Virgin Media Community

[sartay01]

Hi, I have had an engineer out to fix a cable that was cut into. He had to come back because he didn't have the orange box to cover the cable. When he did come back and put the orange box on the cable he has not buried it and so all cable and orange box are above ground and exposed to the elements. 

I have also been told that I have to pay a call out fee of £99. Do you know why as I didn't have to pay a call out fee last time?

Thanks

Sarah

[Pars]

From their "Legal Stuff" section:

Technician Appointments

If maintenance or the correction of a fault requires a technician visit to your address, and is the result of the intended treatment and use of our equipment, there will be no charge for this visit.  Someone over the age of 18 must be present at the time of the visit that we have agreed with you in advance.

If the need for a technician visit is the result of one or more of the following you will normally be charged a fee for the technician visit and may be responsible for other associated costs:

- A request by you to change the home set up of your services (for example if you would like your equipment moved to a different location)

- Misuse, neglect of, accidental or wilful damage to our equipment;

- Failure to follow responsible instructions regarding our equipment;

- Tampering or disassembling the equipment without our consent or instruction; or

- Fault in, or any other problem (including set up and specification) associated with, your equipment or any system that is not provided by us as part of our services.

Equipment includes, amongst other things, any cable modem, set top box, cables and ducts.

Charge Type	Charge (inclusive of VAT where applicable)
Activation	£25 per activation From 1st July 2019 this will increase to £35
Equipment Activation	Up to £99.95 per item of equipment
Home Delivery	£5 charge per delivery
Technician Installation	£30 per installation
Service Transfer	£20 per transfer
Paper Bill	£1.75 per month
Payment Handling	£0 for customers who have entered contracts since 15-Jul-17 £0.45 per month for customers who entered contracts between 06-Apr-13 and 14-Jul-17 £5.00 per month for other customers
Late Payment	£7.50 for each bill payment overdue
Failed Payment	Charges vary dependant on your bank or building society
Technician Appointments (where chargeable)	£99 charge per appointment plus other associated costs on a case by case basis (see above for when these costs may be applicable)
Missed Appointments	From 1st Mar 2019 £10 charge per appointment
Non Returned Equipment	V6: up to £100 per unit Hub 3: up to £50 per unit BB Back-up Unit: up to £50 per unit Wired Booster: up to £50 per unit WiFi Booster: up to £50 per unit
Capped Broadband Unlimited Data Top Up	£7.50 per month

[sartay01]

Thank you for your response. Just wondering why I wasn't charged last time. 

Should I ask them to come back and bury the wire and box correctly?

This is the 2nd time this has happened which tells me that the wires were buried deep enough in the first place! 

[dannylau]

You shouldn't be charged for burying a cable, But the engineers don't do this, it's a different team, call up and say the cable is exposed and it's a trip hazard and needs to be buried, and it should get sorted at no cost 

[Ann_Droid]

Hi

If it was OpenReach then a minimum of 350 mm to the top of the plastic protection covering/pipe/duct/flexibleconduit.

Also for a road/path it would be 500 mm I believe.

But then they have a published standard that you can read.

So both their charges and cable install are over the top  ARF ARF.

[Pars]

I certainly think you should go back to them to challenge both the workmanship and charge if it wasn't agreed up front.
I'm wondering also whether they are only halfway through the job because cable splicing is a specialist activity and the operator probably doesn't do excavation.

[-tony-]

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@Pars wrote:
I certainly think you should go back to them to challenge both the workmanship and charge if it wasn't agreed up front.
I'm wondering also whether they are only halfway through the job because cable splicing is a specialist activity and the operator probably doesn't do excavation.

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because cable splicing is a specialist activity - no idea why you think that unless you think the cable from the cab is fibre which it can be on some installs - if the tech has used a gel box [orange box] then its coax and thats a matter of adding an F connector to each cable end and joining them with a barrel connector - hardy specialist - they carry all the parts and the tools and use them on all/most installs 

to your second point - the operator probably doesn't do excavation. - thats true afaik - he/she should have offered to book the team to do that and it should be free

[Pars]

I was using the term "specialist" in a casual context Tony.
Simply saying that the work sits at a different skill level to trench digging so wouldn't necessarily be done by the same person 🙂