own that all have the same terms and conditions) and I prompted everyone I spoke to read this article.
I did request a copy of the last conversations I had with Virgin Media and by coincidence, they have not complied with my request. Why does that not surprise me?
I aim to reply to Virgin Media today and if I do not get a satisfactory response they will give me no alternative to share this with news agencies, GDPR (for not giving me the data I requested) and I will take legal action.
I did ask for an email from their legal department and the person I spoke to said they do not have an email, although I did manage to find one after ending the call: ODR@virginmedia.co.uk
Final thoughts From The Editor.
“So why am I not going to another provider”?
Here is my answer: moving to another provider is not the same as buying a loaf of bread. You have to give notice to the provider you want to move away from and then book an engineer for your new provider, this may not all happen on the same day I cannot be without an internet connection.
There could be a period of downtime whilst one provider has switched off your services, you may have no internet or telephone at all, whilst you wait for another provider to set you up. Furthermore, if you have home security you also have to pay for an engineer to come out to reset your system which costs money. So either way, you are dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t, but my main priority is I cannot afford to lose business as I have obligations to my clientsand I cannot be without internet.
What I have also noticed before I had two bandwidths I could switch to 5g and 2g and in the last few weeks I now only have 2g even though they claim I have 5g. I need a split bandwidth and not just 2g. (I have even proven I have only 2g in my screenshots but they won’t have it…
It is lies, after lies after lies.
I reckon it is a money-saving tactic.
What is worth noting is they need to come to an amicable arrangement to stop me from sharing this all over the world wide web because my post may be seen by many people which will get others who are also unhappy with their service to share it as well, which will evidently make it go viral.
Considering they have 91% one-star reviews on Trustpilot I am sure they do not want to lose the little business that they have left.
Do read all my articles as there are steps that you can take to get compensation for a service that does not do what it promises.
For me, this is no ordinary complaint and I have now the emails to the CEOs, so let’s see what transpires when I reply to their email today.
For further reading about increasing internet speeds do read this article:
I am sure this company is trying to test my patience or the arse does not know what the elbow is doing.
If they think for one minute I am calling their bluff they are very much mistaken because if I do not get a resolution soon I will blast this all over the internet and I will take legal action.
Here are two email screenshots one from the executive team and the second was yesterday asking for my feedback.
Funnily enough how my broadband is working all of a sudden, minus the 5g because I suspect my SSID has been reset to 2g and I do not have a split bandwidth anymore,
They asked for my feedback and here it is!!!
I HAVE HAD IT WITH THIS COMPANY!
So today I am minding my business and was checking a website I own and all my browsers (Safari, Mozilla, Chrome & Edge) were saying there was a problem loading my website, so I proceeded to phone the hosting provider to be told and confirmed in the following screenshot of my email that my broadband provider has a problem connecting my website to any devices. The website in question is www.roathlife.co.uk What is even more mind-boggling all the other websites I own or manage are loading up fine, which tells me that VM is blocking my website.
** The ironic thing is my internet speeds are fine today for a change, which makes this even crazier.
Virgin Media is preventing me to do my work successfully AND is causing me ill health and emotional distress and it is time to sort this out once and for all!
THIS IS NOT HOW YOU TREAT CUSTOMERS!
UPDATE 04/04/22 – Virgin Chatting 💩
The saga continues, I phoned Virgin on Saturday twice, the first time someone put the phone down on me after telling me that Virgin does not guarantee WIFI connections and today the 4th April 2022 I was told the same.
So here is a screenshot of what broadbandproviders have to guarantee:
CLICK THE BROADBAND LINK ABOVE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN FULL OR WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT VIRGIN MEDIA!
So on my second attempt today I asked for all the call recordings, this was now my third request in the last 30 days and apparently, the woman from the call center said she would definitely do it for me this time as she could not see any requests before speaking with her even though I asked this morning also.
I then quoted the names “John Malone” & “Lutz Schüler” and she did not know who these people were, so I replied they own Virgin Media and her bosses.
I said if I did not get a satisfactory response which she told me to wait 7 working days I would start emailing these people and contacting GDPR. I am physically and mentally drained from this company. Not once have they tried to resolve this, all they have done is played the runaround and passed the buck.
She was quick to upsell when I said I was never once offered the “Intelligent Wifi Plus” and I said I am not signing up for anything or paying for anything until this is resolved. As it stands I have lost business because of this company and my mental health has deteriorated. It is against the trading standards to charge for something that does not work. It would be interesting if I shared it with news agencies and journalists.
I HAVE HAD ENOUGH AND I WILL BE SHARING THIS WITH THE WHOLE PLANET IF IT IS NOT SORTED, THIS IS AFFECTING MY MENTAL HEALTH!!!!.
I was also told because I do not have business broadband I do not have a leg to stand on. If I thought for one minute that the service was going to be any better than what I have previously had I would have happily switched to business broadband instead of paying O2 for a hotspot that does not work any longer since the merger.
The trustworthiness of the company has gone straight out the window and in my eyes, they are not very credible.
