Cable repulling constantly delayed

[Sufferingcustom]

I bought this house partly because virgin promised me they serviced it, it says it on the website and the sales rep also promised me they did. (The website also said that about my previous flat and it turns out it was a lie)

My neighbor next door has virgin but when the engineer came to install it here he said the cable hadn't been pulled and when I asked him how long this would take he assured me no longer than two weeks and that he would book it for me.

So I don't hear back from virgin, call the next day and they say to me the engineer said nothing to them about the cable (yep, he lied to me) and then they ended up booking a date for the repull 3 weeks ahead on the 26th of March which made me feel uneasy as I got the feeling they were going to pull some excuse on the day or some other crap not to get it done and I needed it done before the first.

And guess what today is the day and the engineer doesn't show up all. I called and text  virgin customer service so many times and they kept lying to me because frankly they don't know what's going on themselves, telling me that everything was going to be fine and that it would be done today and that the engineer would give me an update.

Not only an update was not given and the work was not done, when I looked at the app they just rescheduled the repull three weeks from now without giving any explanation even though I repeatedly said we need the internet to work and that it could absolutely not delay beyond the first of April.

I don't think I have ever dealt with such terrible customer service by any internet provider. This is just so appalling.

Virgin needs to stop lying and be upfront from day one whether they can install internet in a property or not, not promise and not have any records on what homes they have wired. Also they need far higher competence when it comes to install the cable.

Ultimately i hate having to post in forums like this and waste people's times and mine, I really wanted to be virgins customer and they make it so hard to the point I am considering cancelling my subscription before it even started, except that now is so late I will be without internet for a while and I wont be able to work from home, they really screwed me over

[jpeg1]

"I don't think I have ever dealt with such terrible customer service by any internet provider. This is just so appalling."

I'm afraid this is quite common with new connections. The installation dates are only estimates, which as you have found can be moved with little or no notice.  This is just the way Virginmedia and its subcontractors work.  If you have a spare few minutes, browse down this forum and read some of the stories about months of delay.

[goslow]

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@Sufferingcustom wrote:

I bought this house partly because virgin promised me they serviced it, it says it on the website and the sales rep also promised me they did. (The website also said that about my previous flat and it turns out it was a lie)

My neighbor next door has virgin but when the engineer came to install it here he said the cable hadn't been pulled and when I asked him how long this would take he assured me no longer than two weeks and that he would book it for me.

<snip>

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Sadly, your story has been repeated many, many times over on here.

These 'gone-wrong' cable installations can sometimes drag on for months or can sometimes be solved overnight. Whichever outcome you get depends on a totally random sequence of events generated by the VM 'machine'.

Unfortunately, VM's processes and procedures are so totally-unfit-for-purpose that no-one (including VM) can give you any information that can truly be relied upon.

Has VM given you any kind of idea at all as to what they claim the issue is? The usual 'external work' explanation often involves unblocking one of the underground cable ducts or digging up the road (but even if they do provide this 'explanation' it is often difficult to distinguish fact from fiction in their stories, some of which may be totally made up altogether).

[Sufferingcustom]

They gave me no explanation of anything. Or rather, everyone gives me a different explanation and/or generic reason why this could be so. It's like they have no communication between themselves and they just talk for the sake of talking. I currently have four meaningless appointments booked. To give you an idea of how ridiculous they are. Yesterday I called them a little enraged asking why the hell this was happening and they told me they would send a surveyor tomorrow Tuesday to see what's needed for the cable work to proceed and when I asked why wasn't this done before, why now? I got no clear answer.

Then today instead of cancelling the engineer visit to install the internet since the engineer couldn't do it, they just let it in the system so the guy shows up today and then tells me he can't do it, well duh! He was a really nice guy and he really tried to help by talking to his manager but I honestly don't have much faith in any of this.

I have two "surveyor appointments" for tomorrow which initially was just one and they automatically booked me for a cable repull install on the 15th of April and an installation on the 25th. But it's all meaningless. Oh and while all of this was happening they kept  sending me texts if I wanted to book an earlier date for the installation and get 100 quid off the account.

So right now I have all these stupid appointments that don't mean anything and are automatically generated and the only helpful engineer trying to get his manager to get answers which he supposedly will get tomorrow if I am lucky.

I am sorry I am trying to give you as much detail as possible but everything is such a mess that's just so difficult to explain without being all over the place, this whole thing is all over the place.

I am going to give this engineer until tomorrow to get back to me, otherwise I will just cancel and go with a slower provider. I get very good 5G reception in my area so maybe I will give National Broadband a try, if not something else.

I am just upset customers need to go through this humiliation because all the other options are just so ridiculously stupid slow. BT lines are a disgrace and G Network and Hyperoptic are only available to few very lucky people, so Virgin remains the only "good" option for many people, but the way they treat their customers is a complete disgrace.

[jem101]

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@Sufferingcustom wrote:

I bought this house partly because virgin promised me they serviced it, it says it on the website and the sales rep also promised me they did. (The website also said that about my previous flat and it turns out it was a lie)

Ah a sales rep, why they’ll promise you the Earth plus that the Duchess of Cambridge will personally come round twice a twice a week, strip off and clean your house stark naked, well as long as it gets you to agree, which is, of course the only important thing  - you might deduce I’m not a fan of salespeople, can’t think why!

My neighbor next door has virgin but when the engineer came to install it here he said the cable hadn't been pulled and when I asked him how long this would take he assured me no longer than two weeks and that he would book it for me.

Lies, or probably just something he made up on the spur of the moment, which is probably the same as lying - just saying!

