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owltimemvs's avatar
owltimemvs
On our wavelength
2 years ago

Complete preinstall disaster: unnecessary wayleave, postpones and questionable personal data handling

Good day lads, hope you all get better broadband service from virgin than I do at the moment considering I literally do not and cannot receive it 😆 I also hope that the service is worth it because preinstall has been nothing but a nightmare so far.

 

Had virgin xgs-pon go live on my street a month or so ago and signed up for installation via on-site rep who talked great deal about xgs-pon capabilities, like how it could achieve symmetric speeds and all that. Sadly rep failed to mention that those are hypothetical possibilities and virgin still offers 10:1 speed ratio even on xgs-pon 😐 what a disappointment. Even then unfortunately VM postponed install 3 times so far (and each time I had to ring our previous ISP to extend the service as we cancelled early because we thought we will be getting new ISP, but i eventually got back onto the rolling contract with them until this mess gets sorted) despite that the fibre box already been fitted to the front of the house after the first postpone.

 

After second postpone notice we phoned virgin because the box was already installed so the delays shouldn't have happened and they sent on-site engineer to see why installation isn't possible, which turned out to be a blockage up somewhere either on our or some other street which was known to be an issue after the first postpone. OK fair enough but this really should've been told upfront by a VM rep and not 2 weeks later by the on-site engineer.

 

2 weeks of delay go by and yet again i receive another 2 week postpone, and cherry on top is that they've sent me an email that my installation is actually postponed indefinitely despite the my virgin portal showing that my installation is still due late december but i digress.

 

As it happens to be for whatever reason the indefinite delay is because they need a permission in form of a 'Wayleave agreement' from one of the neighbours 2 houses up, and they actually asked us to go up to them, get their email address and then email their address to the residential wayleave team at virgin so they could reach them out.

 

To me this is complete nonsense. Neighbours house on the same street (which is a building up), and our house are not directly neighbouring (our wall is not connected to them), and our premises don't even intersect! Couple living there are not even our landlords either.

 

And why does virgin ask us to obtain our neighbours information? At best it's a bit silly they would rather send 3 different engineers to our premises to install services (yes, they've sent 2 different teams so far to lay the cable and install the box, with 3rd which would've been actual service installation inside the house) than to send 1 official rep to contact the neighbours about the agreements, and at worst they're delegating processing of personal information of other people (as they've asked for an email of our neighbours) onto us which should be none of our business and this should not be our problem at all.

 

I've rang the local VM rep and preinstall CS yesterday to try to solve this complete rubbish of a situation but the former did not pick up the phone and latter said that install engineer team should call back within 24 hours but to none of my surprise neither the rep or 'install engineer team' called back since.

 

Anyone have a clue as to how to unravel this mess and what to do now? I'm not asking my neighbours for their email or to sign a wayleave agreement because our premises, as I've said before are not within boundaries of each other and do not even intersect, nor do neighbours own the land around or on our premise. I do not see even why digging on their property is required to get broadband services on our premises? Virgin already dug on our premises to lay the cable and put the box on the wall of the house, no problems there. As far as I'm concerned the 'wayleave agreement' or any of the other permissions are not necessary here at all.

 

P.S As a funny little anecdote, the local VM rep back when helping us with filling the order talked smack about other FTTP provider in the area that was supposed to go live but did not 😆 Funny that, the other full fibre ISP might not have went live in due time but they did not promise or sell us the service they could not provide and they even explicitly stated to not cancel our current ISP services yet. Virgin on the other hand promised big and ended up giving bugger all with a headache! I have not even had actual services yet and it's already a pretty appalling experience.

disaster
postpones
preinstall
wayleave

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  • owltimemvs's avatar
    owltimemvs
    On our wavelength
    2 years ago

    Update: I've rang up the preinstall CS team once again to try to sort out this wayleave nonsense. Chap on the phone actually told me that the note left for my install is that 'extra cabling' needs to be done on our property and agreed that wayleave or gathering our neighbours details are not necessary at all for our situation! Hence he advised to just ignore any wayleave requests from VM. Of course I'll take this information with a pinch of salt if my experience with virgin has been indicative of anything so far.

    While that is great news and all, the problem is that if what people say in this thread is true and VM will dodge paying compensation correctly with some irrelevant excuses, I'm still in for a fight with them 😅 I still assume I'll need to recount and object to the compensation amount once it's payed up (if they're even gonna pay anything) and escalate it to the Ombudsman once VM fails to rectify it. With evidence, of course.

    Funnily enough the preinstall CS team agent also told that my next installation date due in late december should "absolutely" happen without delays, but I'll believe it when I see it 🙂

    That's one warm welcome to Virgin Media broadband for new customers.

    • jpeg1's avatar
      jpeg1
      Alessandro Volta
      2 years ago

      That's great news, so you were right along all the time about the wayleave nonsense 😏   Make a note of the time of that conversation and add it to your notes for future reference.

      Yes you might have to fight for the compensation, but there are people who have experience of Ombudsman claims and will be ready to advise when needed. You will not be alone.

      • owltimemvs's avatar
        owltimemvs
        On our wavelength
        2 years ago
        jpeg1 wrote:

        Make a note of the time of that conversation and add it to your notes for future reference.

        Absolutely! At this point no interaction between me and VM goes undocumented.

        jpeg1 wrote:

        Yes you might have to fight for the compensation, but there are people who have experience of Ombudsman claims and will be ready to advise when needed. You will not be alone.

