Installation Delay

[smother]

What a great start to my Broadband experience with Virgin Media.

Installation booked and done internally for 11th August.  Router installed and cabling etc internally. External work had been completed the day before.

Installer said there was a problem externally under the road as no connection. Will be escalated and sorted within 24hrs as external issue not internal.

Nothing happened.   Called them 12th Aug - will be escalated and sorted within 24-48 hours.

Nothing happened.  Called them 14th Aug - will get a call back within 2 hours. Complaint raised.

No call received within 2 hours so called them 15th Aug. No record of complaint (got it all on WhatsApp thankfully with reference number).   When I put this to the agent after about 40 mins of telling me I needed to rebook an internal installation and me telling her the internal installation had already been done and having spent 40mins of phone, the agent disappeared.

Is this what life with Virgin is like ?

[Andrew-G]

Is this what life with Virgin is like ?

Broadly speaking yes.  The installations process has been broken for about two years now.  Forum staff will try and help: sometimes they'll get a result, sometimes their ability to cut through the Kafkaesque bureaucracy of VM's installation processes is very limited.  There's been people who've found this goes on for months (in two or three cases, over a year).  Fingers crossed that it's a simple re-pull that gets sorted quickly - anything else that involves road or pavement digging increases the delays and in some cases causes VM to cancel the installation.

[jpeg1]

Yes. You'll have to get used to it I'm afraid. When the broadband is working properly it's usually fine, but their customer service varies between atrocious and non existent.

Edit.. Crossed with above. 

[smother]

Thanks both.  

Been pretty poor thus far I have to say, let's hope it improves as and when I get it but, right now, I have absolutely no confidence in anything they tell me.   

They have now scheduled me for an engineer visit on 29th August but I'm not holding my breath.

Thanks again 👍

[Adri_G]

Hi smother, thank you so much for posting on our forum page with your issue.

We're sorry to hear of this experience so far and the delay in installing your services to the property.
From what you explained above, we can advise that in some cases when we need to complete external work (usually an engineer cabling job so we can bring the line in the property), 
this may take a while and our customers can experience these delays if there is an issue with council permits pending, 3rd parties involved or low staff availability to complete the work etc.

For this reason, i'ts hard to predict if any delays will occur when we give you the provisioning date for installing you.
Once your installation is complete we will assess this delay and based the dates and on Ofcom's auto-compensation scheme we will be happy to compensate you depending on your case and eligibility, please have a read here, under ''delays in installing my services'' section to see what applies.

The good news is you will not have to chase this up as it is a process we will action once the services are up and running anyway, so you don't really need to get in touch and ask for a credit in this instance.

We understand this is not ideal and we are sorry for any inconvenience caused, as we have currently scheduled this set up on 29/8 for you, is there anything else we can be of help with?
Let us know if you have more queries or concerns about the above, happy to best assist you.

[smother]

I am afraid your response is why I have absolutely no confidence in your customer service.

A field service manager rang me yesterday,  was sending an engineer today to sort the issue and kindly gave me his mobile number and said to contact him if there were any issues as the matter had been escalated.

As he promised,  an engineer turned up today and was here for an hour or so.  He said someone else needed to come and sort the issue and would be here today.   At the time of writing, they haven't turned up.

I contacted the field service manager by text and rang him also to relay this as he told me to call him if it wasn't sorted.  No response.

I log in to my Virgin Account and it says my next appointment is the 31st not the 29th as you have stated.

Not a very good start is it ?

[jem101 · Accepted solution]

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@smother wrote:

I am afraid your response is why I have absolutely no confidence in your customer service.

A field service manager rang me yesterday,  was sending an engineer today to sort the issue and kindly gave me his mobile number and said to contact him if there were any issues as the matter had been escalated.

As he promised,  an engineer turned up today and was here for an hour or so.  He said someone else needed to come and sort the issue and would be here today.   At the time of writing, they haven't turned up.

I contacted the field service manager by text and rang him also to relay this as he told me to call him if it wasn't sorted.  No response.

I log in to my Virgin Account and it says my next appointment is the 31st not the 29th as you have stated.

Not a very good start is it ?

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Yes well but what can we say? Now the good news is that you are absolutely entitled to compensation of £5.25 per day for each day that passes from your original install date (11th August?) up until it either gets done, or you or VM just give up and cancel - and you are still entitled to it even if you cancel, so don’t do that, think about the compensation racking up!

In the meantime, are you without any internet connectivity at all? There is a fair chance that 29th or 31st August (who can tell) will come and go with nothing happening, you might want to think about a 4G or 5G router on a monthly tariff as a ‘get out of jail (damn modern spelling, should be gaol) free card’.

The other thing to be aware of, is that sometimes VM will deny that they owe you any compensation at all, citing ‘external factors’ etc. This is actually complete rubbish, the OFCOM code of conduct which sets out the compensation levels and to which VM signed up to, does not permit any exceptions. A cynical person might think that VM claim this in the hope that most customers won’t know any different and just accept it. Luckily for you, a few of us on here do understand the regulations entirely, somewhat better than some VM staff it would seem!

[Tom_W1]

Hi @smother, thanks for your post and I'm very sorry about the confusion surrounding the install date.

Please allow me to send you a PM so I can explore this in more detail you, kindly expect this to arrive shortly and respond directly when you can!
Many thanks

[Andrew-G]

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@smother wrote:

I log in to my Virgin Account and it says my next appointment is the 31st not the 29th as you have stated.

Not a very good start is it ?

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Out of polite interest, did your connection get setup on or around the 30th?

[smother]

Yes,  I did. Someone turned up about 6.30pm - there was an issue under the road - they hadn't wired it in correctly he said.    To their credit, the forum guy above got involved and has followed it through and all sorted now thanks. Only issue I have now is it does not seem to like Sky Glass very much as get drop outs occasionally which is obviously not Virgin's fault I guess as getting around 500mb in most rooms and 1gb on wired devices- guess I'll have to wait for a new hub to get more than 500mb on wireless .  Got an odd-shaped house so Virgin have given me a booster to see if that helps the Sky Glass issue.