Joining virgin

[Mantelis]

Hello,

I'm feeling desperate, because I have no idea where I should contact Virgin. More than I week ago I bought a Virgin broadband package because I'm a new customer. I received an email next day that I need to get my landlord's permission to install broadband because I'm renting a flat. I've sent all the details of my landlord straight away. That's when the "fun" part started. I didn't reiceive anything until now neither my landlord. I called them after 3-4 days, they told me that my case is being raised and I will be contacted by Web team. No contact. Next day I'm calling them again, the guy said that he is really sorry that this happened. He told me to stay on hold and I was waiting literally 30 minutes, after he said that he was speaking with the web team and my order will be processed straight away and he promised that they will contact me in the next 24 hours. I asked him twice if they will contact me for sure in the next 24 hours and he said "no doubt, I promise. No call for 3 days already. I'm desperate already because every time I try to call Web team directly I get the answer that the line is closed, even though they work until 8pm and I'm calling them around 6pm. I already cancelled my Sky broadband package and it will stop working on 20th of November. No contact from virgin and they are just ignoring me. Does anyone have any advice what to do, because I really need this internet since Virgin provides the speeds I need for my current address. Thanks in advance.

[VM-Jon]

Hi @Mantelis 

Thank you for reaching out to us here, welcome to the community.

Please accept our apologies for the difficulties you are having, I would like to take a look at this for you and see what I can do to help. In order to do so I will need a little bit more detail so I will send you a private message.

Thank you

Jon

[jpeg1]

This is a common situation. New Virgin connections can get delayed for a number of reasons. You must maintain your current broadband service until the new connection is in and working. 

[Andrew-G]

Wayleave agreements are typically handled by the landlord's solicitor (or legal department if the landlord is an organisation), and at VM's end by their legal team's wayleave group.  As you can imagine, anything involving legal paperwork moves at the speed of a slug encapsulated in glass, and you'll not be entitled to compensation for delays caused by these slow moving legal processes.  As jpeg1 says, get on to your current ISP today, ask them to extend the contract for a month or two. 

And you are aware that VM offer great speeds as and when you get connected, but you're moving from the least complained about large ISP (Sky) to the most consistently complained about ISP?  By all means if that's a choice you'll knowing take then go for it.

[Mantelis]

I've been super happy with the Sky in my previous address, because I had around 130Mbps internet speed and everything was working smoothly. But when I moved to the new address, all they could offer was 59Mbps (and I would be alright with that), but when it got installed, speed and connection quality is just funny. I get like 15Mbps speed and the router keeps crashing so I couldn't stay with them anymore. And Virgin is the only provider that could offer good internet speeds. But I didn't know it will be so hard to get into the Virgin club 😀

[nodrogd]

A few words of advice about cancelling your existing services.

1) There are no guarantees that issues won’t be found with the outside ducting. These are only found when a cable pull is attempted, & could cause further delays as construction teams & local authorities have to get involved.

2) Are you porting in your landline number from Sky? If you are UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES cancel the telephone part of your Sky contract. Phone porting into Virgin as a cable operator with separate exchanges is a “new provider led” process where Virgin handles the entire switch INCLUDING cancellation of your Sky landline. If you put a cancellation in directly with Sky it flags your line as “pending disconnection” & this will stop any porting request from Virgin going through. It could result in you losing your number. The only thing you should really cancel is Sky TV, as the Broadband will automatically cease when the phone line is disconnected.

[jpeg1]

Another thought. Sky use the Openreach network, which is gradually being converted to full fibre over most of the country. That will give up to Gb speeds. And Openreach will already have a wayleave with your landlord. 

It might be worth your asking Sky if they know when full fibre will be available at your address, and Openreach have a postcode checker on their website.

Also if you live in a large town you may find that one of the independent new fibre companies is planning a service in your area. There are several building up networks.