Unserviceable? How?

[Jammy_Stuff]

I just got round to ordering Virgin Media on Sunday night. Today, I received an email informing me that our house may be unserviceable and that they would be sending out a team of spotters within the next 10 days.

I made a call to the general enquiries number on the website and after being sent around for a bit, I finally got to someone that could at least speak with me. I pointed out to them that a friend that lives 15 meters down the road happily receives cable from them and there is even a little manhole cover with "CATV" on it actually touching the end of our drive (I know this isn't definitely a cable point but it seems pretty likely as cable is obviously in the area). When I pointed this out, she searched the database and actually found that there are other houses in the area with cable and one of the ones she named lives just across the road, so no distance at all.

I asked if we needed to do anything else and she gave me the number for "Central Housing Administration" (or something like that, the number was 0870 888 3114) and said we need to call them, but they're closed before I get back so it'll have to wait for Saturday.

I've just realised that there is a number given in the email so I'm about to call that but I thought I should check to see if anyone else has had a similar experience or has any tips about what to do. If anything, it just seems like a waste for them to send out a team of people, just to observe that the house across the road receives cable and so can we.

[MovedGoalPosts]

It's a pain. Virgin Media are ruled by computer databases that are frequently inaccurate. Just because neighbours have service is no guarantee of success for you.

There can be local capacity issues at the street cabinet. VM might know there is a problem with the pavement ducts. All sort of things really, but the biggest battle is getting someone to look at it and actually update the computer records.

Try the phone numbers given to you, but beware it can be a tedious process. You probably would get a better response during 9-5 hours.

[Jammy_Stuff]

I rang the number in the email and got through to a really helpful person who took a good few minutes doing the best he could. Eventually, he admitted that there wasn't anything he could do from there but he could give me the mobile number of an area manager and that if I rang him, he could arrange a visit tomorrow to look at the property.

I just need to check when people will be in the house tomorrow so I can ring him. Sounds pretty hopeful.

[WHISTLED]

As Rob said, although if you have the CATV point the chances are quite high the address can be added.

Not sure why you hav been given that number, its not one im aware of unless its the office in Brum but I didnt think they took your calls.

[Jammy_Stuff]

Things are definitely going well, I rang the area manager and he asked a few questions about how far away I was from the house I know has cable. He then apologised that it was too late to send out a spotter today but that he would send one out tomorrow.

Its a shame that this situation has arisen but I must say the customer services when it does happen are superb.

[colin-bennett]

glad all going well.
If you get spotter round generally will be field sales rep and they will try to get you connected as it is a sale for them.
If construction is required as a rule of thumb the more services you request the more chance you have of the construction being granted.

[Jammy_Stuff]

Just thought I'd give an update on this. I sent an email yesterday to the web sales team to see if there were any updates to the status of our order. By 3pm today, there'd been no reply so I rang the web sales team again.

After helping the person on the phone decide which area we are in (he asked for the postcode and still couldn't work it out) it was agreed that a spotter team would be sent out tomorrow and that they would ring when they were going to arrive. Of course, he skillfully avoided responding to any questions about where the spotter team that was supposed to come 5 days ago are.

While I was making this phone call, I received a response to my email, informing me that our house is definately unserviceable. Now, I don't know as I don't work at Virgin Media (maybe someone that does can tell me) but surely if the person that sent the email knew that the spotters decided we couldn't get cable, the person on the phone, in the same department, would also know and refuse to send out a spotter team.

This seemed odd, so I decided to reply to this email (by now, it was a direct email address rather than the generic web sales team one) and pointed out that Virgin had told me that the house opposite had cable installed. I was quite angry when I was writing this email so I decided that I should spell out exactly what I wanted to know and posed 4 questions to give me that information:

1) Did the spotter team ever actually visit our property?
2) If they have, why did we not receive a phone call to let us know they were coming?
3) If we are unserviceable, what exactly is making us unserviceable?
4) How is the cable in the road laid so that one side of the road can receive cable but the other cannot?

