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View Full Version : Another nightmare install


dgilberthorpe
11-10-2007, 15:16
Oh dear.

Bit similar to Steve Moore's issues, this one - though without the happy resolution.

I took the VIP package - the consolidation of phone, tv and broadband looked like a very fine idea. Installation booked for the 25th of September and two guys duly turn up. Unfortunately I could not be present. My heavily pregnant wife was present, however. She tells me the guys, a pair of brothers from Milton Keynes, seemed OK but did not perform the install as she'd requested - basically informing her that they had to do things their way.

Upshot? The engineers drilled two holes in my wall - 1 in the front (cable modem cable), 1 in the back (tv and phone.) They knocked a large amount of facing brick away and left the holes raw in the back (no protective box) and in the front knocked in a plastic fitting which remains a couple of inches proud of the wall (I'll attach photos.) The hole in front, by the way, is 18 inches from the cable wires that were installed during the build of the house - one of Virgins service engineers was as surprised as I was that they hadn't just used those. In addition, the cable to the back has been run directly underneath the drainage valve for our central heating. If ever we need to drain the central heating then boiling water will pour directly onto the cable. Fabulous.

In addition, outside the house they left the wires in an exposed tangle and internally have loosely tacked the cable wires out through my downstairs loo, into the hall (where occaisionally the wire sags to prevent the door closing) along the hall and into the kitchen.

In terms of equipment, they left no tools but neither did they leave any connectors for the equipment provided (v+, cable modem). Nor did they leave the extra set-top box I should get with the package.

In addition, non of it worked anyway. They knew this when they left, but promised my wife they would return on the 26th. Of course they didn't.

On Friday 28th i returned and registered a complaint and was told I would be contacted within 48 hours. No one called. I called back, once put through to the Installations team who told me they only dealt with "on the day" calls and again when I was told I would have an engineer with me on Thursday the 4th. To be fair someone from the service team did then contact me and offer to come due to a cancelled appointment on the Tuesday but at the time I was with my wife in hospital, our son having been born on Monday.

This is a short version, by the way - i won't even bother to relate the up-to-an-hour waits for reply, the unannouced transfers to FULL voice mail boxes (can't even leave a message. Nice.) and the cutoffs and redials. I now have the intro script down pat.

Thursday 4th - an engineer turns up. A fault engineer. To look at a non-functioning broadband connection. That's right. I report an unfinished install, they send a service engineer who "doesn't do installs." He did however confirm that the one I had was not working - nothing from the street at all, and that the standard of work was appalling. He promises to put a call through to someone called Gavin, the area installation supervisor - more on him later. I call and am eventually put through to Dale Flinn of the Sheffield customer relations department. Dale was very helpful, as it happens, and tried to get everything sorted for me, I believe. Certainly he is one of only two people who ever bothered to call back. He arranged another service engineer to come out on the Tuesday the 9th - I was assured that this guy could then escalate and get the service up and running for me.

Tuesday the 9th - the service engineer turns up. Again it is confirmed that the installation is neither working nor a satisfactory job. He again tells me its raised with the installation supervisor. in addition our landline (the BT bit that did still work, not the cable one that never has) went dead because our service was transferred to Virgin.

Wednesday the 10th - I phone up and am put through to customer relations again. Still no contact from the installation team, etc etc, wife and new baby and no landline (non virgin mobile calls to their help - what's that going to cost??) Eventually am put through to Gavin Gansby, the north london installation supervisor, who says this is the first he has heard of any issue but who assures me he will be at my house by 10:30 am Thursday 11th and takes my mobile number. (If its the first he's heard, then what of Dale, Oliver and the various engineers, installation help desk and customer support personels' claims to have raised this with him???)

Thursday 11th. 11.00 - Gavin Gansby has not arrived. Nor has he contacted me. Off I go to customer services again and on the third try (1 innapropriate re-route, 1 to an install individual who promised me Gavin would be in touch but rang off before taking a contact number. Since I'd said the landline was out this didn't seem right. Maybe I'm being silly though - after all I had been giving out my mobile number to everyone involved at all points with only this exception and I know it was in my notes.) I get through to someone who is actually helpful...

Marion from the Manchester office did put through calls for me trying to catch up to Gavin. She even rang me back to say she'd talked to him. Apparently he ackowledged our call on Wednesday night but now the gear box has gone on his car so he couldn't get here. Ok, but then why no phone call to let me know that. However, he would now definately be calling me back within a couple of minutes -

13:30. I am now expecting Marion's follow-up call before she goes off shift. Gavin, of course, has not called. Even if I back to BT for phone services by 3pm this afternoon I now will have no landline till Monday or Tuesday (let alone anything else) This is a disaster as the landline is the contact that the hospital, midwives and health visitors have for my wife as well as banks and work and all the rest. Yes we can go round giving them a mobile, but that is more effort and chasing and needless hassle.

