Lie to me!

[Danmin]

You want to has internets? Yas plx!

Just moved into a new house (on 28th June). Went onto virgin website to get some an internet connection installed. Here's the first snag: earliest appointment for connection is 19th July, that's like 3 weeks without internet, oh man. So I see a helpful button in the corner of the screen - "chat", and I'm like "What a pleasant coincidence!", so I go ahead and enter the chat.

I explain to a very polite person what I want, and she tells me "go ahead and order the connection with 19th as a date, then call this direct line, and they will for sure be able to sort you out with an earlier date". I'm like, "hey, I'd really like a bit more assurance before I commit to this" and she was like "don't worry, Trust me trust me! Just do it™, grow a pair you peasant! " (I'm paraphrasing a bit).

So I did. And oh boy, did they make me regret it! I call the number right after ordering, and what do you know, it's a machine with 4 choices, none of which applies to me. So I pick choice number 4 - "other", after 20 minutes in the queue - I get to someone. "Hey, I got told XYZ by your colleague, so can I haz early internetz plx?", - "Let's go through the security first!" ... - "Okay, thank you Mr Danmin, no I can't help you, but let me put you in the queue to someone who can!"

[30 minutes later]

By now, I feel like I can recite the lyrics to the entire repertoire of 3 songs that they play over and over in the queue, in all their ultra-compressed-sounds-like-8bit-console-speaker glory.

- "Hello, let's go through the security!"

- "Why, thank you, let's go through the security to you too!"

The guy this time tells me that some pre-installation work needs to be done outside of the property (note he said "outside of" not "on the outside", this will become relevant later). He proceeds to explains Virgin media's internal processes to me, and tells me that until that work is done - he physically can't book an earlier date for me. BUT! There is hope! He tells me that the work will be done "tomorrow" or "the day after", which would be 29th or 30th of June, and that once the work is done - I'd get a text confirming that and I could call him again and he'd be happy to book an earlier appointment for me! What a champ, huh? Sounds grrrr8! Not really, since it's been effing 2 hours at this point of me talking to Virgin Media and by all appearances - I was mislead into placing my order.

We are terribly sorry that you're a sucker

So, after this, I go on the website and look up a way to address these shenanigans. Is there an email address? - nope. Well, you have a complaint option, so let's go with that. By this point I have a whole complaint thing written up, so let's go baby! I'm so ready!

I click a chat button, end up waiting for about 20 minutes, no worries, I'm a pro at having my time wasted by this point! You can't beat me! Ha haha.. ha... 

A guy shows up in the chat eventually. Now we play our favorite game of "let's go through security". Then he tells me that he's sorry and virgin media is sorry. I tell him that I don't care for his or some virgin's apology, what I want is solutions, not platitudes. He says he will record the whole case and it will be investigated and resolved. By this point we have wasted another 20 minutes, mostly waiting for him to "record" what was written by me in the chat. Copy-Paste sure is a hard skill to master.

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana 

Some the promised 2 days go by, and I get nothing. No promised text, no call, no email, nada, zilch. But then, suddenly, this masterpiece slides into my mailbox:

To sum it up "you gave us feedback, we gave you an apology, we agreed that this resolves the complaint".

Neat isn't it?

Adventure calls

Not exactly, my name is not actually "Adventure", but I sure did call them about this wonderful piece of creative writing. After playing "who wants to go through security" - I explain the drama so far to a very polite and helpful sounding lady. She tells me she is "sorry" and that the virgin is "sorry". I ask if, since the 2 days that we promised are up, if I can book the appointment now. She tells me that external work is still not done, and get this - "not even booked yet". Meaning what I was fed previously was premium grade 💩. The lady tells me she can't book an appointment or basically do anything helpful except for apologizing.

My name is Karen, and I want to speak to your manager!

At this point my name might as well be Karen, because I do ask to speak to the manager. I explain to the slightly apprehensive lady that I don't have any issue with her, but that her manager might have more authority to solve this cluster 🦆. She relents and says that I would be wasting my time, since I'd get exactly the same answers and overall response, but says she'll put me through. We proceed to... the phone queue, of course. After around 20 minutes of queue - the lady gets back to me and tells me that the manager is still busy, she says he'll call me at 14:30 instead. Fast forward ⏩ to that time. I do get a call, the lady says that the big cheese is still busy, but. But! He will definitely will call me before 17:00. Now, for a bit of a suspense, I ask you, dear reader to guess - what happened next:

1. I got a call from the manager before 17:00
2. I got a call from the manager after 17:00 that day
3. I got a call one of the following days
4. Jack + 💩, without the Jack

The answer is:

Spoiler

4. Not a darned thing. Nobody called me. Nobody texted me. Nobody sent me a letter, email, telegram, message in a bottle or any other form of communication.

