Unexpected visit of cable installer who damaged my patio and installed box in the wrong place.

[hmiamid]

Hello,
This is to document my experience on a new install.

I have a new build and asked VM to put a cable to my house from the cabinet.
Engineer came on 24/07 just for a first visit to look around.
I told him there is a black box with a hole in the wall already a few metres to the left of the entrance. Behind that box, next to it there is a power socket as well as the house's LAN network.
He said yes, they'll put the box there. He took a picture and sent it to VM.
He said they'll need a permit for the street, and it will take a week before the next engineer visit. They'll do the external work. No need for anyone to be at home. OK.
I received an email saying my internal visit will be the 14/08.
Today (28/07), my wife came home to see the engineers at work on the street. They said they will dig through the garden and lay the cable in. She said OK.
Once she came back outside after 2 hours, engineers were gone and she saw the box installed in the wall at the wrong location and the patio cut to put the cable in and refilled with black cement grout. The patio is a white stone with no gaps. And now there is damage around the widened gap where the cable is been put. My wife supposed they knew the VM box should be put where the black box is but they didn't. The box is not located at the black box. It's just next to the entrance door. There is no hole through the wall to the other side. Just the 3 holes to fix the box. But still.

I called VM who said they don't have today's visit recorded in their system. They couldn't even give me the name of the third party company.
They told me their next external visit will be the 31/07 and I need to talk to them to repair damages and amend the location of the box. In the meantime, the patio has already been cut and the wall was drilled in the wrong location. For any repairs to the damages to the house, the company needs to see what repairs need to be done. I prefer to ask for another company to repair VM's damages and they'll pay for the bill.
I was not told that today they were coming to drill in my house and cut through the patio. I would have taken time off work to be present and supervise their work. I was very specific as to where I wanted them to install the cable. Instead I got a surprise visit of engineers drilling through my wall and cutting my patio without my presence.

Here are some pictures of today:

When I arrived home this afternoon

After I cleaned the grout with brush

Detail of the chipping

[goslow]

So have they actually just cut a wide slot into your paving, dropped the cable in and covered it up with cement?

[Jodi_S]

Hi hmiamid,

A warm welcome and thanks for posting on our community forums. We do apologise that this has happened and that our installer's have caused damage. We would like to investigate this further for you and get this sent off to the relevant team.

I will pop you over a private message to take some detail, click on the envelope at the top of the page to accept the chat.

Kind regards Jodi. 

[Jonny-M]

That's amazing, it would have been less work to lift the slabs.

[hmiamid]

@goslow, yes with black cement on top of that! The cable is still visible.

@Jonny-M, the slabs cannot be lifted, they are cemented down to the ground. I think that's what they first thought and tried to pry them open which broke them. The chips are still around. I hope I can put them back with some white cement. Otherwise I will ask the developer if they have spares to give us. The repair bill will be on Virgin Media.

The work was done very poorly.
The "engineers" didn't come today in the end. Why would that surprise me?

[hmiamid]

During the engineer visit for the internal installation on the 14th of July, I asked him what he could do for the repairs.
He said he cannot do anything and will take pictures to send his boss.

I also called VM on the same time and they raised a complaint for the installation team to resolve any repairs. They would come back to me in a week.

A week passed and I got no calls. No surprise there either.

[hmiamid]

I called them again. They said no call was registered in their system and I basically waited a week for nothing.

Today, they told me they confirm an appointment for a technician to come on the 31st of August between 1pm and 6pm. I haven't received any email of confirmation again. He said I'll receive appointment email within 24 hours.

They also set up a new complaint number. But there is nowhere I can verify myself the progress of the complaint. It's all on their side.

I feel like I am being completely shunned from any information they should give me to resolve this issue. They simply do not care and pass on notes from one operator to another and it all quickly becomes a bureaucratic mess.

I still have 6 days for my cooling off period. If they don't give response within 24 hours, I will cancel the contract. I cannot deal with them anymore.

[goslow]

Bit hard to follow the timeline on this but, if your equipment was installed/activated on 14 July, you would be outside a 14 day cooling off period.

Topics about damage during installations do crop up on here every so often. Usual pattern of behaviour in the topics on here is that VM gives the customer the run around for weeks on end with little/no progress. They may send out a repair sub-contractor to do some kind of a fix or look at the job. Often the end to the topics on here is never explained, having gone on for a long time.

I would suggest you might have two possibilities.

First choice would be to ask the communications ombudsman if they take cases involving VM and property damage. The previous ombudsman (CISAS) did not cover property damage but you could check with the Communications Ombudsman.

https://www.commsombudsman.org/

If the ombudsman is no help for a property damage claim, your next choice would be a claim via the small claims court/money claim. You would get some quotes in for the work to find out the cost, you pay for the work and then reclaim the cost for the damage from VM via the court process.

But, there is actually a specific process for doing this (such as send VM a letter before action etc.) so get some advice from the Citizens Advice on how to proceed so you go about it the right way and do that before paying for any work yourself so that you go about things in the correct way and don't end up out of pocket.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/legal-system/small-claims/making-a-small-claim/

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/contact-us/contact-us/contact-us/

[Adri_G]

Hi, hmiamid.

Thanks for all the posts and updates on this matter, we're sorry to see your confusion caused and that your complaints have not been resolved yet.

This is not the experience we want for our customers however our teams always work their best to help out, we 'd love to see how we can assist you.

In regard to your complaints raised with us, you may view their status and progress here.

We do come back to you via email or call back as a follow up to a complaint case, however as your complaint is related to external engineer work we can advise the below:

a) any appointments booked for external work will not show on your account and your presence is not required during this visit (unless the site is not accessible from outside and we need your help to access this)

b) to resolve your complaint, this has been assigned to our construction team and the work needs to be completed first to have this case closed. 
Once we know this is done we'll be able to assess this case further based on the dates and how long it took to resolve.

If you're still not happy and wish to cancel (although we'd hate to see you go), please contact our Pre-Installs team at 0800 052 1734 where we can assist further with your request.

Let us know if this helps with explaining more on the problems faced, glad to advise on any more questions or concerns you may have.

[hmiamid]

@goslow thank you for your reply. I can relate now to all the other people. I'm reading so many stories of VM online now. My connection started on the 14th of August (not July) so I still have a few days.

No email for confirming the appointment on the 31st of August between 1pm and 6pm. The caller "promised" me they will confirm an email but nothing happened. So I don't know if someone will come or not.