Installation Cancelled 3rd time

[Ajhamilton596]

Hi All

Hoping someone can help!

First signed up and booked installation in August and has now been cancelled for the 3rd time  - this times excuse -  they need access to a neighbour and want me to ask them for a phone number or email.  As we don't know the residents, I find it difficult to imagine that they would be happy to pass personal details like an email address or phone number to someone unknown to them who lives up the road. I think it would be better, and more professional, for Virgin to write to the residents explaining the situation, which still hasn't fully been explained to me. Response from Virgin : 

We currently have an issue with the system that we use to issue postal Wayleave agreements.
We would normally send Wayleave requests to your neighbours via post. Unfortunately, we do not have the facilities to do so at this time. In order to obtain the legal permission required we would be very grateful if you could support us with obtaining an e-mail address or telephone number for your neighbour and we will endeavour to seek permission as efficiently as possible. 

Surely this is wrong?  anyone else come across this sort of madness?

Amanda

[nodrogd]

As per VMs contracts, the onus is on the prospective customer to gain any required permissions from any landlords over whom your drop cable has to pass before they will install.

[jpeg1 · Accepted solution]

But what is being asked here is not getting permission from the landlord of a rented property. It's access to a neighbour's property, which could be more contentious.

Are VM hoping to run their cable through the neighbour's garden to save a longer run? This may be more difficult than the usual sort of request, and if the neighbour decides to be difficult... 

[Ajhamilton596]

Hiya
Thanks for that - even if it's 200 metres down the road in a private house and no idea who lives there?

Seems odd as they said they need a phone number or email - as they can't write to people but post for permission so are obviously happy to sort it once they have the information to deal with them directly.
Cheers
Amanda

[Ajhamilton596]

No idea, they have not actually said why they need to contact them - just they need to. which is even more problematic. This is all it says:
Unfortunately, we were unaware that we would require permission from your neighbour until our engineers submitted a request to our team on 02/12.
In order to obtain the legal permission required we would be very grateful if you could support us with obtaining an e-mail address or telephone number for your neighbour and we will endeavour to seek
permission as efficiently as possible.

[Ashleigh_C]

Hi there @Ajhamilton596

Thank you so much for your post and we are so sorry for the issues caused by your delayed install. 

It is up to the customer to obtain any permissions from a neighbour so we would require you to contact them. 

We are so sorry again for any inconvenience caused. 

[Ajhamilton596]

Hi 
Still not sure I understand they as we’ve not been asked to get permission for anything. They live at least 400 metres away from the house and we already have an email from the installation team that’s says they are not able to write to them as the system isn’t working - they have said they will get in touch (no idea why as they haven’t said!) they just want us to get and email or phone number to pass on to them  so they can talk to them -  so are not expecting us to do anything apart for get the house owners details - I wouldn’t give my details to a random person who knocked on the door saying Virgin needed it to contact them, but I’ve not idea why - would you? It doesn’t sound very believable does it  that a multi national company wouldn’t have the facility to write to a householder??!!!?

Amanda

[goslow]

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@Ajhamilton596 wrote:

Hi 
<snip> It doesn’t sound very believable does it  that a multi national company wouldn’t have the facility to write to a householder??!!!?

Amanda

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No, it doesn't sound very believable at all.

There is a version of a VM access agreement here

https://store.virginmedia.com/content/dam/eSales/networkexpansion/Wayleave/access_agreement.pdf

taken from this page to do with network expansion

https://www.virginmedia.com/broadband/network-expansion

Even if you could (somehow) put an access agreement in front of the neighbour, I'd suggest that any neighbour who actually signed up to anything like that document, whilst having no vested interest in the VM connection themselves, would be a very unique and obliging neighbour!

[jpeg1]

"It doesn’t sound very believable does it  that a multi national company wouldn’t have the facility to write to a householder??!!!?"

Actually it does sound very believable for this particular multi national company.

It illustrates once again the broken structure of their UK subsidiary, where each department has no authority beyond its own individual remit and is unable to communicate with other departments.  In your case, the remote staff who need access to the land have no facility to approach anyone unconnected to the contract, and they can't ask any department upstream to do it for them.

So they are hoping that you will be persuaded to contact these people, because you are getting desperate for the connection and will perhaps plead for a satisfactory response.

I fear this is not going to end well, but I hope for your case I'm wrong. If this property is so far away it may be too expensive an installation for them to justify. 

[Lee_R]

Hi Ajhamilton596, thanks for posting and welcome back to our community.

Sorry to hear there's a delay in your installation, due to wayleave requirements. Have you raised an complaint and had it staged to our install complaints team?  I'm sure they would have contacts that could get you required answers and reasons.

Regards

Lee_R