Pre-Installation Hell - Please Help!

[prburkis]

Hi Guys,

Wondering if someone could help? I'm one of those customers where my installation has fallen through the cracks as it's not usual. Primiarly caused by the fact my house has never been connected to Virgin Media before and there was a small amount of roadworks required to get a duct put in.

Anyway - that's all done now and was completed on 19th November. What's happening now is that the pre-install/pre-enablement team just aren't turning up to pull the cable.

This was originally booked on the 11th December (as I can see in my Virgin App), then no-one arrived to do the work, then it just auto re-scheduled itself to the 12th, then the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th - on each of these days, I called to ask what was going on and I was assured that someone would be with me that day as it was scheduled and that I should just wait in until 7pm that night - which I've done EVERY DAY since the 11th.

On the 18th - the internal installation engineer arrived and was suprised to find that the pre-install work had not been completed. He'd called me earlier on and we'd discussed this and where the house was. He called his manager and that manager called the pre-install contractors and they said that they'd been earlier in the day, but could not find my house. They said they'd looked for 20 mins, tried calling and left a voicemail and just left. I hadn't received a missed call or a voicemail. I've checked numerous times since and the only number they have for me is the correct number that the internal virgin engineer managed to raise me on with no problems at all!

So - I've continued to spend 1 - 2 hours a day on the phone with the customer services team at Virgin and get absoloutely nowhere. As requested, I've raised a complaint under ID C-201221568 (Account number [MOD EDIT: PERSONAL INFORMATION REMOVED] - but still nothing happens. I have been assured today that someone will 100% arrive at my property today to do the pre-install work "as it is scheduled" but I feel like I'm going to be stuck in this loop forever.

We moved house on the 30th September with the original install date for Virgin services on the 10th October. Working from home with 2 kids is extremely challenging when I can only use a 4G connection as we're in a bit of a 4G black spot. Fortunately, I am a tech so I have a 4G antenna in my garden up a 10m flag pole and that's giving me 5 - 10mbps so I can actually work.

Im at my wits end trying to find someone at Virgin Media who cares and is able to actually escalate and complete this work for me. I've been a loyal customer for over 10 years and moved my accounts across 2 properties - can someone please help me - this is killing me! I literally don't know what to do and I can't spend 2 hours a day, every day, for the rest of my life calling you to find out what's going to happen - only to be told "yes sir, it's 100% happening today" - when it doesn't!

 [MOD EDIT: Personal and private information has been removed from this post. Please do not post personal or private information in your public posts. Please review the Forum Guidelines]

[Andrew-G]

Unfortunately problems with pre-install and re-pulls have been endemic for about eighteen months now, and months long waits are common (the longest reported is about a year).  You may want to consider whether you're prepared to wait an indeterminate period of time for a connection that might be made in two days time, or anytime up to 362 days time.

Even if you decide to cut your losses and go with an Openreach connection, don't cancel now - let VM install the connection, cancel within the cooling off period, and you've then got a physical connection in place if you decide you want to use VM in future.

[Ptburkis]

That’s the problem, if I had other options I would have cut my losses ages ago. Max connection speed here with anyone else is 6mbps which is useless for me for work. The 4G connection is better (just).

[Lee_R]

Hi prburkis thanks for posting and welcome to our community.

Sorry to hear that there's a delay in your installation.  I would like to take a closer look at this for you.  I am going to send you a private message.

Regards

Lee

[prburkis]

Hi All,

Thought I'd just give you an update as my installation finally happened - successfully on 27th December! Both the pre-pull and internal install teams turned up when they said they would, and they both called before hand to check my address! Game changing!

So - how did I acheive this - I spoke to the home movers team, and got through to a guy in the UK who actually cared about trying to sort this for me. He emailed me while we were on the phone so I got his email address so that we could keep eachother up to date. He then worked through emailing all of the area installation managers until he got a response. The job was then scheduled in and...... they didn't turn up 😞

Anyway, he and I were both quite upset about this, so I sent a full email outlining what had happened with all of the failed install attempts and the fact I'd basically been stuck in my house in jail for 2 weeks as I kept being told by VM that someone would be turning up so I had to stay in... missed all of the christmas activities I could have been doing with my kids :-(.

This email got sent on, and voila - they actually turned up.

I really wish more of the VM staff took a personal stake in client issues and followed them through - EVERYONE apart from this guy just wanted to get me off of the phone or into some sort of holding pattern - when clearly nothing was happening. There is a huge disconnect inside of VM between the customer services team and the pre-installation and groundworks contractors that really does need fixing.

So - this is just a message to give some feedback to VM, but to also give hope to those of you that are also stuck in purgatory - you can get there, with persistence, stress and tears!

[Zach_R]

Hi @prburkis,

Thank you very much for providing an update on your installation situation. I'm so sorry for all of the complications and set backs you faced, but I'm glad to hear that you've now reached a resolution.
 

Please do feel free to reach back out to us here on the community forums if you need any further help.

Thanks,