Virgin Media Community

[Billynch]

Absolutely appalling customer service from Virgin.

I webchatted to discuss my package and supposedly get a better deal.

They change me to mix package and say I can have another box in my bedroom too.

All good and engineer booked.

Charge for other box install £69.95

Explain to operator cable needs to go through loft as bedroom is on the other side of house.

They say all fine engineer will do that.

Check a couple of days before they can definitely go though loft. Yes no problem.

Check again day before no it should be a problem.

Today engineer turns up 

I can’t go through the loft with the cable.

Ring to complain as I’ve changed my work rota to be at home. Greeted by an abrupt guy who said he couldn’t really help or speak to engineer department.

Re booked appointment and gave me a small gesture of goodwill £19

Surely they must have a team that work on higher ladders? 

 Really annoyed 

Someone should be sacked!

[jb66]

Virgin technicians should only go Into a loft if it is floored.  They are not allowed to go Into non floored lofts

[ciaran2506]

I imagine there are a fair few reasons for this, from HSE regulations to them not having insurance in case they fall through your ceiling, all of which are acceptable reasons not to run it in your loft.

However, the main fault here being they shouldn't have told you on the phone that they would do it, then when your engineer shows he isn't allowed to do so.

Your only real option is to allow them to run it round the side of your house if that is possible.

[Billynch]

I live in a terraced house, I even told them I’d go into the loft if they couldn’t to route the cable.
There must be people that’s had virgin fitted in loft extensions?

[ciaran2506]

Guess that option is out, hence why you are in this situation.

There might have been in the past but regulations and such change. I believe Sky installers are in a similar position too from the last few I spoke to.

You could try running the cable in yourself, but I'm not sure if the VM engineer would be happy to use this or not. Another option I guess would be to have it from downstairs (guessing this is where your incoming connection is) up and the under the floorboards to your bedroom at the back. Again, you would probably need to lift this and make sure the route is clear so the engineer can just lay the cable down essentially, but again couldn't guarantee the engineer would be happy with this.

[Adduxi]

If I'm reading this correctly, you are getting a V6 in the bedroom ?  If so, all you need is an ethernet cable from your existing hub.

I see no reason why you can't run this cable yourself, it's nothing special, just standard ethernet cable. 

Personally I would route the cable myself and the engineer only has to plug it all in and check it's working.  I would however test any cable you are using before installing.

As a bonus, you could put a small switch in the bedroom and connect the V6 to it.  This would also allow for additional wired kit if required, e.g. Smart TV, Games console etc.

[ciaran2506]

Not sure this is fully accurate, I have 2x V6 boxes connected via Ethernet, I just unplugged the coax cable from one of them and it lost signal, so it's not like the coax signals from the other one are sent over Ethernet instead.

Unless you do have this working, I would be interested to know about the possibility, but as far as I know all VM kit (router, V6, TiVo) have to be connected to coax, which the OP is having issues getting installed.

[jbrennand]

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@Adduxi wrote:

If I'm reading this correctly, you are getting a V6 in the bedroom ?  If so, all you need is an ethernet cable from your existing hub.

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Ethernet is best but  it will connect fine over wifi providing you have a good strong stable signal at the location.  All 3 of mine are wifi.

[Billynch]

I replanned the engineer for next Thursday.

im going to see if they will just leave the cable loose not clipped and I’ll route up from front bedroom into loft then down into the back bedroom.

still shocked over their extremely bad customer service 

[Roger_Gooner]

Can you drill some holes in your ceiling and floorboards and have a pull rope to draw the coaxial and Ethernet cables through the loft and into the bedroom. The VM technician can then do the connections and testing of the signals.