Forum Discussion

GrumpyWino's avatar
GrumpyWino
Joining in
11 hours ago

No trace of engineer appointment - fire damage to external cable, no internet etc

A fire next door yesterday melted my virgin cable to the property (and my neighbours above). I called Virgin to request the cable be replaced and explained it was melted by said fire. The customer service agent asked me if I was having a nice day, no I replied, 20 foot flames at my property and potential loss of my home meant I was not having a nice day. He apologised, put me on hold a couple of times then told me he had booked a tech to come out on Monday 18th August, afternoon - 1pm-6pm, to replace the external cable. It is essential I have the internet restored asap due to working from home and poor mobile signal which also leaves me feeling vulnerable in an emergency. I cannot find any trace of this appointment on the app or website and did not receive any confirmation by email or text. Is this usual? And if it is booked will the cable be replaced? 

The agent didn't understand much of what I was saying and I'm not convinced he understood the issue. My worry is that even if someone does turn up the job won't be completed for weeks. I am praying Virgin will be as helpful as Cadent who turned up swiftly to deal with a gas leak caused by the fire, replaced gas cabling and tested our boilers on the spot!

4 Replies

  • Thanks for reaching out to us GrumpyWino, and welcome back to our Community Forums!

    Sorry to hear of the issue at hand - sounds like a very stressful and worrying time for you and thankfully it wasn't as serious as it certainly could have been.

    Check out the envelope in the top right hand corner for a private message from me and I'll take a look into this for us.

    Thanks,

    David_Bn

  • jpeg1's avatar
    jpeg1
    Alessandro Volta

    If it's only minor damage, the technician may be able to patch the cable. If the damage is more severe they may have to call in their third party contractor to pull a new cable, and that usually takes longer. 

  • nodrogd's avatar
    nodrogd
    Very Insightful Person

    If the damaged cable is on the customer side of the drop box it is a VM tech issue. If it is VM (Cabinet) side it is a contractor job unless the existing cable can be jointed in situ. Contract jobs sometimes don’t show up as appointments.

  • Roger_Gooner's avatar
    Roger_Gooner
    Alessandro Volta

    Can you post photos of the melted cable? It's quite possible that a pull of a new cable from the cabinet will be needed, and that won't be done quickly as it's a job for a 2-man team of contractors which has to be scheduled in with all their other jobs.

    Incidentally your comparison with Cadent isn't appropriate as a gas leak is far more important - nobody's home gets burnt down from a damaged coaxial cable.