ongoing broadband issues

[Donnykebab1972]

Good Evening 

we have had broadband issues ongoing since june if not even May this year. 

we started making notes in june this year of how many times the wifi/broadband dropped out. 1 night 4 times just in the 4 hours i was home in the evening, one sunday 9 times dropped out. after calls to 'customer service' we eventually started to get some recognition that there was a problem. we had 3 engineers out from May onwards. each one replacing different items the previous one hadnt changed and in the process slagging off the previous engineer "dont know why he didnt do this, do that etc" until after 3rd engineer the whole of the boxes and connections inside and outside have been replaced.

we didnt even know we didnt have a landline anymore until someone text us to say it wasnt working and when we phoned we were advise virgin dont do the landline cables anymore and only over the broadband (you can see where this is heading), so when we have no broadband we have no landline, which affects our tv service for example if we are watching Netflix or Prime through the hub it buffers and we sometimes have to abort.

my wifes mother has dementia and my mum has mobility issues and both have a lifeline call system, our landline is on the call list. with the issue of broadband dropping out the last engineer boasted he had something that would do the job, cost £300 and wouldn't drop the phone line. after speaking to technical this will only work on emergency 999 outgoing calls on our phone line which isn't helpful at all. this has been relayed to 'customer service ' numerous times but nothing is being expedited quick enough should there be a issue with my mother in law. the mobile signal in the house is intermittent so a working landline is literally a lifeline to our parents.

twice we were supposed to have engineers out to replace the external cabling and both times turned up, sat in van for 5 minutes then buggered off. after us having to chase up 3 or 4 times as to what was happening we were told it wouldn't be laid/sorted until 26th november!!!!!! NOVEMBER. this is not acceptable in any way shape or form. we are at our wits end trying to get this sorted. we cant get a reduction in our bill or any compensation as its not a permanent problem. 

We are also Virgin mobile customers, our mobiles are chomping through data because our broadband is faulty.  

basically, our TV, telephone and broadband services are all affected.  

the landline is plugged into the router.

xbox playstation are on poe 

Tivo box is wifi and also phones obviously are wifi and when 1 goes down the whole lot are affected.

Next door neighbour one side is not affected at all by issue

We have been in contact with ofcom who have asked us to provide details for Virgin Media.  We are in the process of doing this now.

[Andrew-G]

I've marked your post for forum staff to advise.  

Regarding compensation, you may not be eligible under the company's limp-wristed automatic compensation scheme, but you can still claim it.  Do so through a formal complaint (use the form in My Virgin Media), detailing the problems and asking for compensation for the various faults, the long time period, and ineffective customer support.  Expect that this will probably be fobbed off (or they'll issue a trivial credit that's an insult) because that's how VM deal with most complaints, but that doesn't matter.  You make a formal complaint, if VM haven't resolved the matter to your complete satisfaction including both connection performance and the compensation within eight weeks, then you escalate to the industry arbitration scheme CISAS.  This is evidently not a quick fix, but it gets the matter independently reviewed, and the findings are binding on VM.

Regarding the changes to the landline, it is a national change to convert all lines (including eventually all Openreach lines) to this technology, called VOIP.  There are some provisions for vulnerable customers, but as you've found these aren't ideal and as a relative of vulnerable customers you may not qualify even for those.

[Paulina_Z]

Hi @Donnykebab1972,

Welcome back to our Community Forum! Thank you for your post, and I'm sorry to hear that your broadband and landline issues are both ongoing.

I understand that this must be frustrating, and after locating your account, I can see that you have been in touch to discuss this issue and your compensation previously.

You can take a look at our Automatic Compensation Scheme if you'd like more information on this. However, any compensation that you're eligible for will be applied after the issue has been resolved.

Are you able to tell us a little more about the issues you're experiencing with your broadband and landline? Are you experiencing intermittent connection on both wired and WiFi connections, or just one of those? Do you have a dial tone on your landline? If you do, are you able to make outgoing calls at all?

I understand that you have a Work Order booked in for this issue to be resolved by having the cables changed. 

You can raise a complaint in regards to this issue via our website by looking at our Complaints Code of Practice for further details.

Please update us on this issue and provide further information if possible.

We'll do our best to have this issue resolved for you.

Thank you,

[Donnykebab1972]

@paulina_z thank you for the reply. i would have replied earlier but guess what,no internet or wifi. 

as you can on our account we have been in touch numerous times and must be in the double figures now. you will also be able to see i phone a week ago last sunday and a manger was supposed to phone back in 48hours but never had the decency to do so. one of the previous phone calls my wife spoke to a young man at your "customer service " centre(it was his first day, poor soul) to try and find out what was happening and his "manager" told him to point her in the direction of this community forum so he could take more phone calls. 

as i believe i put in the original post when the wifi goes down none of the devices will work on either the hard wired (the landline phone) or gaming consoles, alexa or mobile phones. we have no dialling tone when we try to phone out and just silence when someone trys to phone in.

we have provided all the above details every time we phone up and are getting bored of telling the same story over and over again. i thought thats what the people in the "customer care centre" did every time as they say they are making notes on our account.

quite frankly the broadband/wifi service, cusomer service and whole after care have been abysmal and thats as polite as i can put it without swearing.

we have been loyal customers for over 20 years and just shows you get nothing for being loyal to a company. 

[Donnykebab1972]

@paulina_Z please reply. It went out 5 times last night, At least 6 time so far today.

[Martin_N]

Thank you for that information Donnykebab1972. 

I have taken a look into this and it does look like a technician may be required. What I will do is private message you so we can look to arrange this. 

^Martin