Transfer of service nightmare - common issue?

[alex102]

Hello,

I can see a lot of other people have had huge problems with installation and I am seriously questioning life choices after reading some of the stories on here!

I put through a request to transfer my virgin services from my old address on the 18th of June. The chap I spoke to on the phone was super helpful, and I explained that both me and my partner work from home, so we dont mind what date we switch to the new address, as long as the downtime will be minimal as we will pay for an overlap between the properties to make sure we arent left without internet. All was great, disconnection was set for 2nd of July, and reconnection for 3rd with an engineer visit.

Later that day I get a text to say external work will be required, I don't need to be at the property. Excellent service to keep me updated to this point. I heard nothing more going forward, so both me and my partner made arrangements to move out on the 1st of July, take a day off on the 2nd as we might be disconnected, and be at our new home for the installation on the 3rd.

At 22:30 on the 1st of July, I get a text message to say that our new date for installation is now 16/07 as ‘we need to do some external work on the property’. At this point I panicked – there is no way we can afford to be without internet for 2 weeks with less than 12 hours notice… I thought I’d call in first thing when I wake up, cancel the transfer, at least we still have internet at our old flat and we can work towards a new date.

I wake up at 6am – internet gone. Worst fears realized. I called up as soon as the phone lines opened and spoke to a lady who was very understanding – but offered a solution. The installation date can’t be brought forward – but we can re-activate the internet at the old place so you can keep working. Not ideal – but we planned ahead for complications so we still have the old place… at least we will still have jobs. She tells me it will be 24-48 hours for activation. Problem solved! I told her I appreciate that she’s made the best of a bad situation, but I wanted to have a complaint logged just to make sure that I would have a reference for this in case something were to go wrong and I needed to come back through. She tells me no problem, complaint manager will call you within 2 hours. At this point I had already spent over 2.5hours on the call…

3 days go by, no internet, no call, no email…I start to get worried. By this point my partner went to stay with her grandma over 100 miles away until the issue gets sorted, as she has no alternative if the internet does not get re-activated. I hotspot from my phone to get on the live chat – maybe they will be more helpful? I spent about 4 hours getting very slow replies – he confirmed that there was a request to reactivate services, but thought that maybe because it was a weekend it would be another 24 hours. He constantly dodged my questions about the open complaint, but agreed to log another complaint for me and gave me a reference number.

2 days later and no news from anywhere (Day 5 without internet) and I go back on the live chat. After spending about 3 hours explaining everything from scratch, I got nowhere, and actually had to log off as my phone only had 100mb of data left to get me through the month!

The next night I decide to brave the queue and call back. Again I had to explain everything from scratch, the complaint reference number apparently does not have any notes for advisors to read and you need to explain everything again at each step of the way. After 3 call transfers I finally get put through a guy that finally starts making sense. He tells me ‘I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but we cant re-activate the internet – the only way to re-activate it is to cancel the transfer request, re-activate the old services, and put you to the back of the queue for a new connection at your new place. This will cause more delays with setting up internet at your new address’. When I questioned around why the previous 5 people I’d spoken to have all been telling me about reconnections, and giving me timescales – credit to him – he told me they were probably just saying anything to make the call easier, to tell me what I wanted to hear so I go away happy.

I was in shock after hearing that – but calmly accepted this, mistakes happen and I was grateful that at least this guy put me out of the misery of not knowing if I can work tomorrow – and I can actually make definite plans. He advised me that the new reconnection will happen on the 16th as per the notification I got.

Since then, I’ve had a reply to my complaint – it seems like a generic drop-down box selection exercise – ‘Sorry to hear about the delay – external work will happen on the 10/07 and installation on 16/07, we hope this works for you!’

Its now 14/07, external installation has not happened, every day the date on the tracker moves back by 1 day…

I’m not really sure what to do here – I like the idea of virgin and the speeds on offer, and have been with virgin everywhere I’ve lived where it was available, but looking at other people’s situation it looks like it might be months before we get an installation. Is there any way to talk to an actual person that is carrying out the external works or installation to the property to see if there is actually anything happening? I logged a complaint with the hope that it would fall on the right person to at least keep me in the loop, but it looks like the complaints system is just an extension of the call centre – zero competence in dealing with anything slightly out of the ordinary.

TLDR: Work from home, planned house move around virgin’s installation dates, delayed installation with 12 hours notice but still disconnected existing services. Was promised old services back temporarily, got strung along for 1 week to be told its not possible. Delayed installation looks like it might be delayed again. Complaint ignored.

[Ayisha_B]

Hi @alex102,

Welcome to our Community Forums and thanks for posting. 

I am so sorry to hear you've not had the best experience with us. This is certainly far from the service we aim to provide. 

I will pop you a PM now so we can take some details and get this looked into for you. 

Speak soon. 

[TimColl1]

yep - same here... every day it moves by one day.

I bought the unlimited virgin mobile as part of the bundle so the 5 of us in the house are tethering off 1 mobile (thankfully 5g) and have used 100's GB data in that last month... half expecting virgin to cancel the mobile under 'fair usage' 

My call this evening they just hung up once they read my notes....

Hope it all get's fixed for you soon!

[alex102]

I made the mistake of thinking that renting the flat for an extra month to cover any possible mess-ups would be enough to make sure we didnt get cut off... My 10GB mobile data didn't stand a chance 😞

[Ayisha_B]

Hi @alex102

I have taken a look at your account and can see the work orders have now been completed and the technician was able to get the equipment set up for you 🙂

Let us know if you have any further issues.

Have a great weekend!