Landline Down? not according to Virgin????

[Bushey]

Any idea's how to get an engineer booked? three days trying going round and round from website to phone to whats app to phone to website back to phone,  given up waiting and giving up trying to use Auto Bot , chat bot , Whatsapp, etc etc..

Can't Phone out on Landline, People have told me they get a ringing but no answer from us,ringing not heard at home, line is always engaged as far as we can tell.landline service status checked and states All ok, tried brand new handset, the same, cant ring out line, engaged so must be line itself. tried no end to get to speak to someone to no avail, any one offer any advice on a number i can ring to speak to someone Human, without waiting a lifetime or does anyone have an email address to the Tech dept i can use. thanks for any help.

[Kath_F]

Hi Bushey, 

Thanks for your post and welcome to the forums. It's great having you on board with us in the Community. 

We're sorry to hear you're having an issue with your landline. We can certainly look in to things for you. There's a little bit of conflicting information in your post so I would need to confirm some things. 

You've mentioned that when people ring you, they get the ringing tone from their end but the handset itself doesn't ring on your end but you've also said the line remains engaged. Can you confirm which one is it?

If there handset is not ringing on your end, as simple as it sounds, can you just confirm you've checked the ringer on the handset to ensure it's turned up and is not off? As silly as it sounds, it's quite surprising how often and easily it can be knocked. 

Can you also let me know what happens when you pick up your handset to make a call? Is there a dial tone before you type any numbers or no tone at all?

Come back and let us know so we can help further. 

Many thanks, 

[Bushey]

Hi Kath,

Thanks for reply appreciated, yes when we try to ring out there is no dial tone just an engaged tone at anytime, yet when friends have tried to ring us all they hear is continuous ringing which we do not hear.

current handsets are not muted, in addition a different brand new handset was tried with the same results, so eliminating the handsets it must be the line, yet status tell me all ok?

when we pick up the handset there is no dial tone just an engaged tone.

[Kath_F]

Hi Bushey, 

Thanks for coming back to us on this and for answering the questions I asked. 

I would like to arrange for an engineer to come to take a look at this for you. I just need to confirm the address to ensure we are booking the visit on the correct account. 

I have sent you a private message regarding this. Just click on the little plum envelope at the top right-hand side of the page to access your inbox.

Thanks,

[Kath_F]

Hi Bushey,

Thanks for coming back to me via private message. 

I have booked you in for the next available appointment. To view this please sign in to My Virgin Media here: My VM. Once logged in, scroll down to Orders & appointments then click on View your orders. You can also view this in the My VM app. If you have any issues with accessing your account or unable to see your visit, please do let us know and we’ll pop you another message to pass data protection and then confirm the appointment details.

Just to confirm, there will be no charge for this visit unless:

• The technician diagnoses the fault as not being caused by our network/equipment
• The technician discovers that the fault or problem relates to your equipment
• The technician discovers that the fault or problem relates to any system that we are not responsible for

The technician will confirm during their visit if any of these instances apply, and if so, a £25 charge will be applied to your account.

Please ensure that someone over the age of 18 is at the property for the time the engineer is there. If the appointment is unsuitable or if anyone living at your property has tested positive for Coronavirus, has been asked to self-isolate or has flu-like symptoms then please reschedule the appointment on the same link. If you do miss the appointment for any reason, a £25 missed appointment charge will be applied to your account on the day of the appointment so it is important to reschedule if needed. 

Lets us know how the appointment goes. 

Take care.

[Kath_F]

Hi Bushey, 

Thanks for your message again. 

With the home switchover, you would be given clear instructions and notifications upfront on when and how the switchover is happening in your area. 

If the area is ready then the engineer may be able to get you moved over early. Let us know how the visit goes here though. 

Thanks, 

[Bushey]

Update: After loosing the phone line completely from Wednesday evening 27th July , and after reporting the Fault to try and establish if there was a simple reason for the loss of our Telephone usage , and then having booked the engineer visiting a week later,  it occurred to me that maybe just maybe our line had been switched over to Fibre, even though i did not receive any notification of a switch over date. My Land line master socket is downstairs in the lounge, my router is up in the loft centrally positioned as per installation advice. So my landline Telephone has all the cables etc hidden, (which would have been a nightmare pulling cables back through walls etc).which meant i had to purchase another telephone to see if the fibre had been switched on, so Tuesday of this week after a full week of no land line i did just that, tried a new phone in the router and guess what miracles do happen ,woo and behold we have our phone back!! 

My Question is : why didn't Virgin inform me when the switchover date was!!! They have my bank details my Home address ,my email address x 2, my telephone number and i suspect my mobile number, surely **bleep** someone is lacking in taking responsibility for a complete waste of my time and others on the forum who tried to help, !! it beggars belief such a simple thing to do, was not done, incompetence springs to mind, .was i the only person affected? the only one? I think Not, it was very worrying as we have a 90yr old mother  dependent on her phone ( Luckily a BT line) who was not able to contact us.

Looking into complaints i see they have an automatic compensation scheme where they pay you if you loose a service, so 7 days loss of phone line due to their inability to advise on the switchover date , sounds to me like maybe i will be getting some form of recompense ? Watch this space, if the compensation process is anything like the switchover **bleep** up, i think i might be waiting !!! i shant hold my breath. Come on Virgin get your act together,you can do better than that!!! We have been long serving customer's of  25 plus years, do i really need/want to take my custom elsewhere? 

[Carley_S]

Hi @Bushey

I am very sorry that you were not informed of the home phone switch over which caused your landline to stop working. We do send out communications to our customers about this and inform them of the date that the area will be completely switched to the new IP phone system. You should have also received a phone adapter in the post so you could plug your landline into the router when needed. 

If you're unhappy with how this switch over has been communicated to you or to see if any automatic compensation has been granted to you, you can reply back to the agent that booked in your appointment via private message and we'll investigate this further for you. 

[Anonymous]

You can only imagine the numbers of dead or dying at the hands of VM because they suddenly find their landline no longer works when their lives depend on it. Outrageous. Especially now they don't provide any sort of meaningful telephone customer support and provide a two tier system where only those willing and able to post on a "community discussion forum" and exchange messages and private data with some random "team member" are given any kind of customer support, however superficial. Not really what the regulators would find acceptable, I'm sure.

[Carley_S]

Hi @Anonymous

It's sad to hear you feel this way. I can assure you that we do all we can to contact our customers, and give them ample notice that their landline services will be switching to the new IP systems as part of the home phone switch over that is being actioned across all telecom and internet service providers. 

Customers will receive either the adapter to use to plug their phones into the router directly, or if more work is required to complete the set up such as upgraded routers or the installation of the EBUL for vulnerable customers  - we'll advise them to contact us to arrange an engineer appointment so we can ensure that the landline is set up correctly with the router. 

I can also assure you, the forum team are not some random team members, but genuine Virgin Media employees working to help those on our social media platforms and these community forums. 

If there is anything we can help with today, we be more than happy to help and assist you with whatever concerns or questions you may have.