7+ month wait for external cable repair

[sdfasdfasdfadsf]

We have broadband outages (a few minutes at a time, 3 or 4 times per day) every day, and have done for over 18 months. After several engineer visits, Virgin said in May it was a problem with the external cables coming into the building, and set up a repair. This keeps being rescheduled, first to July, then August, then September, and now it's showing December 17th.

Is this typical? I've phoned customer services several times, but each time they say that they can see the rescheduling but not why, and then they put me on hold to talk to the constructions team and then I either get cut off or get through to the mobile phone technical department.

Is there any way that I can find out what is going on?

[Andrew-G · Accepted solution]

It's not typical, and over 7 months is very much at the longer end of the reported waits, but long delays in simple cable work is regrettably not uncommon.  VM won't admit why it has all gone pear shaped, but I suspect they outsourced spade work to civil contractors, and the wider labour market issues and bigger contracts from BT's national "fibre to the property" improvements mean that the contractors and people who were previously doing this sort of work can get better rates and more dependable work elsewhere.  Cutting through VM's bureaucracy has proven exceptionally difficult, and I'm aware of cases where even the active involvement of the CEO's complaints team and the Area Field Manager have been unable to accelerate a simple cable repull.  Maybe on this occaision VM forum staff can get things moving, but for that to happen it's a few individuals trying against the hulking inertia of a multi-billion pound corporation that simply sees no problem with this sort of customer service.  Fingers crossed for you, but don't get your hopes up.

At least make sure you get compensation for the poor connection, wasted time and broken promises.  There's some advice on how to do this here.    

[sdfasdfasdfadsf]

Thanks for this! While discouraging it does at least help me manage my expectations. I'm unlucky to be on a street in central London where Virgin is the only genuinely fast option, or I would have given up long ago, but I am starting to wonder if having 20% of the speed but greater reliability elsewhere is a necessary tradeoff.

[David_Bn]

Sorry to hear of the issues you've experienced with the connection @sdfasdfasdfadsf,

I'd be happy to take a closer look into this for you, check out the purple envelope in the top right hand corner for a private message from me

Kindest regards,

David_Bn