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How to get a spotter or engineer to correct a mistake re 'address is unserviceable'

deehaw
Tuning in

Last year we had Virgin expand in our area with the new Nexfibre lines. I saw them dig up the roads and do all the work & occasionally spoke to them.
So I'm very clear on where my external service point is. It's a shared one with my next door neighbour.
Fast forward to October once they were taking on customers, get knock on door from sales rep and we agreed a deal.
Come a few day before activation day, I'm away and we've seen on camera that external engineers/contractors come, have a bit of a poke around the area where you can see the road scarring lead to the service point and leave.

Next day I find out order is cancelled. Spent hours on the phone being passed pillar to post between CS, Sales & pre-install. The engineer had marked our address as unserviceable as the road would need digging up again with a new conduit and it was too costly.

I was mostly gutted I lost out on a good deal at the door  that was agreed but I could no longer order the service online as I was unserviceable because some engineer couldn't be bothered making a bit of effort.

I raised a complaint, sent photos of the service point with the 2 green cable sheaths (1 mine and the other my neighbours) as well as videos of how close it was to my house and the potential route for the green cable to my entry point. All I was asking for was for VM to send out another engineer to double check but it was simply "computer says no". There was a VM engineer in the area one day and he checked it and did a blow test and confirmed in his opinion property was serviceable but there was nothing he could do.

Even VM Executive complaints team were not helpful as they thought I was demanding to be connected to them or the road to be dug up - all I want is for them to come and check and confirm I'm serviceable. No joy. so complaint to ombudsman. They agreed the handling of the complaint was poor and VM have to pay compo, but, they can't force VM to send out engineer.

So fast forward to now, I've seen another deal and I spoke to my neighbour. I ordered the deal to their address. It's on my name and the credit check was on my address as I selected that I hadn't moved to my neighbour's address yet. 
Outdoor contractor/engineer came this week, neighbour told them it was me that ordered it, engineer connected up green sheath and brown box to my property, exactly where I wanted and did the blow test, all good THUS PROVING THAT MY PROPERTY IS SERVISCEABLE. 
Shame my hours of phone calls and emails couldn't get VM to just send somebody out.
yesterday another outdoor VM branded engineer came, checked the connection with his mobile toy, confirmed it was getting signal (1 and 3 ?)

So now indoor install/go live booked for next week and will have to try and intercept engineer and get install done inside my house. Once live I'll then have the next uphill battle if amending address

This is very much a fudge but it goes to show how incorrect the original engineer last year was and VM could have very easily solved this but they (incl Exec team) just don't seem to have the ability to send an engineer for a 2nd opinion. They take the first engineer's account as gospel and that it could just never possibly be wrong.

TL;DR;
An engineer has done the first part of the outdoor work and connected my property to the network - but technically my address on your system is showing as unserviceable. How do I get somebody to come out and confirm back to VM that my house is serviceable?

12 REPLIES 12

Steven_L
Forum Team
Forum Team

Hey deehaw,

Welcome back to the community and thanks for taking the time to post. I’m sorry to hear of the issues that you’re having with your installation.

If you have an account at your neighbours address, the services would need to be installed at the address shown on the account, you cannot simply get the services installed and then change the address on your account.

Have you been given any further updates about this since you last posted about the install?

Kind Regards,

Steven_L

FlockWallpaper
Dialled in

I do fear that this is going to end up as a mess of biblical proportions in the future. I hope your neighbour is accommodating as they are likely to be dragged into this.

I hope Virgin would be as accommodating

Hi Steven... no further updates. Rather disappointed in VM and this goes someway to prove that their stubbornness has been equally matched by mine. The property clearly is serviceable but despite an 8 week complaints process being exhausted they just refused to send somebody out and yet here I've managed to almost get a connection.
My installation/go live date is this week.

Hi Steven, I'm still none the wiser how I can get a spotter out to my address to correct something that is so obviously wrong.

Potential Virgin media customer here reaching out.

Hi Gareth, looking for a Mod/Admin to get in contact re this please
https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/QuickStart-set-up-and/How-to-get-a-spotter-or-engineer-to-corre...

Thanks for coming back to us deehaw, I can see that you have spoken to the team since you last posted and they have advised you further. Is that correct? 

Kind Regards,

Steven_L

Hi Steven, I decided to cancel my order the day before was due to go live as they couldn't change my address - nor could they understand the problem..
So the current situation is:

  • VM have my address on system as being unserviceable - so I can't place any new order
  • I have the brown VM box on my property, with a fibre-optic cable in there, connected to the VM network
  • The cable has been tested by VM engineer themselves
  • Nobody actually wants to help.

deehaw
Tuning in

Am I barking up the wrong tree seeking help on a forum?