Landline disconnected

[CarolPo]

Virgin have disconnected my 97 year old mother's landline.She lives on her own, is frail and has a lifeline to call for help in an emergency, which relies on having a landline connection. She does not have a mobile phone, or broadband. As she is deaf, she rarely uses the phone, other than to call my brother or myself to let us know that she is ok.

We realised that the phone wasn't working on Saturday evening, 11th November and contacted Virgin. The landline had been disconnected because they had not had a response to a letter about converting from copper to fibre optic cables. I deal with my mum's correspondence and have no recollection of this. We were assured that the line would be reconnected within 24 hours. It wasn't.

I phoned Virgin customer services again at 8 am on Monday 13th November. Apparently, the reconnection team doesn't work on Sundays. I was assured again they the line would be reconnected within 24 hours. It wasn't. I was told that one letter had been sent to my mum to tell her about the changeover, and there had been no attempt to check why she hadn't responded.

I phoned again at 8 am today (Tuesday 14th), to be told that they had tried to reconnect at 11.30 on the Monday, but this hadn't been possible because the line had been disconnected for too long. Their records show that it was disconnected on 3rd November (which is odd as mum phoned me on Sunday 5th). No-one bothered to contact us (they had my brother's mobile number) to let us know that it couldn't be reconnected. I was told that an engineer would have to attend, but was assured that it would be today. After waiting on hold for half an hour, I was informed that the first appointment for an engineer was November 21st - a week away. I asked to speak to a senior manager. After another wait, I was told that no senior managers were available, but someone would phone me back if they managed to resolve the problem. I insisted that I expected a call from a senior manager asap. Over an hour later, someone phoned my brother to say that mum's old line would be reinstated within 4 hours. That was almost two hours ago - we're not holding our breath.

This whole charade is unacceptable.

[Ashleigh_C]

Hi there @CarolPo 

Thank you so much for your post and welcome to the community forums, it's great to have you here. 

I am so sorry to hear that you have faces this issue with your Mum's landline and thank you again for posting. I would like to take a closer look into this with you so will pop you a private message so we can take a look. 

I will pop you a PM across now, please keep an eye out for the envelope at the top of your screen alerting you to a new message.
 

[CarolPo]

This still hasn't been resolved. I phoned customer services back this evening and insisted on speaking to a manager. The floor supervisor told me that it would be possible to reconnect my mother's landline, without a visit from an engineer, but this would take 48 hours. She could not explain why someone had said it should be done in 4 hours. Meanwhile, my mum has no way of getting help in an emergency. Her lifeline is useless without a landline, and she has no phone.

[Ashleigh_C]

Hi again @CarolPo 

I'm so sorry that this issue has continued I am going to pop you another PM so we can look into this further.