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Virgin Media installation experience so far.

Alan782
Dialled in

Thought I'd add my own voice to the comedy of errors which is the Virgin Media installation merry go round.

Where we live (small block of flats in south London) we can't get fibre broadband from BT Openreach (as our phone line is connected directly to the exchange which isn't fibre enabled), so that rules out fibre via BT, SKY, PlusNet etc..etc..

Luckily, we were cabled in for Virgin Media the other year (the fibre cables were run into ducting in the hallways, not into individual flats).

Due to more internet enabled kit (smart TV’s, Alexa’s etc..) plus now with hybrid working the existing copper broadband from BT simply isn't good enough anymore (max of 10 - 12mb download speed).

Got a great deal on the Virgin Media 350mb package so thought why not.

I'm aware of the issues that a lot of people have with Virgin Media so haven't cancelled the BT Internet (thank god).

Anyway, after that long intro..

Was scheduled to be connected on 14th October. Engineer turned up, couldn't complete the installation as he said that the fibre cable was damaged and needed an MDU team to do a cable re-pull.

Fair enough I said, Cable re-pull was scheduled for 1st of November and 2nd engineer visit scheduled for 2nd of November.

Engineer turns up on the 2nd of November, clearly doesn't know how to tie his shoelaces, didn't know what cables were Virgin Media's (I had to point them out to him), he denied they were Virgin Media cables, disappeared for around 30mins and then re-appeared and confirmed that actually yes the cables were theirs.

But, he couldn't complete the installation as he had no idea where the cables terminated and so would have to get another engineer out who knew the area better, he stated this engineer would turn up on the 5th of November, but as it's an appointment made 'within' the team it wouldn't appear on the Virgin app etc.

This I thought was a bit odd and sure enough no engineer appeared on the 5th (meaning the 2nd engineer clearly lied about the additional visit simply so he could leave without doing any work).

Rang Virgin Media and they confirmed that no MDU team turned up on the 1st of November to do a re-pull, have got another re-pull scheduled for 27th of November and 3rd Engineer visit scheduled for 9th of December.

The only reason I haven't cancelled my contract with Virgin Media is simply down to lack of options, I haven't even been connected to them yet and already the customer service is so shockingly bad, they really have no idea what they are doing.

I even raised a complaint on the 16th of November about the installation (or lack of) and was told I would be contacted within 48 hours, surprise surprise, no call ever came, so rang them this morning to chase the complaint and initially spoke to Customer services, who passed me to the pre-install team who said they couldn't deal with my complaint and passed me to customer services who said they couldn't escalate it and passed me back to the pre-install team (it's a total joke).

The person I spoke to the 2nd time on the pre-install team said that they were doing the re-pull on the 27th of November because (according to an engineer) our block has no connections to Virgin Media??? well that's funny says I, because other residents are connected to Virgin Media and I could go outside my front door, open up some cable trunking and touch the Virgin Media cable...

What's going on??

They have now arranged a site survey to be carried out on the 24th of November to check if any external cabling actually does need to be carried out.

For a broadband service provider the lack of knowledge about their own infrastructure is frankly embarrassing, you wouldn't think it should be that hard to get connected, especially as the cables already exist (and if they are damaged, as the 1st engineer stated, you would think it should be easy to replace).

The shocking ineptitude from the engineers is astonishing, that, and customer service seems totally unable to assist, all they say is "we need to pass you to the pre-install team" who just don't care that you’re having issues, raising a complaint is pointless as no-one addresses it and they simply don't care at all.

If I had any other options I would take them (I even offered to pay BT/Openreach to have another line installed, going to a green street cab so I could get fibre broadband, but they can't do it).

So... at the moment, if I want download speeds above 10mb then I'm stuck.

Sorry peeps, rant over, just thought I'd share my experience (And it's not over yet!).

89 REPLIES 89

Hi Vikki,

Certainly to the best of my knowledge no-one ever showed up. I kept sticking my head out at various points during the day to see if anyone had arrived... they had not.

I had no contact from anyone to say that they were going to turn up (or not).

