Cut a vigin cable accidentally

[Eddielancasrer]

Hi wondered if anyone could help,  I work as a fencing contractor and have over 20 year experience but however it's the first time I have had to deal with virgin regards a  cut cable . Yesterday I was on a job and a fence hole was needed to be dug in the front of a customers garden . Soon into the dig it became apparent I had cut through a brown coloured virgin cable which was about 100mm deep . I notified the customer and asked her check her services was still available but unfortunately wasn't.  I want to keep the inconvenience to a minimum to my customer so I contacted virgin straight away but the customer service team said they wouldn't speak to me as I wasn't the account  holder .I then had to ask my customer to make the call instead and they arranged for a engineer to come out the followling day . I today heard back from my customer that the cable was fix but virgin have charged her £100 . I have tried to call virgin a number of times today to question this charge and even was hung up on when I asked them to please hold while I got my customers address details .

My gripe is that this cable was not correctly installed as it was not in it normal protective green conduit and not clearly visible in the ground , in my opinion it was a accident waiting to happen,  I was trying to do the right thing with minimal fuss for my customer but now is going to cost me £100 for someones elses incompitance. Any thoughts much appreciated 

Eddie 

[Anonymous]

From what I've seen on recent threads VM do not charge for accidental cut cables:

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Tech-Chatter/Builder-has-cut-pulled-cable-no-broadband-TV-or-ph... 

Who gave you that figure, and was it exact?

[Eddielancasrer]

That's what my customer told me she had to pay , also the brief chat I had with virgin yesterday  they said there is a call out charge .

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

I can find several threads, going back a few years, that state there was no charge for cut/damaged cable repair.

[Graham_A · Accepted solution]

As I understand it accidental damage to VM equipment outside the property should not result in a chargeable repair.

I have escalated this post to the Forum Team for review.

[Alex_RM]

Hi Eddielancasrer,

Thanks for posting and welcome to our community 🙂

Sorry to hear what's happened regarding the cable, the community are right in saying this isn't something we would charge for if it was caused by Virgin.

As it hasn't been there would be a £99 call out charge for this, the customer would need to contact us directly to arrange this.

Alex_Rm

[spgray]

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@Eddielancasrer wrote:

My gripe is that this cable was not correctly installed as it was not in it normal protective green conduit and not clearly visible in the ground , in my opinion it was a accident waiting to happen,  I was trying to do the right thing with minimal fuss for my customer but now is going to cost me £100 for someones elses incompitance. Any thoughts much appreciated 

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i assume, as you run a business, you have liability insurance to cover such damage that is cause during you carrying out out.
also, did you carry out a survey of the area before digging? to ensure there were no hidden obstructions?

[-tony-]

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@Alex_RM wrote:

Hi Eddielancasrer,

Thanks for posting and welcome to our community 🙂

Sorry to hear what's happened regarding the cable, the community are right in saying this isn't something we would charge for if it was caused by Virgin.

As it hasn't been there would be a £99 call out charge for this, the customer would need to contact us directly to arrange this.

Alex_Rm

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hmmmm - i refer you to various posts on the board @Alex_RM where this charge has been overturned as its not correct - these posts from other VM staff - i also refer you to a post from @Kev_B in the vip area that says the same - i have no idea what the book says but the accepted policy afaik is that wherever the fault lies VM repair the cable FOC

[-tony-]

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@spgray wrote:

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@Eddielancasrer wrote:

My gripe is that this cable was not correctly installed as it was not in it normal protective green conduit and not clearly visible in the ground , in my opinion it was a accident waiting to happen,  I was trying to do the right thing with minimal fuss for my customer but now is going to cost me £100 for someones elses incompitance. Any thoughts much appreciated 

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i assume, as you run a business, you have liability insurance to cover such damage that is cause during you carrying out out.
also, did you carry out a survey of the area before digging? to ensure there were no hidden obstructions?

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unlike gas - water and elec there are no records of VM cables - so how would the OP carry out a survey - add to that he would have hit the brick wall that is VM customer service had he asked as at best he is not a customer - at worst they would not have had a clue where any cable was

[spgray]

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@-tony- wrote:

unlike gas - water and elec there are no records of VM cables - so how would the OP carry out a survey - add to that he would have hit the brick wall that is VM customer service had he asked as at best he is not a customer - at worst they would not have had a clue where any cable was

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by using their eyes, and doing small sample inspections of the area being dug into.
you don't just start blindly digging into an area without first having a look. if what they say is trye that it was on 100mm deep then that should have been fairly easy to spot with some minor preparatory work.

most of that could be described as simple "common sense".