Extended loss of service - still awaiting re-pull

[Swoobs]

After reading countless posts on this forum, I've come to understand that this is an extremely common issue. Customer support have been extremely unhelpful as many other posts here have indicated, this post is largely to highlight the issue in hopes to receive support from one of the community forum team whom I've heard can be more helpful. 

After having work done out the front of the house in March and a severed cable under the garden, a re-pull request was quickly resolved within two days and no issues - we started having intermittent issues at the start of September when the weather changed.

September 8th - first loss of service. An engineer visit was scheduled but cancelled once service came back on Sunday 10th September, suspected this issue was due to an outage (a large number of reports issued on sites like DownDetector over that weekend)

Tuesday 12th September through to Saturday 16th September second loss of service, similarly believing this was due to an outage due to a huge number of reports at that time.

Third loss of service came on Thursday 21st September (and we have been without service since) with an engineer called out (suspected unlikely a third outage in a row and an issue on our end.) An engineer was sent out on the Tuesday 26th September, replaced connectors at both the property and street connectors but didn't get any signal through his terminal informing us we needed a re-pull. 

The engineer suggested the issue was likely due to a poor cable repair on our previous re-pull, with an RG6 cable coming from the street cabinet to the garden, and spliced onto the previously severed RG5 cable coming into the property with weathering on the repair likely causing the outage - the engineer was very surprised this was done too, rather than running a complete new cable from the street cabinet to the property.

We were told the re-pull could take up to 48hours for a team to come out, and by the 28th we had received no information until we contacted the support team directly who had told us a team tried to come out but road repairs were needed, eventually informing us that our expected repair date was November 22nd due to delays in getting a road repair team out. 

The road team were able to come out early, over a week ago, and had completed the work - but our appointment on the VM portal still says November 22nd and of course customer support aren't able to provide us with any additional information. 

We do currently have an alternative in place for internet, and are aware that this is a common issue - once again just hoping to get a response from somebody who may actually be able to provide some information rather than the radio silence we've had, and the current solution doesn't have much longevity with high usage requirements.

Complaint # C-2809231317

[goslow]

Assuming you are an existing customer (rather than a new installation with a faulty cable) read up on the compensation scheme and start keeping detailed notes of all that has happened

https://www.virginmedia.com/help/billing-and-payments/automatic-compensation

The compensation scheme does not work that well for intermittent faults due to the 2 working day fix time VM is allowed until the compo clock starts. Once you have a 'total loss of service' VM gets two clear working days to fix the fault then it is £9.33 per full calendar day after that until the service is restored.

It is important to keep your own records of any TLS as VM often claims the fault was an intermittent fault, or an area fault has been fixed, even when the customer still has no service.

Your story is complicated by the fact that it includes cable damage on your property, a failed cable repair and what seems to be some general area problems which may affect how the compensation is calculated.

[Swoobs]

Cheers for the reply!

We've kept a detailed log of the process, and have reported it all to CS whilst lodging the complaint - we've already been made aware that we're unlikely to have the loss backdated to the 8th (due to it being intermittent loss) but have had the complete loss of service confirmed since September 27th by the technician. 

Fortunately there shouldn't be any dispute about area problems either with our neighbours on VM being unaffected and the technician also recording no area fault at all.

The ground work that needed to be done was caused during the previous re-pull installation with the installer not correctly covering the ducting and damaging the plastic cover leading to water and mud getting inside, and the repairs were only needed at the foot of the garden and not throughout the entire road. 

Frustratingly we just haven't been able to get any answers from CS, as others on the forum have noted with much of this work being outsourced there's little accountability, and we'd just like some clarity if we'll be waiting for another month before service is returned based on their current appointment estimation.

[Ilyas_Y]

Hi there @Swoobs, thanks for reaching out to us and a warm welcome to the Virgin Media community forums. 👋🏼

I'm sorry to hear about the poor experience you have had in relation to the broadband and the customer journey.
With the road works being completed - have you spoke with the team since to see what they can do in terms of an earlier appointment.

Usually the appointments are booked based on the circumstances but if the road works have been cleared, the team can look in to getting this done earlier if there any earlier slots.
Reach out to the team and let us know what they say.

Kind regards,
Ilyas.

[jpeg1]

Well done, Ilyas_Y. 

Two reaching out and a customer journey all in one post! 

"Reach out to the team and let us know what they say.". The OP has already said that he's not had any answers, and that is why he has come here in the hope of getting some.  He didn't expect to just be sent away again.