We were also given the phone number for the offnet department so we could pay more than we currently do for the same rubbishy ADSL service that we want cable to get away from. I mentioned in my reply (hopefully this may get them to think carefully before they say we can't get their cable services) that we want cable due to the terrible ADSL speed in our area and that if it is not available, they have lost a customer (one that was going to get broadband, phone and TV in fact).

I'll have to wait for the reply to this email but with a bit of luck, a spotter team may be round tomorrow. Can someone on the forum that works at Virgin please give their opinion on if the person that sent the email actually checked to see if the spotters visited?

[lostandconfused]

that could well have been someone from the spotters dept that emailed you!

When the go around, they normally will liase directly with the customer, if it turns out the adress is servicable they will ammend the system accordingly. If it is not, they will let the customer know and not make any changes to the system as it already says not servicable.

When you spoke to the sales agent he would have the same info as when you called the first time, so could only assume that the spotters team hadnt been out, or you cant get cable.

or it could just be someone from the sales team that has picked up your order and thought they would take it upon themselves to let you know again that according to the system you cant have cable.

i would keep the appointment and see what they say after that.

[WHISTLED]

1) Did the spotter team ever actually visit our property?
2) If they have, why did we not receive a phone call to let us know they were coming?
3) If we are unserviceable, what exactly is making us unserviceable?
4) How is the cable in the road laid so that one side of the road can receive cable but the other cannot?


1) Yes you should be told this
2) I have never known a spotter tell someone they are coming, its not an appointment you need to be there for
3) Not having cable to YOUR particular property
4) So you want to know the rationale behind a decision or mistake made by a different company over 10 years ago, You seem to think this is unlikely? The road I live on now is exactly the same granted I live on a block of new builds in an older area but the cul de sac I lived on previously had 41 out of 44 properties serviceable and they were not new build.

Lost is correct on all points

[Jammy_Stuff]

3) Not having cable to YOUR particular property



We run a pencil thin cable from our network, underground through your front garden (where appropriate), to an unobtrusive box which we fix to the outside of your home.


Am I not right in thinking that the idea of an installation is that they run the cable from the network to your property? The area manager I rang a week ago said that if we were within 10 meters of the network, they are allowed to install cable at our property. The front of our house is definitely within 10 meters of the far side of the road so I don't see the problem.

Also, just to add. I've been searching around the forum and I found a topic (admittedly a few years old now) that says the checker at dslzoneuk.net uses a more up to date postcode database than the sales department one. Their checker says that it is available, even the checker on the VM website says that it is available. Why does every single department in the company say that it is available, apart from the one that will take our money and install it?

[Jonnymeg]

Jammy-Stuff where are you located?

Do you have a small black plastic box in the pavement at the end of your drive? It will be about the size of a CD box and have identifying makings on it. If you look near a neighbours property who has cable you will see what they look like.
If you have one then you are almost 100% serviceable.

[Jammy_Stuff]

I had a bit of an investigation today and looked up and down the road. About 50 meters away is the green CATV junction box. From there, all the way along our side of the road there is a strip in the pavement where there they have obviously dug it up to lay cable.

And yes, at the bottom of each drive on this side of the road is a CATV manhole cover, including at the bottom of our drive. There was no such thing on the other side of the road however. This was a bit strange, because I know someone on that side of the road with cable installed.

I went and looked where their house is and there is an obvious strip in the road where it has been dug up and then there are 2 cables (one for them, one for the next door neighbor) coming out at the other side. The next house along from that also gets cable and once again, there is a strip in the road where their cable comes from our side.

When I worked this out, I rang web sales team again, who put me through to customer services, who put me through to normal sales. I explained what I had found to them and he came to the conclusion that our house must be too far away from the cable. I got my tape measure out and measured the distance from the cable, 12 meters. I then went to the house on the other side of the road and measured the distance there, 16 meters not including the distance from one side of the road to the other.

Thinking I'd finally solved the whole thing, I rang sales again and explained the whole situation. This person came up with a different hypothesis. She asked for the names of lots of houses along the road and their relative position and checked if they were serviceable.