So, as it stands, as far as I'm concerned, that's the 4th scheduled re-pull where no-one has bothered to show up or indeed contact me about it, the farce at this point is comical, I'm just glad I still have internet connectivity at present, because if I didn't, I certainly wouldn't be finding this amusing (mind you, I can't imagine VM would find it funny either at that point as they would be having to shell out a truck load of money in compensation for loss of service).

Thanks for coming back to us with an update @Alan782 and I'm once again sorry for the delay in getting your service issues resolved.

This is far from the experience that any customer should be having from us, I can see that your complaint has been sent over to the install team to be looked into further.

Have you heard anything from the team since your last post?

Regards,

Steven_L

Hi Steven,

As normal for VM, no, I've heard anything from anyone.

I think my experience so far is the same as a lot of other people on here, the contact from the VM forum staff (you guys) is brilliant and can't be faulted, but for everyone else, it's useless, there is no communication whatsoever from anyone.

Zak_M
Forum Team (Retired)
Forum Team (Retired)

Thank you once again for coming back to us. 

 

The construction team are best poised to get this resolved Alan782. 

 

We are really sorry that this has happened. 

 

Kind regards,

Zak_M

The latest chapter of this comedy of errors.

Another text message received from VM this morning to say that external works to my property are going to be carried out on the 18th of March (this friday).

I'm assuming (again) that this is for the re-pull, but, as normal there's been no other communication from anyone about this, and I would really, really like to speak to the re-pull team before they commence the work as I would like them to put a new cable in before disconnecting the old one (to at least ensure that I have minimum downtime on my broadband).

Can a member of the forum team please pass this request on to whoever is supposed to be coming out to my property (not that I believe for one second that anyone will actually turn up of course).

 

 

Hi Alan782,

 

I've updated the complaint with what you've advised, and ensured it's passed to the team.

 

Alex_Rm

 

Believe it or not, I'm back for another update.

I should have updated this thread a few weeks back but to be honest I'd almost lost the will to live and couldn't be bothered... But, here I am now with another update.

I should have had a cable re-pull carried out on the 18th of March (if I remember rightly), again, no contact, no nothing.

I did however get a phone call from a member of VM complaint team 😲 (Shocked face) to follow up on my complaint. I explained the situation to the lady (who was very nice and listened to what I had to say).

However, she was unable to verify if the cable re-pull had actually been carried out, all she could see was that the team who came out (allegedly) stated "No further work required"

I asked if that meant that they Had actually done a re-pull? she couldn't answer because she didn't know.

While she was there on the phone I checked the Router logs again and confirmed that I still had 10's of thousands of Post RS errors in the log and multiple T3 timeouts still, which (according to the knowledgeable people on here) I shouldn't be getting.

She suggested that I need to have a VM engineer out to check the line properly to ascertain what the problem is, and she said she needed to put me through to the call center for an appointment to be booked, I asked her "Please Don't!! can't you book it yourself" (knowing how useless the call center is), and she said that unfortunately she could not.

So, I got put through to the call center, spent 20mins on the phone with them while they run through their script assuring me that there was no problem with my service (to which I stated "I know the service is running ok, which is good, but I'm getting all these errors in the logs, which indicates that something is afoot"), I then got put on hold and disconnected, 😠 which is what I had a feeling was going to happen.

 

So, to sum up... My VM service is still working 🤞, however I'm still getting thousands of Post-RS errors and T3 timeouts in the logs.

Question, do I just give up and accept it (as the service is working) as I'm getting tired of this (they are beating me down), or... do I keep going and ask a kind member of the VM forum staff to please help again and book me an engineer appointment?

 

Hi Alan782,

Thank you for reaching back out, sorry to hear you are still seeing many RS errors and Time outs, I will be more than happy to arrange a technician to come and make sure everything looks OK your end, I have run further checks this end and still cannot see any issues at all.

I will send you an invite into a private chat so I can arrange this, once received please click on the purple envelope top accept.

Regards

Paul.

 

Thanks for the response Paul, I have replied to your private message as requested.

Thanks Alan782,

We will leave you in Paul's capable hands, he will get back to you shortly.

Kind regards Jodi.