Forum Discussion

Elm's avatar
Elm
On our wavelength
2 months ago

Customer Service Making Stuff Up?

My situation's getting quite Kafkaesque.  

Three weeks since activation, still no service.  Ticket raised last week; engineer told me it was with a back office IT team (who naturally won't speak to anyone), with a 24 hour resolution.  This was then changed to a 7 day SLA.

SLA expired, I called CS for an update.  No update available; the team won't even speak to them, they just have to wait for notes to be updated.  Asked how long I should wait; another few days, 6 months?

Transferred to second line support in case they could help.  To get me off the phone, they claimed to have spoken to a different team, and a 'special engineer' would be dispatched to help me solve it once and for all.  Arriving today between 4pm and 7pm.

No record on my account of an engineer visit booked of course, so the consensus is that he made this up to get me off the phone.  

What next?  I called retentions and was told that if my account isn't active, it won't 'switch over to my old contract,' and therefore if I want to switch provider now it's over £1000 in early termination fees.

  • jpeg1's avatar
    jpeg1
    Alessandro Volta
    2 months ago

    You are right of course, they will tell you any rubbish to close the call. We've heard it all on here many times. 

    But there is no SLA on VM residential contracts, just some compensation after the first two days without a connection.  Are you on a business contract? 

    If you have not yet had any connection at all, you can cancel without a penalty. 

  • Elm's avatar
    Elm
    On our wavelength
    2 months ago

    No, I'm on a residential contact.  The SLA was more the engineer's comment that the team involved have a requirement to fix urgent tickets in 24 hours, but in my case specifically adjusted their resolution time to 7 days.  

    Even without a formal SLA it does seem ridiculous that the only solution is 'wait for the team to decide when to update.'  It's good that I can cancel with no issue, although it is frustrating that I'll be facing another 4 weeks with no connectivity waiting for Openreach...!

  • jpeg1's avatar
    jpeg1
    Alessandro Volta
    2 months ago

    A new contract with VM only starts with the first connection, and then you have 14 days to cancel without penalty. 

    If you're going to another supplier, the best advice on here is not to cancel VM until they have finally connected you, because this maximises your compensation for the inconvenience they caused you. 

    • Elm's avatar
      Elm
      On our wavelength
      2 months ago

      That is good advice.  At least that should mean I can carry on with a new install with a new provider, and then just cancel VM within 2 weeks of actually getting connected.