Installation cable not connected

[cmoloney1]

Hi,

Does anyone know how to get in touch with Virgin customer support for installations without going through the main phone line? My issue is with a new installation, after we ordered broadband an engineer came out to swap our apartment over to Virgin fibre. However when we received the wifi hub the next day it would not connect. We eventually got Virgin Customer Support to send out an engineer to assist us and he told us that the original engineer had made an error on installation and failed to connect the fibre cable up. However he said that he was not allowed to fix it and a member to the installation team had to come out to rectify their mistake. We heard nothing from Virgin after this even though he said they would be in contact so we decided to ring customer support again, who took all our details and promised to send out an engineer with a detailed view of the problem who could fix it. When the engineer showed up lol and behold it was the second engineer again from the team who is not allowed to fix the issue. He promised again that Virgin would be in touch to send out the right engineer however once again we haven't been contacted. Does anyone know who I should ring at this point? The main Customer service line has been completely useless, at this point I'm a hairs breadth away from just exercising my cooling off period and washing my hands of this mess. Thanks!

[jbrennand]

Try the Pre-installation and delivery team on 0800 052 1734 - they "may" be more helpful

[Ashleigh_C]

Hi there @cmoloney1

Thank you so much for your post and welcome to the community forums, it's great to have you on the team! 

I am so sorry to hear that you have faced this issue when installing with us! It's sounds incredibly frustrating and not at all what we would like for you as a customer! 

A big thank you @jbrennand for help and advise so far. Have you been able to speak with the teams at all in regards to this? 

Thanks again.

[cmoloney1]

Hi,

Yes I rang the number he suggested and eventually got through to a customer support agent (after being on hold for 30 minutes and then being transferred once to a completely wrong team who handle outside cabling). I explained exactly what had happened and they promised to send out an engineer who would be able to take the plate off in the apartment this time and fix the cable. I made it explicitly clear that 2 engineers had already been sent out and neither of them were allowed to fix the issue and the customer support agent assured me that this time the engineer would be able to fix the issue.

Well the engineer arrived this morning and in a shocking twist it turns out that he also is not allowed to fix the issue (apparently it's only engineers from a company called IRS that can fix the issue). Full credit to the engineer today, he was understandably frustrated at the enormous waste of resources that this has been and he rang the IRS company for us. He said he managed to get through to them and that they would call us later today to schedule one of their engineers coming out to fix the issue. We'll see if they actually call us to schedule something, to be honest if this issue isn't sorted by the weekend I'm just cancelling my virgin broadband entirely.

The original installation was on August 3rd so this has been a week now of run arounds and poor customer service, this is such a waste of our time and the time of your engineers. I understand it's not the fault of the engineers as they aren't allowed to fix the issue but the virgin customer support team has been frankly shocking, this is the worst customer experience I've ever had.

[jbrennand]

I will ask VM to comment - but note....

You can cancel anytime and incur no costs until its actually been activated. And after you are connected you have another 14 days "cooling off" period when you can cancel again free of any charges.

So you could just let it play out until the weekend to give them a chance to sort it and then you could connect to OR, Sky, BT etc - or to a 4G/5G service - perhaps on a 30-day contract? Three have a 30day 4G unlimited package for ~£20.

If so, do it. As said, you will pay nothing until VM's service is installed and operational. When it finally happens, you have 14 days in which to cancel it at no cost to yourself and keep the other service. Or, if VM is working to your satisfaction, keep it and cancel the other service (hence better if you took a 30-day contract).

[Ashleigh_C]

Thank you for confirming @cmoloney1 and I am so sorry again that this has happened.

Let me send you a PM so we can take a closer look, please keep an eye out for the purple envelope in the top right corner of your screen alerting you to a new message. 

Thank you. 

[cmoloney1]

So the saga of incompetence continues. The third engineer sent out to fix the issue managed to facilitate the installations people (virgin IRS apparently) sending us out an engineer today. We stayed at the apartment all day and finally about 10 minutes ago he rang our apartment bell. We buzzed him in immediately, however for some unknown reason the engineer just left. I even went downstairs to find him after 30 seconds of wondering where he was, in that time he had manager to return to his van and just leave. No attempt to call my mobile, no second buzz of the bell, nothing. It wasn't even like I made him wait around, I was waiting for him all day so as soon as I heard the buzz I was up and buzzing him in. I'm guessing considering it was quarter to 5 on a Friday meant he couldn't be **bleep** and was on a hair trigger to just leave without doing the job. The levels of rage I have dealing with Virgin every step of the way is just too much, I'm cancelling my contract and never ever using any virgin service ever again. If anyone reading this is considering virgin broadband then run, don't walk away from ever ordering one of their services.

[Martin_N]

Thank you for keeping us updated with this cmoloney1. I'm very sorry to hear about what happened with the engineer visit. 

We'd be very sorry to see you leave. If you would like us to look into what happened on the visit please do let us know and we can private message you. 

^Martin