A few thruths about Virgin media engineers (Kelly Communication ones!)

[mediamaker]

That would expalin the MOT FAilure style van kelly came in and the two workmen that did want to work on our road lifted a manhole and went stating no cable there when all the negihbours have it.

[Acusend]

I worked for the thieving Irish Kelly Group for 3 months see year, and only did so as this damn recession means there is very little else work. I would advise everyone to avoid like the plague here are just a few of my bad points working for them...

1) Interview stage, you're told that the pay is in the region of £25,000pa - It isn't!

2) Training - 3 weeks in a classroom over 80 miles from my house on £40 per day paying 30% Tax and £30 per pay day charge to their composite company and you won't see a penny for at least 4 weeks. They will not help with any travelling costs, quite a contrast to VM as a friend of mine is a sales rep and during his training they paid his train fare and put him up in a hotel...

3) Pay - it is none existent, once you're out of the classroom you're told you will be signed off from VM in about 2 weeks and then you are off training money and onto real money. 2 months later I finally get signed off and the delay couldn't have been performance related as during those 2 months I was forced to complete jobs on my own but on training pay. So if you do join these cowboys ensure you can afford to live on about £150 a week for a couple of months and remember that it is a 6-day-week you'll be working. This is far below the minimum wage and should be illegal but I think they get away with it as you're self-employed. Despite having my own Ltd setup and my own accountent I wasn't allowed to do this, I had to use their own Umbrella company which meant losing £30 every 2 weeks to pay them. And no you can't change the pay pattern to monthly to save money. And as stated before, you dread every pay day as there are always mistakes, yet they never seem to over pay you.

4) Tools - You have to pay for them, yes YOU! Costing around £300-£400. Wouldn't be a problem working for Sky as you could do some private work to pay for them, but you can't really do the same with Virgin.

5) Hours - As mentioned before, it is always a six-day-week and 90% of the time the hours are 7:30am - 8:00pm

6) The job - The trainers do a good job to teach you the correct ways of doing your job, but once you get out into the field you'll see that NO ONE does it properly, everyone takes shortcuts at the expense of the customer as failures happen so often due to rushing. But, there is little choice as when your having to complete 9+ jobs a day on your own you have to rush.

All, in all - avoid, work for Sky if you can handle the heights, pay, perks and job satisfaction is so much better.

[Arthurgray50@blu]

I think you are telling us, what we already know, l know some friends around my way, who had these cowboys do some work, and it was that poor l complained on behalf one of them, and the engineers refused to come out - typical example, she has bushes aroung her garden, they placed the wire in the hole in the road, and placed the cable ON TOP of the bushes, down by the gate, put FLOWER pots on top of the cable to hold it down, and drilled a hole in her FRONT door to connect to the house.

I took the cable out of the door and placed it through the wall to reconnect, there engineers are terrible, probabely as they so low pay, it doesn't surprise me.

I would go over to Sky mate, they treat the staff better than VM.

[5T3V3]

hi, i'm new to this forum and after reading this thread i feel the need to share a few things:
i CURRENTLY working with kellys and intend to stay with them.
yes the hours can be long.......
and yes the hours are sometimes short!!
since starting with the company, after completing my ttaining, i have been paid EVERY 2 weeks. every other friday with out fail.
yes i have to pay 'bestpay' for my accounting.
EVERYONE who is self employed should have an accountant anyway!!!
(this fee is tax deductable......fool!!!!).
if you keep a record of every job, includung details of that job, you can tally it up when you receive your invoice EVERY fortnight.....
we're SELF EMPLOYED.....keep a track of your own work....fool!!!!
if you dont......how can you expect anyone else to do it for you!!!!
there are days when the work is hard.....but there IS a difference between rushing and leaning to work quickly......fool!!!!
oh yeah.....on the libal thing...... we're not ALL cowboys......fool!!!!!
if you have been working with people who have been cutting corners/taking risks and YOU haven't reported that back then YOU are just as responsable for bringing us ALL down.....just cos some people have upset you, please dont bring us all down.
i work in the nottingham area. i have loved the job since day 1. its a rare thing when you can work some where and actually get paid for the work you do, and not get a fixed wage and get ripped off by a director skimming the profits for his/her own pockets.
really though....unless you have worked from every depot, and with every engineer-then you CANT speak for us all........
fool!!!

[sollp]

Think you'll find this thread is about 3yrs old so...

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by 5T3V3

hi, i'm new to this forum and after reading this thread i feel the need to share a few things:
i CURRENTLY working with kellys and intend to stay with them.
yes the hours can be long.......
and yes the hours are sometimes short!!
since starting with the company, after completing my ttaining, i have been paid EVERY 2 weeks. every other friday with out fail.
yes i have to pay 'bestpay' for my accounting.
EVERYONE who is self employed should have an accountant anyway!!!
(this fee is tax deductable......fool!!!!).
if you keep a record of every job, includung details of that job, you can tally it up when you receive your invoice EVERY fortnight.....
we're SELF EMPLOYED.....keep a track of your own work....fool!!!!
if you dont......how can you expect anyone else to do it for you!!!!
there are days when the work is hard.....but there IS a difference between rushing and leaning to work quickly......fool!!!!
oh yeah.....on the libal thing...... we're not ALL cowboys......fool!!!!!
if you have been working with people who have been cutting corners/taking risks and YOU haven't reported that back then YOU are just as responsable for bringing us ALL down.....just cos some people have upset you, please dont bring us all down.
i work in the nottingham area. i have loved the job since day 1. its a rare thing when you can work some where and actually get paid for the work you do, and not get a fixed wage and get ripped off by a director skimming the profits for his/her own pockets.
really though....unless you have worked from every depot, and with every engineer-then you CANT speak for us all........
fool!!!

