Pre-install problems

[Yorkshirelion]

Hi,

After ordering on the 15th of September and getting a November install date, we managed to get that pushed up to October the 3rd. Tuesday this week a crew from Svella turned up and once they realised that it wasn’t going to just be a install from the virgin grate but that they would have to push a cable through the BT grates they stated that they didn’t have the equipment to do that so quickly left.  

This was then rescheduled to this Saturday the 1st of October, about 11am on said Saturday we get a call from Virgin saying that no one was coming today and also the engineer appointment for the 3rd of October had also been cancelled. The new date for install is October the 24th, the women who rang had no idea why this happened and having booked Monday the 3rd off work, getting the cancellation notice on Saturday went down like a lead balloon. From looking on the forums this seems to be common practise when things aren’t utterly straightforward. 

Do Virgin have to get permission from Openreach to push a cable or put a new duct in? On the notes it says something about a blockage but there is no blockage, we have a tarmac drive and the Svella crew chipped some out and we now have a hole in the tarmac but in all honesty they couldn’t have been less interested in trying to do the install. 

I have zero confidence from what I have seen on here and from my own experience that this will be installed on the 24th of October, my guess is that a few days before they will send a pre-install team who think that they are installing from a nice virgin grate and be back to square one. No one seems to know what the other is doing when it comes to sorting anything out. To cancel on the day and not be able to give a reason is just mental. I would love someone to tell me why it didn’t happen on the 1st of October, and why it will happen on the 24th of October. Keeping me the customer completely in the dark, then expecting me to just accept it without any explanation….bonkers. 

[Kain_W]

Hi there Yorkshirelion,

Thanks for your post and a warm welcome to the community.

Many apologies for the delays regarding this, to clarify was the work externally advised to be complete before they arrived?

Secondly did the team advise of where the blockage is at all?

Let us know,

[Yorkshirelion]

Hi, thanks for the reply. 

No work was completed, on the 27th they chipped out a bit of tarmac then left. 

The blockage was just that we have tarmac next to the house and they would have needed to dig down a little bit to see where the duct is, I didn't get a great deal of answers really. He did say he couldn't see the duct and that someone would need to pull a cable and leave him some strong to see. 

Before leaving he said someone would be round later in the week to do what needed to be done, an appointment was set for the 1st of October but at 11am we got the phonecall to say it was cancelled and is now on the 21st of October for pre-install.

Just to Clarify, 21st for pre and then 24th for engineer. 

[luboss]

I haven't even been fortunate enough to have the contractors arrive, over a month now since I notified them of my new address. Left with no services at all. Customer service is awful, full of false promises to get you off the phone. After hours of calls basically told me it could be today, it could be tomorrow, it could be next month. Treated with contempt

[Yorkshirelion]

I know this is not going to happen but I would love some official explanation of why cable pulls are always such an issue for Virgin and what they are implementing to address the delays, whilst keeping the customer informed. I live on a cul-de-sac so we don’t have pavements for the little triangular grates to terminate in front of our houses. It has to be done via a cable pull from a BT fibre grate. I am sure that let’s say 80% of installs go without a hitch, and it’s really only people with something to moan about that write on forums for the most part. However if Virgin are going to use Sub Contractors, Sub Sub Contractors etc, then they dramatically need to improve their communications with the end customers.

It is so plain to see just reading through these threads that this is an issue that needs to be addressed. The amount of days that must get wasted between all the various department’s miscommunication doesn’t bare thinking about. Plus why even bother paying for the foreign call centres, it is basically queuing on the telephone to talk to someone who has no more idea than fly. 

As stated my next pre-install date is the 21st of October but I can almost certainly guarantee that I will be posting in here again at that point stating that not only has my October pre-install now being turned into a November one but I also cannot find out why.

[Jodi_S]

Thanks for coming back to us Yorkshirelion,

So we can take a look at what is happening with your install in greater detail, I will pop you over a private chat.

Please click on the purple envelope to accept the chat.

Kind regards Jodi. 

[luboss]

I would appreciate a private mail on this matter also as Ive expressed the same problem on my own thread and various others