Landline fail second time in 2 weeks usual Virgin misinformation

[aprings63]

My landline went down approx 8pm last night. The phone rang, one ring, no time to answer, no one there, then the line is dead. We have a home alarm connected to the line, that also says telephone line fail.

Virign status checker says no landline issues in.my area. I went round the circular route in the horrifically non customer friendly website several times, we'll run tests and call back for result in 10 minutes.  Of course it doesn't, there are no results and all routes on the website or calls take you back to this. Poor underfunded Virgin has no one available to talk so I call today. 

Oh yeah the lines are down while work on hr switchover to fibre phone lines is going on. Didn't we contact you. Of course not, why would you tell customers and let them plan around the withdrawal of a service they pay for.

And of course up several times in the ight as the alarm keeps bleeping erros. Nice.

Exactly the same happened approx 2 weeks ago, waste time on the website fix and test rubbish. Eventually speak to someone ....  check your phone appliances, have you moved it, are you plugged into a real box or extension box, must be faulty at your end as Virigin is fine, blah blah blah blah we'll send an engineer in 4-5 days. Oh, magic, 2 days later the line is working again and Virgin cancels the engineer visit.

 So what now, I wait until Thursday for an engineer. No I don't want a new hub etc etc and a new contract etc etc , I just want the service I pay for (£149 per month, VM customer at least 20 years ....  why?) to work. 

Any comment Virgin? Any chance you fix this fault that is clearly at your end not mine ASAP and let me have the service I've been paying you for, for so many many years???

[Paulina_Z]

Hi @aprings63,

Welcome back to our Community Forums! Thank you for your post and I'm very sorry to hear that you're having some issues with your landline services at the moment! We understand how frustrating this can be.

I've taken a look at our systems and I can see that there are some issues with your landline connection on our end. However, as you've already got an appointment booked in, there's nothing much we can do at this moment. 

Our team would have to investigate your landline issue at the property and ensure that your services are working by the end of the appointment.

Please keep us updated on how your appointment goes and if you need any further help or assistance. We'll be more than happy to help further.

Thank you.

[aprings63]

So despite the status saying no issues this is a Virgin problem again.

"I can see that there are some issues with your landline connection on our end"

If this is the case then please just fix it at your end now. Why do I have to wait for an engineer visit? Again.

Thanks for taking the time to reply but, with the greatest respect, you've added nothing and done no more than tell me what I already know. Virgin is at fault and I have to wait.

[Paulina_Z]

Hi @aprings63,

Thanks for coming back to us. Our Service Status page only advises if there are any local faults impacting your services. If there are any internal issues or issues with your at home connection, this will not be shown on the Service Status page.

Unfortunately, this looks like an issue that we're unable to resolve remotely, this is why a technician appointment was booked in, in the first place. If the issue would have been resolved when you contacted us about this, our team would have done all they can to rectify the fault. We do apologise that you have to wait for your appointment.

Please keep us updated and let us know if there's anything else we can do to help going forward.

Thank you.

[aprings63]

"If there are any internal issues or issues with your at home connection, this will not be shown on the Service Status page."

Like I said this is all worryingly familiar, exactly the same scenario as a couple of weeks ago and, surprise, surprise, was fixed remotely by Virgin. Because the fault was at your end, as usual, there was no fault with my home connection. I even got a text to confirm it was a Virgin problem when Virgin cancelled the visit.

And throughout that period, where I had no landline due to a fault with Virgin, the status page continued to show the little green tick and all is fine in Virgins world.

[Paulina_Z]

Hi @aprings63,

It does sound like there was a local fault impacting your services that caused your previous landline issues. Apologies if this was not reflected on the Service Status page. We understand that waiting for a technician appointment can be frustrating.

I've checked the systems on our end and I cannot see any faults that would be impacting your services.

However, in order to rectify your fault we'd need a technician to take a further look into this at the property. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Thank you.

[aprings63]

Can you now understand my frustration and lack of belief in Virgin and its website and status etc?

Because I just received this:

"Hi, we've cancelled your technician as it's a network problem that's affecting your area. We'll update you when it's fixed. Sorry for the inconvenience."

But your status checker, even now still tells me all is fine in my area , no problems with landline or anything else.

[Paulina_Z]

Hi @aprings63,

I'm very sorry to hear that! I've taken a look at our system and the local outage has been raised at 11:05 and has been stated to be impacting landline connections in your local area.

The current estimated fix time is showing as today 06/02/2023 at 13:43. I understand that this may be frustrating. However, if the outage is resolved by this afternoon, your landline services should be up and running again today, instead of at the appointment later in the week.

I understand that this issue is not listed on our Service Status page and I do apologise. I've fed this back to the dedicated team to have this amended going forward.

Keep us updated on how you're getting on.

Thanks! 

[aprings63]

An update... you were right the line was fixed around 2pm yesterday. 

But today here we are again.  We have been woken up at 5am by a single ring and the line is dead again. Now at 6am our home alarm fails again and wakes us because the line is down.

Your status checker again says no issues in my area.

Groundhog day courtesy of Virgin. 

I won't call, I won't register the fault, because it will be the same again, denial and check my home equipment and book an engineer etc etc etc

[Kath_F]

Hi apring63, 

Thanks for coming back to us on this. We do rely on customers reporting faults to us as this is how local area faults are discovered. The longer it takes for customers to report these issues, the longer it takes us to fix them. This is because we are unable to monitor every customer's line. 

Checking the account, I can see there are known issues so the network team are continuing to look into this as it stands. The original fault was resolved yesterday so this would be either residual or a new fault. Rest assured the teams are working hard on getting you back up and running. 

In the meantime I have registered the loss of service on the account for you. 

Apologies once again.