Just had Marion on the phone. She got hold of Gavin who has said he can't get over, had passed the call to "someone else" who also can't come today.

15:00>>>> breaking news >>>>
Sergei Batsuko from the Harrow region arrived - he seemed very competent, agreed that the existing install is unsatisfactory and that the cable insertion was unnecessary - the house is indeed fully pre-wired. They'll be round tomorrow to take out all the existing wiring and get everything set up, apparently. Here's hoping!!!

(Apparently all i had to do was cancel my service.... ????? .... now I'm un-cancelling .... and still annoyed, confused and bemused.)

piggy
11-10-2007, 16:13
just read your post its this aspect of the company that i find embarrising hopefully a moderator will drop by and use there contacts to get this sorted for you

PS1
12-10-2007, 16:00
:Dsurely this is a contender for "longest first post" award?

dgilberthorpe
12-10-2007, 19:12
Yeah, sorry about that. Just wanted to get a reasonably complete picture across. This was the short version though, as I said :)

Anyway, Friday 12th, just gone 18:00, no engineer, so still no landline, no services.

Any advice on how to proceed with this would be much appreciated. I'm at my wits end with this and really don't know what to do.

piggy
12-10-2007, 19:18
what happend to yesterdays visit?

PS1
12-10-2007, 21:20
Yeah, sorry about that. Just wanted to get a reasonably complete picture across. This was the short version though, as I said :)

Anyway, Friday 12th, just gone 18:00, no engineer, so still no landline, no services.

Any advice on how to proceed with this would be much appreciated. I'm at my wits end with this and really don't know what to do.

no need for the "sorry",i was impressed:D
probably adds up to more than ALL my posts put together.
nice one!

dgilberthorpe
13-10-2007, 00:27
Yesterdays (Thursday 11ths visit) ended with Sergei promising me the arrival of the team that didn't arrive today (Friday 12th.) He did leave me his mobile number yesterday, but hasn't been answering today.

A call to the installation team got a "we'll ring back" and of course no ring back. Though of course I could be waiting the mythical 48 hours for that one anyway.

Its sort of reached the level of sick fascination come obsession for me now - I've invested so much time, effort and money in chasing this down I'm loathe to just cut my losses at this point. On the other hand I really have no confidence in any resolution here at all. I just hear lots of sympathetic noises from Customer Relations and all that lot and little in the way of actual help.

Jonnymeg
15-10-2007, 16:56
I feel for you regarding your installation but i have to ask this one question.
Everything aside.....what kind of fool messes about with his phone service at a time when you know you are going to be VERY needful of it?

If my Mrs was in that condition i would surely have left it for a few weeks/months!

fireman328
15-10-2007, 17:24
I feel for you regarding your installation but i have to ask this one question.
Everything aside.....what kind of fool messes about with his phone service at a time when you know you are going to be VERY needful of it?

If my Mrs was in that condition i would surely have left it for a few weeks/months!

It seems to me there is a possibility that the the OP's wife was not even pregnant when this unholy mess started.
What a way to run a business :td: :mad:

With VM installers there is an old adage, "Pay peanuts, get monkeys"

MovedGoalPosts
15-10-2007, 18:29
dgilberthorpe, what a cataogue of errors :(

Cable Forum has developed contacts at a senior level with Virgin Media who have proven adept at banging heads when necessary. Unfortunately though they aren't front line staff, so action can take a while. I'll be happy to forward your details to them, if you PM me your customer name, address (including postcode), a daytime phone number (mobile?). In the meantime keep at your pestering too.

dgilberthorpe
15-10-2007, 21:43
OK, its finally sorted.

Thanks for the supportive messages :)

(BTW, I DID organise it a few weeks before hand... should've left it longer, I suppose, but how far do you take that?)

Anyway... how did it get sorted? Well, on Saturday I began my round of morning calls. By this time I was literally begging for a solution and essentially refusing to be transferred from customer services until I got contact from a manager. Eventually someone took pity on me... I was put in touch with the regional customer services manager, Vic, who set me up with what appears to be his own engineering team (unconnected with installations.)

They came round today and... bingo... I have services, they cleaned up all of the wires and so forth, filled the holes, used the internal wiring, the lot. I won't say it looks lovely (grey mortar and average filling techniques - but that's a quibble) but it is many many times better than before. Hurrah. And it all works - I'm using my shiny new broadband connection right now.

Bit of a shambles really installation wise, but at least its up now. Top marks to Vic (when I finally got through to someone who could actually do something) and no kudos whatsoever to the actual installation team.

Key advice? If your installation is screwy then DON'T bother with the installation team. Go for your customer services manager. You may even get called back!!! ;)

sprattgraham
15-10-2007, 22:34
I guess it's all sorted now