From this, she decided that the cable must go from the junction box, immediately cross the road (where the two cables come out) move along that side of the road and cross back at the house opposite us (the other time the road has been dug up). Then, it continues along our side of the road to the house two doors that way that also gets cable. She decided that rather than sending out spotters (finally someone admitted that they are not reliable and sometimes don't visit the properties) a supervisor would be sent in the new year and would come and speak to us and help us identify the route the cable takes.

However, I don't think that is the route the cable takes. Firstly, why would they put the ducting in the whole way along our side only to put half of the cable, not in ducting, on the other side? Secondly, there is no evidence at all of any digging between the two points where the cable crosses the road.

There are another two things that I discovered while I was investigating this. Firstly, when our house was being built, the electrician offered that he could install the cable going up to our house so if we had cable installed at some point, the installer would just need to put the little box on the side of the house. We didn't have this done as it was before the broadband era so saw no need (wish we had done it now).

The other thing is that our next door neighbor only recently moved in and they completely renovated their house including resurfacing the drive. While they were doing this, they needed to remove the CATV manhole cover and although I haven't checked with them, I doubt they would have kept it there if it didn't have a purpose (ie, had the cable in it).

I'll just have to wait until the 3rd of January for the supervisor visit and see what he says. In the mean time, if anybody want to try and work it out for themselves, I have pictures of all the things I've described which I could send to you.

[Jonnymeg]

Ok,

When you say 'manhole cover' do you mean the full size manhole or one the size of a CD box?

Secondly the strip you see in the pavement is not where cable has been laid it is where they have placed the ducting. What happens is this:
The installers will push a cable down that little manhole cover and it will pop up inside that 'green box' down the street. There is no cable installed when the pavements are dug apart from the ones that are the main feed to the green box.
Is the green box on your side of the street? Can you follow the track in the pavement from your house to the green box? If the box is on the opposite side can you see a large manhole covers in the pavement (on your side) and directly opposite on the otherside of the road where the cables make right angles and cross the road?

if you pop open that little manhole cover with a screwdriver you will see the tube running underground, if that is there......you can have cable providing there is a route to the green box.

The only way i can see that it is not possible is that you neighbours over the street run to a different 'green box',One that is in service. And your ducting runs to a different one that was never cabled to the main network.

[WHISTLED]

The front of our house is definitely within 10 meters of the far side of the road so I don't see the problem.

Gort more chance of seeing Santa than getting them to corss the road to provide you with service. I see the problem even if you dont.

No chance of the doing civils for one customer when it takes 6 months of service before they even break even on a standard install.

[Jammy_Stuff]

Right. I'll have a look tomorrow inside the small manhole cover. The green box is on our side of the road and you can follow the track in the pavement all the way from our manhole cover to the box. The track in the road to provide cable to those on the other side is going straight to the same green box.

I'll get those pictures uploaded soon as I have pictures of the green box, small manhole cover, track in the pavement and track in the road.

[Jonnymeg]

Right. I'll have a look tomorrow inside the small manhole cover. The green box is on our side of the road and you can follow the track in the pavement all the way from our manhole cover to the box. The track in the road to provide cable to those on the other side is going straight to the same green box.

I'll get those pictures uploaded soon as I have pictures of the green box, small manhole cover, track in the pavement and track in the road.

It all sounds perfectly good to me.

[Jammy_Stuff]

Right I've uploaded the pictures. Here's the links to them:

Here's the green box about 70 meters down the road from us. (http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2190/2126886393_fb784b766f_o.jpg)

This is the track in the pavement going from the junction box down our side of the road. (http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2118/2126891517_3722a3c79e_o.jpg)

Here's the track in the road going direct from the junction box to two houses on the other side of the road. (http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2143/2127671230_e5d96723f3_o.jpg)

This is the CATV manhole at the bottom of our drive. (this one is a bit blurry, sorry) (http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2268/2126896887_a0b861a2a5_o.jpg)

Here's a picture of the CATV manhole in perspective. Notice how the dug up pavement goes all the way over to it. (http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2184/2126909065_027932990b_o.jpg)

[Jonnymeg]

Well that little cover is certainly a cable one!
I don't see any reason why you cannot be installed.