So I don't hear back from virgin, call the next day and they say to me the engineer said nothing to them about the cable (yep, he lied to me) and then they ended up booking a date for the repull 3 weeks ahead on the 26th of March which made me feel uneasy as I got the feeling they were going to pull some excuse on the day or some other crap not to get it done and I needed it done before the first

What, they didn’t turn up on the day promised? Surely some mistake……

And guess what today is the day and the engineer doesn't show up all. I called and text  virgin customer service so many times and they kept lying to me because frankly they don't know what's going on themselves, telling me that everything was going to be fine and that it would be done today and that the engineer would give me an update.

Not only an update was not given and the work was not done, when I looked at the app they just rescheduled the repull three weeks from now without giving any explanation even though I repeatedly said we need the internet to work and that it could absolutely not delay beyond the first of April.

I don't think I have ever dealt with such terrible customer service by any internet provider. This is just so appalling.

Virgin needs to stop lying and be upfront from day one whether they can install internet in a property or not, not promise and not have any records on what homes they have wired. Also they need far higher competence when it comes to install the cable.

Ultimately i hate having to post in forums like this and waste people's times and mine, I really wanted to be virgins customer and they make it so hard to the point I am considering cancelling my subscription before it even started, except that now is so late I will be without internet for a while and I wont be able to work from home, they really screwed me over

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[goslow]

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@Sufferingcustom wrote:

They gave me no explanation of anything. Or rather, everyone gives me a different explanation and/or generic reason why this could be so. It's like they have no communication between themselves and they just talk for the sake of talking. I currently have four meaningless appointments booked. To give you an idea of how ridiculous they are. Yesterday I called them a little enraged asking why the hell this was happening and they told me they would send a surveyor tomorrow Tuesday to see what's needed for the cable work to proceed and when I asked why wasn't this done before, why now? I got no clear answer. <snip>

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Sorry to say but your pantomime narrative of missed visits, failed visits, multiple visits, visits with no cable installed ..... is repeated in most of these tales of woe about VM's bungling installation processes.

Under normal circumstances, I'd tell you to wait for the VM forum team to assist you but, unfortunately, their hands seem to be tied by the same flawed processes and only random luck seems to be able to jump start one of these stalled cable installations. Hope you can make some headway with it (somehow).

[-tony-]

a long and sadly typical saga when it goes wrong - lots of other threads of a similar nature on here and yours may go that way but DO NOT cancel even if you go with someone else - if you do cancel all work orders are likely to be cancelled so if you decide in the future to take your life in your hands again and go with VM you will be back to square one

let the install happen and cancel in the 14 day cooling off period at zero cost to you and whatever cost to VM

[Alex_RM]

Hi Sufferingcustom,

Thanks for posting and welcome to our community 🙂

I'm very sorry to hear of the experience you've had, and for the delays regarding your installation.

So I can take a closer look and give you some more information regarding this I've popped you over a private message (purple envelope, top right hand corner)

Alex_Rm

[Sufferingcustom]

Thanks Alex, I just replied to your message and I will give another update here in case another poor soul finds themselves into this predicament (which seems very likely)

Also I hope it helps you help me.

Thanks to one of your field engineers called Ayman, somehow he managed the get the works going much quicker by speaking to his manager. He is one of the very few people who have been helpful at all in virgin, and I must have talked to more than a dozen by now. If it hadn't been for him I would have cancelled my contract with you already cause the dates you were giving me were just ridiculous.

However I still have no internet. He managed to pull the impossible though and I actually saw the contractors today doing the work and they have finished installing the t junction. I asked them and they told me another contractors were coming in later today to finish the job and then it would be ready for installing the internet.

But what do you know the next contractors showed up, quickly looked at the house and took off, I didn't even have a chance to catch up to them, when I went out to ask them he was already driving off which is so irritating because you guys always know nothing when I call so I lost my chance to have a meaningful update.

Today when I called you, you didn't even know the works were happening today, you kept referring to the 21st of April for the cable works, a date that was set by someone else, not Ayman's manager and that should have been replaced by these earlier dates (hell, you didn't even know when I signed up for your service, you kept saying 27th of March when it was five weeks before that!). I had to insist multiple times and repeat myself saying that the works had been done already and now the cable just needs to go from the t junction to my home, which I hope should just be a minor job you can pull off very very soon (that should have been finished today!) I just don't understand why you have so many different contractors, perhaps you should just have one or do it yourselves, cause you never seem to know what they are up to and you are always all over the place with the information you give your customers, which results in many many lies told and many many angry people like me wasting your time and ours writing these messages.

Now I have another service request on the app for Tuesday (presumably to finish the job that was meant to be fixed today?), which is quite irritating as that probably means another week.

What you can do for me to make me happy is the following:

1. Ensure that they actually show up and do their job, ideally tomorrow Saturday or Monday, and definitely no later than Tuesday. Please don't let them show up and take off again or give any excuses not to do the job

2. Book an installation for the day after these works are scheduled, don't wait for the works to be completed, otherwise we are going to waste even more time and my patience is really running thin right now. We really need the internet to work from home and we can't afford any more delays

If I don't have internet by next week at the house I may need to cancel my contract and go with someone else, I am really sorry but I gave you 6 weeks to do this, that should have been more than enough time and I don't have more time to waste.

[Sufferingcustom]

I had service requests to complete the job that was supposed to be completed on Friday yesterday Tuesday and also today Wednesday. So far no one has showed up to do any work.

Contacting Virgin support is utterly useless waste of time. Absolutely no one in virgin media support knows anything regarding the works, why the contractors don't show up or any status whatsoever, when you call them they are not even aware of what your issue is and you have to retell the whole story in full.

They always promise to call you back and keep you updated but they never do, including Alex here in this thread, another waste of time.

Virgin is a funny company name, considering that most of what they do is screw their customers and lie to them.