Virgin Installation Gone Wrong/Delayed

[MikeyLondon]

I've written this post to highlight how disastrous my Virgin Install and customer service journey has been in the hope they might pull their finger out and get it sorted and to warn anyone of what you might expect after ordering Virgin services in 2023.

I ordered a Virgin Broadband / Telephone package on 2nd January 2023 with installation promised on 27th January. As I live in a semi-detached property in London NW4 and my neighbour in the adjoining property already has Virgin services, I had hoped this should be a relatively straightforward install. However...

I get an email on 17th January saying 'we need to do some extra work' and installation was now 16th March. After speaking to various people in customer services they said this was due to 'construction work,'  'a blockage' or 'needing permission' depending on who I spoke to. But each person assured that this was a provisional date and they would call me to bring the install forward. Was also promised I was put on a 'priority list' to expedite the install.

Then nothing until 11th March, when I get an another text message that it had been delayed until 8th April. Same phone calls, same promise of expediting the install, same assurance I was on the 'priority list'. Lots of apologies all round.

Then nothing until 4th April until I get another 'delayed activation' message. All the same promises - confirmed permission had been granted for whatever work needed to be done and that an engineer would be there next day.

Nothing happened and so I phone back every couple of days, each time being told that the external works were with being done that day or next day. Nothing ever happens. 

I raise a complaint and nobody gets back to me.

I get number for the 'construction team' but they no longer take phone calls from customers.

I ask CS to speak to construction team but they are no longer taking calls from CS either and they need to fill out a form so that someone calls me back with 24 hours with an update.

Guess what? Nobody calls me!

That was about a week ago -  My current install is 'scheduled' for 19th May but I'm obviously not holding out much hope.

In my area, Virgin are the only option for high speed internet (which I really need for the work I do) so I have no other options but to wait this out.

As of today, they owe me 85 days of compensation of £5.83 (£495.55) so we'll see how that goes! (https://www.virginmedia.com/help/billing-and-payments/automatic-compensation)

I'll update this post with what happens...

[MOD EDIT: Subject title changed for clarity]

[Molly_T]

Hi MikeyLondon 👋 welcome to community! Thank you for posting. 

We are so sorry to hear of your delayed installation and experience in trying to get updates surrounding this. We have a dedicated team who manage these cases internally, so sadly we are limited with what support we can provide for them. You can speak to the pre-install team directly via 📞 0800 052 1734. 

It sounds as though you already have a complaint raised and sitting with the correct team. However if you would like us to check again for you please do let us know and we can send you a PM to offer further support. 

These kinds of cases can be complicated if there are additional external works needing to be completed, as they can often involve council permissions, multiple appointments, or 3rd party contracting works to complete. Nonetheless we can appreciate this must be frustrating! Our sincerest apologies that this has been your experience. 

Glad to hear you are already aware of our Auto-comp policy 👉 https://virg.in/autocomp under which you are covered. 

We hope that the works are completed quickly and that your installation can be completed as soon as possible! Thank you for your patience in the meantime. 

Wishing you all the best. 🌞

[MikeyLondon]

Thanks for reply - PM sent with account details for you to look into.

[MikeyLondon]

*** UPDATE ***

My 19th May install was again delayed. This time, I didn't even receive a communication that it had been delayed, I checked a couple days before the install that the date had been change in the Virgin app to 22nd June.

Several phone calls later, they arranged a Virgin technician to come out and do another survey. Nice guy came round and said he couldn't see any reason why this was anything but a standard install and reported back to HQ but it hasn't made any difference.

Virgin have said that the 'cable pull' keeps getting delayed by their external contractors (which I now know is Kelly Communications) with no reason being given by them for this. I have been told a few times that they have 'filled in a form' or 'emailed the back office' to get more details but nobody ever gets back to me with any updates except for to wait for the new install date.

This is incredibly frustrating! And nobody has responded to my complaint. 

As it stands, it's been 118 days since the original install, so that £687.94 in compensation to date, and I will keep this post updated with what happens and if Virgin honour their compensation policy.

If anyone has any advice on how to resolve this issue, I'd love to hear it!

[jpeg1 · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately there is no way to speed this up.

Kelly will get round to it when they are able, bearing in mind that they have many other customers besides Virginmedia.

All you can do is to document all the communications from VM so that you have evidence for your compensation claim - which they will almost certainly dispute.

Do you get a good 4G/5G signal? You could invest in a dongle and monthly contract to keep you going until you get the VM service, and then keep it as a standby for when the VM service goes down.

[MikeyLondon]

Thanks for the advice jpeg1 - luckily I do have internet access while this is going on - just not very good (and also paying over the odds as out of contract).

There has been a positive update, finally! Kelly have completed the external works on 21st June! The team were very pleasant and helpful. It seems the initial delay was due to council permission being needed to pull a manhole cover in the road - a process they say normally takes a maximum of about a month according to them. Nobody at Kelly or Virgin can explain the delay beyond this and so this will remain a mystery...

Unfortunately Virgin then missed their install appointment on 22nd June and now that's been pushed back to 7th July.

I will update this post once services have been installed and how I get on with compensation claim in the hope it will help others or at least manage their expectations if faced with a similar scenario!

[jpeg1]

Hmm. The council permission is a common excuse. It usually takes far less time than that. But at least things are on the move now. 

[-tony-]

they will use council permissions to try and reduce your compensation - in itself thats fair enough but not a month - 48 is the normal time it takes councils - worth contacting them and finding out when permission was asked for and when it was granted - i doubt the month Kelly state will be anywhere near the truth

[MikeyLondon]

An update for anyone in a similar situation:

We finally got our services up and running on 15th July 2023. So nearly 6 months delay but we got there in the end.

After, what I hope will be my last ever long, long call to Virgin, we agreed on just under £700 of compensation as bill credit, which is quite frankly more than I was realistically expecting.

Hopefully that's an end to this frustrating experience and things will be better moving forward!

[goslow]

You need to do some sums and work out if the £700 is what VM actually owes you.

If VM actually offered you the correct amount first time around, that would be a very rare occasion based on the past topics on here.