New Connection - Utterly Shambolic Service and Constant Issues.

To follow up on my previous topic. We eventually had a new router given to us by an on site engineer and the internet was perfect for a month.

Towards the end of September the same issues started happening again, i.e. cutting in and out constantly with a barely stable connection.

Engineer came out (almost 2 weeks later) and advised "ohh I don't think it was the router then and theres no point in changing this one because its almost certainly not the issue". He did the same bread and butter stuff as the other engineer by cleaning the lines and replacing the cable from the wall to the router. He advised me to phone him if the issues happened again. 45 minutes later they happened again and I first texted him, then called. He used words to the effect of "Ohh must be something at the cabinet perhaps, I will escalate this to the 'NETWORKS' team (his words) and let you know. I heard nothing and texted him for an update (I have proof of this) and he advised there as no update but that it had been escalated. He called to say an engineer could be sent a week from that day, which I said was not acceptable given the length of time it had already taken and if he could see if there was a better option. He said he would check and get back to me. He never got back to and I called the customer service line to complain and check what the state of play was. They advised an engineer had been booked for that day (despite me not agreeing to it) and I wondered if this was as part of the escalation to the "NETWORKS" team, the agent on the phone assured me that it was, despite me being  less than convinced.

Fast forward a few days and the engineer who never got back to me randomly called my partner and myself to advise (and these were his words or close as I can remember): "They have found there is a spliced fibre cable in the area and this is what has been causing the issues, they should starting working on this and hopefully have it fixed tomorrow" (tomorrow being the Friday), by Monday still no updates and no working internet so I called the customer service line again as the engineer was now giving total radio silence. They said oh yes, we can see you have an engineer booked to which I asked again "Are they going to be fixing this so called spliced cable?, the agent said "Yes they will come and fix that yes". I was not convinced so I asked "Is there a reference for this fault a record of the works that needs carrying out?", Their response: "errr no, nothing about that on here", so I asked again "So how do you know what work is required then?". They began to stutter and then give me a scripted sequence of slogans and what not. 

I asked to be put through to the cancellations team and got through to a chap named Jason who was the first helpful person I had spoken to. He confirmed no record of works, but then suddenly he said "oh I can see a cable has been ordered and a repull is required.. The engineer you already have booked will be doing this". I was puzzled and asked if they were sure and if this was not in fact another one of your installations engineers that only come to check the kit and clean the lines. He assured me it was actually to do a repull. He also checked with a manager and gave us a credit of £105.00 (effectively what we had already paid in bills up to that point) and confirmed we had grounds to cancel with a full refund as well as no disconnection charges. He begged me to let the engineer visit first and if they couldnt restore services, we could still cancel and still have our refund.

The big day arrived and as I feared it was an installations engineer that showed up with no knowledge of a "repull". He said there wasnt a lot he could do and that I would need to contact Virgin again. I did and spoke to another chap whose name I cannot recall, who said he cannot see anything about a repull or any faults in the area but he would check with the area manager and get back to me. He tried calling once and I was not in the room and didnt leave a message. I called back and spoke to a scottish lady who advised the notes from the previous chap were "No update at the moment, tried calling customer" and that was it. So I asked her what was happening and if she could confirm if their were works planned or what was happening with mythological "repull". She said nothing on the system and that sort of work was not carried out by Virgin engineers but rather the comms contractor 'Kelly..' something. To have this done a  "Work Order' needed raising but the earliest would be October 29th (two weeks later) and at this point I just told them to cancel as this was unacceptable. I work from home and have had to lose several days pay because of it and now we are using a Three 5G Broadband service just to get internet (its very good and would recommend it over Virgin any day). She did advise that if I cancelled, the work order would be cancelled which made no sense to me because surely it was affecting more than just us. So I asked if we kept the account open and let this "Work Order" happen can I still cancel after this time, because I wanted the work to be carried out. She advised that because we would effectively have no working internet, this would be taken into account and we would still be eligible for our full refund if we wanted it after this work was carried out.

I am sure you can guess what happened when October 29th rolled around? Absolutely nothing happened. I called yesterday and there is no record of a work order or anything having been done. I lost my temper and just told them to cancel and issue the refund. The lady I spoke with said we would be charged early disconnection, to which I reminded her that we were told we could cancel without. Apparently no notes were on the system to this effect and she would have to check with her manager who was not available until tomorrow (the 31st). I advised not to cancel until we could officially confirm that no fees would be payable, because I was worried (due to their track record) that virgin would **bleep** it up and cancel but not take any fees off. I was therefore ready to wait to hear from the manager and cancel once we had 100% confirmation of no fees.

I get a text this morning. "We are sorry to hear you are leaving us" basically confirming cancellation, despite me not actually officially asking for it yet. The agent never called me back.

So I spoke to ANOTHER person in the cancellations team who advised it has been put through to be cancelled and NO fees would be payable. I asked about the refund and once again "I can see no notes and I do not think you are eligible". So now I am having to wait for another call back that will never happen to confirm yet another thing we were promised would be happening.

Virgin are a disgrace and should not be allowed to trade with such disregard for customer service. There is a reason I swore I would never go back to Virgin and the reason is stuff like this. It was bad before, but this is another level.

All we wanted was working internet and they couldn't really provide it. My question to them would be, what was the actual fault. Was it even a thing, did it exist? Is it not just a cabling problem to my property? Maybe (and this wouldnt surprise me) we just need another new router?


Sorry for the novel and even worse grammar, but I had to vent somewhere.