 Rock'n'Roll

Couple of days ago I hear some jack-hammering sounding sounds from outside of my house. So, as you do in this kind of a situation - I pop out to have a look in the front garden. Lo and behold! Two strapping lads jacking and hammering holes in my home and laying down a cable. I mean... I'm renting and I wasn't told that any external damage would be done to the building, so I'm a bit.. what's the word... flabbergasted? Yeah, let's go with that.

The two lads did a very neat job though, holes in the mortar, evenly spaced, good cable tension. Nice. However, they also cut the cables off of the BT box that was on the outside of the house.

This brings me to today, since there's no email, and I kind of feel like the virgin would just brush me off as before. I'm posting this here for.. I guess "poops and giggles".

[jpeg1]

How did you expect to get a cable into the house without a hole in the wall? 

[Danmin]

Since the virgin has removed my copy of their email from the message and I can't edit the original, here's a mirror:

[Danmin]

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@jpeg1 wrote:

How did you expect to get a cable into the house without a hole in the wall? 

---

Well, I don't know. Using an existing cable? I mean, let's imagine I'm an idiot, which may not be too far from the reality, you might say "Karen, how did you expect to win a world football cup without hiring some Brazilian guys?" - I mean, you're (I mean the Virgin) are the sausage factory, I don't know how the sausage is made. Let me know if you need to slaughter some proverbial pigs, especially if the said pigs belong to my landlord.

Does that make sense? I mean, there is a freaking cable already, the added 1 more, they even cut the old cable off just at the BT box.

Lets say you go the the doctor and say "doc, I don't want to have kids" so he snips a certain pair of anatomical features off of you, then says "how did you expect this was going to go?". Am I getting my point across?

[jpeg1]

Not really, no. You knew that outside work had to be done. It had to be brought inside somehow.  It's cable, not wireless. 

[Danmin]

Okay, so. There is a cable outside of the house. There's a box. I get told that there will be "work done outside of the property". Am I illiterate here or just crazy? The guys came into my front garden and did work not "outside of the property" but on the property. They didn't ring the bell, didn't knock - just started drilling. Am I really the crazy one here?

When I called - I was told something about some box on the street outside of the house. Those are the exchanges that I'm somewhat familiar with, nobody told me about any work on the property, nor about drilling holes.

Let's try a different tack. Imagine you go to a place called "steak shop" where the owner proceeds to restrain you and chop off a slice off your rump, he then hands you 100 quid (because your rump is just so effing good) and send you on your merry way. Would you say that the described sequence of events falls within "reasonable expectations of the customer"? Wouldn't you say that communicating something like this in advance would be... I don't know, let's say not "necessary" but let's go with the word "polite".

But fine, whatever, let's skip over the point. You're not getting it and I suck at explaining, apparently. If you see a deeper underlying issue here - by all means please do go ahead and enlighten me.

[Danmin]

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@jpeg1 wrote:

How did you expect to get a cable into the house without a hole in the wall? 

---

It has just occurred to me, after re-reading your message once again. You didn't really read my original post. My bad, I was operating under the assumption that you had. Sorry bro.

[-tony-]

forgetting all the meandering and trips to the doctors and the steak shop or wherever lets say it as it is

VM use their own cable - it runs through ducts to a point outside your property it then goes to a box on your front wall after crossing your front garden - there are internal points added to complete the install

BT/openreach which you seem to have use a different system - the 2 are not compatible so any wires going into your property are useless for a VM install

hence the new wires - maybe a bit of research would have been useful - if you did not want all thats happened and the time its taken then there are lots of options to use the BT wires that were there and probarbly you would have been up and running by now

[jpeg1]

What has happened at your house has happened at every property that Virgin Media and its predecessors has ever connected - several millions.  You gave them permission to connect their service, and they did so.

If you choose to view the matter differently to all those other customers, you might like to consider who is the odd one out.

Your landlord may also have a view on you contracting for this installation.

[Danmin]

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@jpeg1 wrote:

What has happened at your house has happened at every property that Virgin Media and its predecessors has ever connected - several millions.  You gave them permission to connect their service, and they did so.

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I acknowledge the legal aspect. I have never disputed that. I feel like the community is just as 💩 as the customer support to be honest. 

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@jpeg1 wrote:

Your landlord may also have a view on you contracting for this installation.

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Yes and no. I was told to pick whatever I want. But unlike virgin media, I don't like to be a male genitalia to people I deal with, so I would have preferred to give him heads up if any kind of work like this was to be done. I say that it's good manners and plain decency to let me know about this. Legally did I give an implied consent for such work to be done? - arguably yet. Do I have a desire to sue virgin? Not at this point, no. Why do you keep on this point, please move on to the main issue or move along. I feel like I'm being hold hostage here by your desire to keep mulling over this point. It's moot - I believe I was screwed over by lack of communication, you believe virgin media is best thing since sliced bread and that I'm "the odd one out".