I have seen streets that have all the installation work done in the street but the green boxes have no actual live feed so the area is 'unserviceable'. However as you neighbours have services it seems that is not the case in this instance.

My guess is that no one has been to look and just going by an incorrect database.

[Jammy_Stuff]

Is there anyone from VM here that could point me in the right direction to getting this sorted then? Or should I just wait until the supervisor visit?

[TenderLoin]

I have a similar problem to get an installation to my flat as well, since the beginning of November when I moved to this new place, even though I already have the boxes (Telewest marked) and wired into my flat!

My flat number is not on the VM database and no sales/spotter/database department care to act on it even though someone from the CS/Customer Relationship (a seriously nice and helpful one) keep banging on their doors (err....voicemail and mailboxes) on my behalf. strange kind of way VM internal communication.

[Jammy_Stuff]

Hardly unexpected but the supervisor has been a no show (there's still a few hours to go, but I doubt they're coming). Does anybody have any idea what to do now?

[piggy]

i cant help but imo you are definately on service hopefully one of the mods will be along soon...good luck!!

[Jammy_Stuff]

With a bit of help from another member I've now got the database for serviceability in our postcode. Its quite interesting. Almost all the houses on the other side of the road are serviceable apart from one. On our side, there is only one house that is serviceable (and it is, because they get cable). Oh, and at least one house doesn't exist.

Also, I've just checked online to see if they've fixed the postcode checker and I am not one bit happy. They've actually updated the database as ours has changed... to analogue only. According to the rest of the company, we can't get cable at all. I hope they see sense and fix that postcode checker to stop other people from going through all this trouble and wasting money. We bought a wireless router which we no longer need as it looks like they aren't planning on even sending out that supervisor to check. If they don't install next time, I'm going to try and get them to buy it off me as we bought it after the postcode checker told us we could definitely get cable.

[muzler]

I had the same problem the data base showed I could not have any services and the green box was just a few metres away with a catv cover outside my house after many phone calls I also asked the local guy in my shopping centre to make some enquiries, a few days later I dont know if it was related but a sales reps card was through the door with a list of all the offers available, I then checked the online post code tool just before Christmas to see I could now get analogue and to call to see what was available and I am happy to say I now have digi tv phone and broadband and the online tool still shows I still can only get anoalogue, I dont know who made the changes to make my house serviceable I got so many people involved but you know who you are and I would like to say a big thank you,

So if you really want VM as I did get as many people on side as you can try and find your local sales office or local guy in your shopping centre you never know.

[Tightscot]

Right I've uploaded the pictures. Here's the links to them:

Here's the green box about 70 meters down the road from us. (http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2190/2126886393_fb784b766f_o.jpg)



LMAO @ the dog wee up the side of the box....:D

[Jonnymeg]

LMAO @ the dog wee up the side of the box....:D

It wasn't a dog....it was a midget.

[Jammy_Stuff]

Seems like they think the pictures show we can get it as after sending an email containing them, we've just received a phone call from them. Somebody should be coming round to have a look and speak with us at about 7 tonight.

Hope this goes well.

[Jonnymeg]

cool/ keep us posted.

[Jammy_Stuff]

The person had a quick look down the road with his torch before he rang the doorbell and decided that we can definitely get cable. All that was left was an attempt to sell us more packages, one of which seems very good value. He left his number to ring once we've decided and said we should get an install within 2 weeks.

[TehTech]

The person had a quick look down the road with his torch before he rang the doorbell and decided that we can definitely get cable. All that was left was an attempt to sell us more packages, one of which seems very good value. He left his number to ring once we've decided and said we should get an install within 2 weeks.

Do you *REALLY* want to be with a company that has given you a headache & the runaround even BEFORE you have any services with them?

It really will get a *lot* worse once you have your services installed (IF indeed you choose this)

[zing_deleted]

It isnt always not everyone has a problem. I have had issues with CS but not service for the most part I also knwo plenty of other people who have had headaches just as bad with ADSL providers