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sunnyhoney's avatar
sunnyhoney
Settling in
12 days ago

Virgin Media Fibre Cable Damage – Ongoing Service Outage (11 days currently) and TERRIBLE Response

Our Virgin Media fibre cable was damaged by a third party on Friday 18th July 2025. It turns out that when it was originally installed, it had only been buried 3cm below the grass, making it extremely vulnerable. I reported a total loss of service straight away and was told—very clearly—that the earliest an engineer could attend to do a repair would be Wednesday 23rd, between 8am and 1pm.

 

On the day, at 12:55pm, I received a call from the engineer saying he couldn’t make it and would be at least 3 hours. It then became clear that he had been assigned the job as a new installation—not as a fault repair or cable damage issue. He arranged for a work crew to attend, who arrived around 2pm. They found that the issue wasn’t just a case of blowing new fibre lines as the ducting is blocked and/or damaged further up the road, requiring the footpath to be dug up and the cables re-run from the box. They told us they would apply for the necessary permits and the timeline would be 2–3 days and we should expect to hear from Virgin with an update to this.

 

Five days later, with no updates, I contacted Virgin customer service again. Unfortunately, the agent I spoke with had no record or knowledge of anything that had previously happened. They then scheduled another technician to come out on Monday 29th.

 

That technician arrived early this morning, only to tell me he also had no information about the issue and had just been booked for a routine visit. He confirmed this needed to be handled by a ground crew and said he would contact the manager at Avonline (the third-party contractor responsible), and promised a call back later today with an update. He also commented that this job should not take this long, especially since we live in a tucked-away cul-de-sac where no road closures or diversions would be required.

 

Unsurprisingly—and in typical Virgin Media fashion—we’ve heard nothing further. No update, no progress, and we’re now back to square one: repeatedly calling customer support, only to be met with script-reading staff who have no access to case history or the power to escalate the issue.

 

How many more days are we expected to chase Virgin Media just to find out when the basic repair work will even begin? We’ve been loyal customers for over 5 years, but based on this experience, we’re seriously considering switching. The ability to fix faults—and communicate clearly—is frankly atrocious.
ADMIN VM
chase up
customer support
failure
failure contact
loss of service
no response
permits
repair status
Urgent

7 Replies

  • jpeg1's avatar
    jpeg1
    Alessandro Volta
    2 days ago

    You could try making a formal complaint, if the link works for you. But be warned that it will mean even more chasing for a resolution.

    https://www.virginmedia.com/help/virgin-media-complaint

  • sunnyhoney's avatar
    sunnyhoney
    Settling in
    2 days ago

    Update – Day 22 Without Service

    After repeatedly requesting specifics, dates, and clarity on when my reconnection would finally be carried out, the timeline has gone from:

    “Wait 16 more days” (making it 21 days total)
    “It will be done by the 7th”
    to now “It’s complicated… we can give you no date at all.”

    This is a perfect example of Virgin Media’s complete inability to maintain, manage, or even communicate about their own network.

    Trying to speak to anyone who can take responsibility is impossible. Every call, message, and request through everything from their customer support number, here & social media to escalate has been met with dead ends & vague excuses. There’s been no senior staff member willing to take ownership, no one in charge of ensuring regular contact or progress updates — meaning I’ve been forced to do their job, chasing them around for information that should be proactively provided.

    The lack of urgency, transparency, and accountability in resolving this issue is staggering. Twenty-two days without service and I’m now left without even a target date for resolution.

  • sunnyhoney's avatar
    sunnyhoney
    Settling in
    3 days ago

    I should note the above is largely what I responded to a message on here by a VM staff member including requested details for them to confirm ID/account and thus provide a response and answers to questions which I believe after repeated failures and delays are more than reasonable all things considered.

  • sunnyhoney's avatar
    sunnyhoney
    Settling in
    3 days ago

    YET AGAIN NO RECONNECTION even after 21 days and repeated failures!

    This is becoming increasingly ridiculous. A work crew attended today, spent roughly two hours on site, appeared to dig up two spots—presumably to re-run new ducting—and then left without reconnecting us or providing any update. No one from Virgin Media, or acting on their behalf, has made any attempt to contact us or explain the situation.

    Once again, I find myself having to chase Virgin Media for answers and information regarding what should have been a straightforward repair. For a company that claims to prioritise resolving total loss of service within 48 hours, the fact that we are now 21 days into this issue with no resolution is incredibly concerning.

    It’s baffling that, despite having three weeks to allocate the necessary resources, a fix still hasn’t been carried out. This points to a serious breakdown in Virgin Media’s ability to manage and maintain its network infrastructure.

    Please escalate this matter urgently and provide a clear update on what is being done, when service will be restored, and why this has taken so long.

  • Matthew_ML's avatar
    Matthew_ML
    Icon for Forum Team rankForum Team
    9 days ago

    Hey sunnyhoney, thank you for reaching out and we are so sorry to hear about your engineer visit being delayed, also a warm welcome to the community we will send you a DM to check on this.

     

    • sunnyhoney's avatar
      sunnyhoney
      Settling in
      4 days ago

       I think it’s quite an understatement to summarise this situation as merely an “engineer visit being delayed.” What we’re actually dealing with is consistent incompetence, repeated missed appointments, and entirely incorrect bookings — all stemming either from a complete lack of understanding of the issue, or an inability to take the necessary steps to resolve it.

      Frankly, the former seems less likely than the latter. Twice now, we’ve had engineers booked for new installations rather than the correct team required to repair severed cables. When engineers have attended, we’ve been promised callbacks with updates on when a proper fix would be arranged — and not a single one of those callbacks has ever happened.

      To make matters worse, engineers who have arrived on-site have shown up with zero knowledge of the issue. Instead of being briefed on the specific and ongoing nature of the fault, they’ve turned up expecting to address general service problems — not a persistent, weeks-long outage due to a severed external cable. This clearly shows a breakdown in internal communication and a failure to document and escalate the case appropriately.

      In total, we’ve now spent around 10 hours over three weeks chasing Virgin Media for what should be basic information. Your call centre staff consistently fail to grasp the nature of the problem, let alone take meaningful steps toward resolving it.

      We’re now approaching three full weeks without internet access, and although tomorrow (7th) is supposedly when the necessary work will finally happen, I have absolutely no reason to believe that the appointment even exists, let alone that it will result in a resolution.