50mb Broadband Installation

[Concrete]

First off, this is still an ongoing issue, since the start i've been keeping detailed records of what has happened, maybe sharing this here can help me get advice to get the situation resolved quickly.

22nd September
50mb broadband package ordered. Tuesday 29th and Wednesday 30th between 1pm-6pm given as ideal installation dates

23rd September
Email received stating my two preferred dates were unavailable; a date of 3rd October had been scheduled instead.

30th September
Contractor arrives to do a “site survey”, informs us that some construction work needs to be done to pull a wire ready for Virgin engineers to run a cable to the house. Assures us this will be no problem and will be sorted on the day of the install.

1st October
Text message received confirming installation on 3rd October, no indication of any problems.
3rd October

3pm – One engineer arrives and installs modem and runs wire through wall. Leaves modem, router and dongle to be activated by myself once the cable is run to the house. Assures me engineers will be at the property by 4pm to complete the rest of the installation.

6.09pm – I send email to Virgin media web team, detailing the lack of a finished installation within the 1-6pm timeslot.

6.50pm – Two engineers arrive and inform me that construction work to pull a wire from the street has not been carried out and therefore they cannot run the wire to the house and connect up with the loose wire hanging out of my wall. They leave me the name of an Area Supervisor and his number, saying we must contact him to arrange for the construction work to be authorised. However he is currently unreachable and I am told he will be contactable by Monday 5th at the earliest

5th October
11am – Called the area supervisor twice and both times received “it’s not been possible to connect your call”.

11.10am – Called general customer service. They acknowledged a problem with the construction which should have been done prior to installation. I was informed another area supervisor would call me. No time frame was given.

2.20pm – No call back, so called customer service once more. They can’t get through to the supervisor, so leave him a voicemail. Apparently he has my details and will call me today.

6th October

No call back yesterday as promised. During the night I managed to receive my first bill, despite still not being connected, ridiculous. Also it details a £30 installation charge which was quoted as free on signing up. To top it off first month’s service apparently started from the 3rd October, when I clearly did not have service since then and still do not have any idea when I will have service which in itself is quite infuriating.

12pm – No call back still so i contacted installation customer service once more. He contacts a Site manager once more. Apparently, they need to check whether construction work needs to be done, despite 3 sets of engineers all already confirming this, the site survey identified this days before the installation was to take place and assured me nothing on our end needed to be done and that it would be carried out on the day of installation. He promises a call back this afternoon, being dubious about failed call-backs I ask for his contact details directly but apparently I am not allowed to have them, yet have to wait to speak to him on his time.

This about gets it up to date, obviously i expected and was planning on having this broadband running on Saturday and as of now, i don't even have a date when i know it will be, I've been given next to no information and have not been able to speak to anyone but people at installation customer service, who clearly don't seem to know what's going on either.

So now, i again sit and wait for a call back to explain what's going on. Anybody have an ideas for the best course of action going forward, i'm not holding my breath for a call back today.

[Concrete]

So, no call back as i expected, but it seems the message finally got through to somebody. At 6.45 we had somebody arrive who looked over the "installation" or lack thereof and informed me that despite the site survey the construction work was never booked in with the council and as such never went ahead. Despite this Virgin still seem to believe the install happened successfully, which leaves me puzzled.

He tells me the earliest they can have permissions from the council and have the cable pulled is now the 13th and he'll next call me when this has been done, to then arrange to have a crew out to bury the cable through the garden to connect up to the house.

At least i now have a date for the construction work, now to get onto Virgin Customer Service to convince them i don't actually have service and as such i should not have been billed yet and of course to try and get the Installation charge removed. Wish me luck.

[Concrete]

So it seems the 13th was a date just pulled out of the air for no apparent reason. I've had nobody round, no phone call, no email, nothing. Have tried calling the guy who came last week as apparently he is the one in charge of organising the work, yet it just goes through the voicemail straight away.

Called installations again and they could not get through to manager i had been trying either, but apparently she spoke to a site manager and said he will call me back within the hour and she will call back also as a follow up. In addition she offers to put me through to customer service to address the issue of them billing me incorrectly and prematurely.

After being on hold for a while i get through and give my details and name once more, he assures me he will sort the bill out and puts me on hold. takes me off hold and tries to tell me they're still going to bill me, i don't think he understands i haven't had services from them still, despite me repeating it four or five times. Puts me on hold once more. Passes me off to someone else.

On hold, again. Eventually get through to another woman, in another department who after hearing my story wants to put me back through to installations rather than deal with the billing issue i was now pursuing, however she claims she'll contact the other departments to look into the issue and call me back, i'm not holding my breath.

I should keep a tally of how many call backs i've been promised, haven't actually received a single one to date and nobody i talk to at any customer service department can give me any actual answers to any of my questions. Not impressed and no idea what i can do from here?

[buckleb]

Gawd, that's an horrendous story!

It seems that if something is not absolutely correctly entered into the VM systems it can't cope and never recovers. Subsequent attempts to rectify the error seem to come to naught.

I think that only intervention, from somebody with the clout to get things done, is going to help. Unfortunately I don't know anyone like that. I believe some here do though, so fingers crossed it gets picked up.

[Concrete]

It seems that the numerous calls yesterday got through to somebody!

Today a number of installers turned up and after a few mishaps managed to pull a cable and run it to the house and connect it all up, i then was able to activate(despite having to use an old XP laptop, didn't want to know about my Windows 7 install!) and seem to have decent speeds on tests and downloads.

Just a bit of tidying up and a wedge of concrete to cover the cables and then i think i can say i am fully installed. Fingers crossed i've overcome the hurdles of becoming a Virgin Media customer now!