Virgin Media installation woes

[Paul LFC]

We ordered Virgin Media a couple of weeks ago and were given an installation date of today (18th). A week ago on the 11th, a pre-installation engineer visited our house and said we needed an access point installing. He asked when our installation date was and we said today, upon which we were assured all work would be complete before our installation.

Fast forward to today, our installation engineer arrives and tells us he can't install our service as there is no access point and no cables pulled through - precisely what we were assured would be complete by today. The pre-install work wasn't part-done either, it wasn't even started.

The engineer tried to contact the construction team, which resulted in two Virgin Media / Kier vans parking outside our house for 20 minutes, drawing a green arrow on the pavement outside and then leaving without saying a word.

After multiple calls to Virgin Media today, I've been told that I've essentially wasted a day off work as the installation won't be today, and not only that, the installation date has now moved to 4th March, over 2 weeks away. Considering this is completely Virgin Media's fault, I'm far from impressed. Surely they should be fixing this quicker given it was their mess up? Given the new date is even longer than between our initial order and today, it seems they've just treated this as a new install booked today, instead of an issue caused by themselves which should be fixed.

I'm getting nowhere on the phone, though. I've asked multiple times to speak to the construction team to ask why they didn't do the work they were supposed to, and haven't managed to.

Does anyone know a number or email address to speak to a higher-up department within VM to get to the bottom of this and hopefully get it expedited?

[pip08456]

Surely the quickest way to get answers is to cancel and tell them why.

[Paul LFC]

Originally Posted by pip08456

Surely the quickest way to get answers is to cancel and tell them why.

I'm considering that, but considering their broadband is far faster than anything else we can get, and we got a good deal on the package, I feel like I'd be making the situation worse by cancelling.

It's more the conduct of VM that annoyed me - not a word as to why they didn't do the work they were supposed to, or when I could expect them to do so - I had to spend hours on the phone before I was told about the new date in March; which leads me to - what if this whole situation repeats in 2 weeks' time?

I'm going to ring retentions at lunchtime and make it clear I'm considering cancelling; while I doubt they'll be able to move the installation date up, I'd at least like some answers as to why yesterday's situation happened.

I do think VM need to be better at repairing their mistakes too, instead of booking a new installation as if I'd just ordered the service yesterday. That takes no responsibility for their mess-up.

[Carth]

Welcome to todays world, where the only thing you can rely on is unreliability.

It's not just VM, anything from having a parcel delivered, catching a train, getting a new water meter fitted, a hospital appointment, ordering a pizza . . blah blah . . everything comes with a raft of ready prepared excuses for when the inevitable cock up happens.

The good news is - IMO - that when you get all fitted up and working, you should have no further problems with the VM experience*

Plenty of help/advice on here when you (eventually) get sorted . . best of luck with getting the date moved forward.



*although a standalone new router is generally considered better for improved wireless performance

[jb66]

£5 per day compensation for missed install, £70 for a two week delay

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Paul LFC

I'm considering that, but considering their broadband is far faster than anything else we can get, and we got a good deal on the package, I feel like I'd be making the situation worse by cancelling.

It's more the conduct of VM that annoyed me - not a word as to why they didn't do the work they were supposed to, or when I could expect them to do so - I had to spend hours on the phone before I was told about the new date in March; which leads me to - what if this whole situation repeats in 2 weeks' time?

I'm going to ring retentions at lunchtime and make it clear I'm considering cancelling; while I doubt they'll be able to move the installation date up, I'd at least like some answers as to why yesterday's situation happened.

I do think VM need to be better at repairing their mistakes too, instead of booking a new installation as if I'd just ordered the service yesterday. That takes no responsibility for their mess-up.

Customer service has always been mainly bad at VM, however, alately it's become abysmal.

I had problems with one of our commercial contracts and, after getting nowhere with their offshore call centre staff, I wrote to their new CEO. At one time, this would have produced results, but this time it took over a month to simply receive a holding reply.

When the reply was received, it simply referred me to the deadlock letter & their regulator (the foreign employees hadn't even investigated the salient point of my complaint, in fact, i'm not convinced that they even understood what I was telling them), so it seems that they no longer care and just do as the banks seem to do ie they don't investigate issues properly and just wave people away to the regulator.

This particular contract expires in June, so as well as making a complaint to CISAS, it won't be being renewed. Everything that you've mentioned I can relate to and more eg missed appointments, not being kept informed, phone calls not returned, rude staff or staff rhat can barely speak English etc etc.

[pip08456]

If you have a deadlock letter you don't need to wait until June, you can leave now.

[damien c]

Originally Posted by Paul LFC

We ordered Virgin Media a couple of weeks ago and were given an installation date of today (18th). A week ago on the 11th, a pre-installation engineer visited our house and said we needed an access point installing. He asked when our installation date was and we said today, upon which we were assured all work would be complete before our installation.

Fast forward to today, our installation engineer arrives and tells us he can't install our service as there is no access point and no cables pulled through - precisely what we were assured would be complete by today. The pre-install work wasn't part-done either, it wasn't even started.

The engineer tried to contact the construction team, which resulted in two Virgin Media / Kier vans parking outside our house for 20 minutes, drawing a green arrow on the pavement outside and then leaving without saying a word.

After multiple calls to Virgin Media today, I've been told that I've essentially wasted a day off work as the installation won't be today, and not only that, the installation date has now moved to 4th March, over 2 weeks away. Considering this is completely Virgin Media's fault, I'm far from impressed. Surely they should be fixing this quicker given it was their mess up? Given the new date is even longer than between our initial order and today, it seems they've just treated this as a new install booked today, instead of an issue caused by themselves which should be fixed.

I'm getting nowhere on the phone, though. I've asked multiple times to speak to the construction team to ask why they didn't do the work they were supposed to, and haven't managed to.

Does anyone know a number or email address to speak to a higher-up department within VM to get to the bottom of this and hopefully get it expedited?

Whilst I don't work for VM or work for the contract companies that are used for install's anymore, this does seem like you could have been given more information sooner to set your expectations correctly.

If your house does not have a "Tee" then they need to put one in, which will take a few hours at most to do, the issue could be that the contractors may not have someone available to do the construction work, or they may not have requested the permits from the council if needed, in time to be able to actually do the work.

Whilst it does not help you in anyway to get your services installed, it may shed abit of light on the situation which no one appears to have thought about or mentioned.

Hopefully it get's resolved soon, but I would be seeing if you can claim compensation for the missed install date, especially since you may have had your previous services stopped meaning you are without a phone etc.