        Cheers! Will absolutely reach out here if my claim with Ombudsman goes south, hopefully not though 😅

        I'll keep tabs on this thread open still, who knows what kind of curve ball VM will throw at me once my installation is up 😆

    • Dogbolter's avatar
      Dogbolter
      Tuning in
      2 years ago

      It you get the number for the preinstallCS team? I'm having a similar issue to you.

      • owltimemvs's avatar
        owltimemvs
        On our wavelength
        2 years ago

        You can either ring the normal 0345 454 1111 number and try to get forwarded to the preinstall team that way if you get put through the correct department, or you can call 08009522276 instead. (according to them they work Monday to Friday, 8AM to 5PM)

        Hopefully they'll be able to resolve the issue for you. But if I were you I'd lower expectations just in case 😉 Buckle up and good luck!

  • owltimemvs's avatar
    owltimemvs
    On our wavelength
    2 years ago

    Update: the installation date came and surprise surprise, nobody showed up and no installation was performed. I did not even receive an installation postpone message this time! I, as expected, figured that CS team agent gave me wrong information. More than that, my virgin portal now does not display even rough install date and instead it shows a pretty bare bones page without any information whatsoever about the services I have or should be getting soon.

    Even more than that, VM's wayleave team have once again sent us an email, now in all bold letters, that they have sent another email to us in early December that we should go up to our neighbour and ask for their email to send off to VM, so they could negotiate and agree on a wayleave contract. At this point I feel like they had several chances to do this themselves, even though that agreement is simply not required, yet they still decided to bother us once again instead of sorting their issue themselves. 🫤 Lovely.

    It'll be quite a laugh explaining all this mess when raising a complaint! There will be quite a lot of ground for me to cover.

    • Steven_L's avatar
      Steven_L
      Icon for Forum Team rankForum Team
      2 years ago

      Thanks for coming back to us owltimemvs and I'm sorry that your install has been delayed once again, have you been advised of anything further since you last posted about the reasons for the failure this time around for a new planned install date?

      Kind Regards,

      Steven_L

      • owltimemvs's avatar
        owltimemvs
        On our wavelength
        2 years ago

        Quite unfortunately I have not. Usually I would receive a generic message from VM that my install has been delayed further without any reasons listed. Except this last time I have not received any message at all about my installation being postponed and now my account on my virgin portal does not show any installation dates whatsoever. 🫤 So at the moment I do not have any future install dates given to me by VM, and I do not even know the reason as to why it has been postponed in this way.

  • owltimemvs's avatar
    owltimemvs
    On our wavelength
    2 years ago

    Update: I have received a new peculiar and bewildering email from Residential Wayleave Team that reads as follows:

    Hello

    It is with regret that we have been unsuccessful in obtaining the permission required in order to continue with your install, therefore at this time we are unable to provide you with Virgin Media services.

    If you have any questions, please contact our customer care team on 0345 454 1111

    Please accept our sincere apologies.

    Kind Regards,
    Residential Wayleave Team

    Yes indeed I can imagine why they have been unsuccessful in obtaining the wayleave from our neighbour! Because they don't need one 😉 Everybody up to this point have agreed with us that wayleave is not required for our property (Preinstall team on the phone AND an actual on-site VM rep) so no wonder they have been "unsuccessful in obtaining the permission"!

    Furthermore, looks like our complaint went through and we have received the initial response which just invites us to discuss this situation more. Funny that, this has not showed up in a preferred communication form that I've stated prior (which is email) instead they went to message us via WhatsApp for some reason 😐 I knew VM had WhatsApp support lines beforehand but I wouldn't think they would be resolving complaints with WhatsApp instead of other support and correspondence mediums, at least not before negotiating and agreeing with the customer beforehand.

    Let's see where this goes!

    • unisoft's avatar
      unisoft
      Knows their stuff
      2 years ago
      owltimemvs wrote:

      Update: I have received a new peculiar and bewildering email from Residential Wayleave Team that reads as follows:

      Hello

      It is with regret that we have been unsuccessful in obtaining the permission required in order to continue with your install, therefore at this time we are unable to provide you with Virgin Media services.

      If you have any questions, please contact our customer care team on 0345 454 1111

      Please accept our sincere apologies.

      Kind Regards,
      Residential Wayleave Team

      Yes indeed I can imagine why they have been unsuccessful in obtaining the wayleave from our neighbour! Because they don't need one 😉 Everybody up to this point have agreed with us that wayleave is not required for our property (Preinstall team on the phone AND an actual on-site VM rep) so no wonder they have been "unsuccessful in obtaining the permission"!

      Furthermore, looks like our complaint went through and we have received the initial response which just invites us to discuss this situation more. Funny that, this has not showed up in a preferred communication form that I've stated prior (which is email) instead they went to message us via WhatsApp for some reason 😐 I knew VM had WhatsApp support lines beforehand but I wouldn't think they would be resolving complaints with WhatsApp instead of other support and correspondence mediums, at least not before negotiating and agreeing with the customer beforehand.

      Let's see where this goes!

      lol, get out while you can 😉 What a screw up.....

      • owltimemvs's avatar
        owltimemvs
        On our wavelength
        2 years ago

        Haha, "screw up" does not even begin to describe this situation! It's not just a simple mistake made once, it's a compounded sequence of failures one after another.

        The best part is that it just keeps on going! VM has responded to my complaint by not addressing it, what a shocker I know, to which I responded back. After a while I have received a letter that VM 'did not receive' a response to the complaint, which means I am 'satisfied with the resolution', despite me sending them a lengthy message how the response to the complaint addressed absolutely nothing. 🙃

        I'm kind of bewildered that VM charges premium prices (that rise mid-contract each year mind you) for their services, but their services in question (if you get unlucky especially) provide less than budget level experience. People with less patience than me would've dropped VM long ago!