Does calling someone a fool!!! make you feel better

[Paul K]

No but using the number 3 instead of an E in his user name probably makes him feel superior to us lowly commoners Mind you it looks like he may a problem with his shift key....

Can I remind everyone new or old members to stick to the topic and not to abuse each other.

Thanking you all in advance.

[m419]

Originally Posted by stealthsyst3ms

Right then people

I've been holding back from posting on here, until i had gathered enough 'on the job' info!
If you want to know why alot of the customer complaints arise from installation issues, i'm here to help you find the correct answers....

I lasted 4 months working with these ( kelly ) type people, and i'll tell you something... I've never worked for such cowboy's in all my life!
Don't Blame Virgin for Dodgy Installations, its all to do with the workload that these kelly Supervisors/Managers put onto the Engineers.
I have worked 12hrs a day on average, and still owe them over £800 for tools 'they' said we would get for free in the initial Interview/Training.

Anyone have any similiar facts? I'm currently providing virgin media and press with some Pics and problems i have seen whilist out on the job, and because i know a few people this won't go away i'm affraid!

any kelly/Virgin execs on here?

More to be posted...

Well I remember Kelly Communications being used by Cable London as far back as 1997, they must be doing something good for Telewest/Virgin to be using them for so long???

However, maybe it is a local thing, I mean from my experience,they haven't been to bad when it has been a Kelly Communications engineer, maybe they have changed,it has been a while since we had an engineer out.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by m419

Well I remember Kelly Communications being used by Cable London as far back as 1997, they must be doing something good for Telewest/Virgin to be using them for so long???

You would hope. However, in my experience, contracts like these tend to go out to whoever puts in the lowest bid, regardless of whether they are reliable or not.

[calmpitbull]

Originally Posted by 5T3V3

hi, i'm new to this forum and after reading this thread i feel the need to share a few things:
i CURRENTLY working with kellys and intend to stay with them.
yes the hours can be long.......
and yes the hours are sometimes short!!
since starting with the company, after completing my ttaining, i have been paid EVERY 2 weeks. every other friday with out fail.
yes i have to pay 'bestpay' for my accounting.
EVERYONE who is self employed should have an accountant anyway!!!
(this fee is tax deductable......fool!!!!).
if you keep a record of every job, includung details of that job, you can tally it up when you receive your invoice EVERY fortnight.....
we're SELF EMPLOYED.....keep a track of your own work....fool!!!!
if you dont......how can you expect anyone else to do it for you!!!!
there are days when the work is hard.....but there IS a difference between rushing and leaning to work quickly......fool!!!!
oh yeah.....on the libal thing...... we're not ALL cowboys......fool!!!!!
if you have been working with people who have been cutting corners/taking risks and YOU haven't reported that back then YOU are just as responsable for bringing us ALL down.....just cos some people have upset you, please dont bring us all down.
i work in the nottingham area. i have loved the job since day 1. its a rare thing when you can work some where and actually get paid for the work you do, and not get a fixed wage and get ripped off by a director skimming the profits for his/her own pockets.
really though....unless you have worked from every depot, and with every engineer-then you CANT speak for us all........
fool!!!

Its nice to hear someone is embracing working at kellys. I can tell you that they are better paid than VM service techs. Some of these Kellys lads are earning big bucks because they have learnt to do the job very quickly and to a good standard.

From my own personal experience I can tell you that some kellys techs are absolute cowboys and have the IQ of a peanut, however I know a couple of them who do awesome at the job and are a credit to both Kellys and VM.

Unfortunately working for Kellys is both hard and pressurising so only the hardest survive. If you can thrive in kellys you can thrive anywhere! I wish more of them had your attitude.

[Jon T]

I've had Kellys engineers at work as well as Virgin ones. It's usually the Virgin one's that couldn't give a &*^% about what they're doing. Last two that came had just been to the pub and they stank of alcohol. They wer also incredibly scruffy looking.

In contrast the Kellys guys always seem knowledgable, quick, tidy and always know who to contact if something goes wrong r isn't as expected, where as the Virgin guys normally just come at you with something like "this needs more work than is on the job sheet, we're off, you'll have to put the job in again".

[djcalzar]

Must be the rare exception to the rule as all the Virgin engineers that come to my flat in Scotland are pretty spot on and decent people.

The bottom line is VM want the job done at the lowest possible price to them, so ofcourse there are going to be some cowboy and botched up work done along the line somewhere.
I would'nt pay a heart surgeon to fine tune my ferari

[naeskydish]

Over the years, I've never had any problems with Virgin media engineers. They've always been good at their job, tidy with their work and helpful.