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ekim
21-02-2010, 14:08
Hi everyone,

I signed up with VM for their 10mb broadband late December of last year, mainly because of the house into which we were moving into was so far away from the BT exchange that the best ADSL I could get was roughly 1mb. We had to have a new cable pulled from the cabinet in the street as I couldn't get the modem to sync. Had an engineer booked to come and connect up the cable laying in my front garden with my house for Monday 15th Jan - this was booked 2 weeks in advance as I couldn't make earlier engineer visits due to being on holiday. VM get in contact with me on Saturday 13th Jan, my engineer slot has been double booked, therefore I've been bumped and the earliest slot is the following Saturday (20th). I was pretty peeved at this, having booked the slot 2 weeks in advance (it's not like I was asking to be slipped in at the last moment).

Receive a call on Friday 19th from VM, checking for parking restrictions, double checked we were still on for the engineer visit 1pm-6pm - all OK. Saturday comes, it gets to 17.30 and I get anxious, having been a curtain twitcher all day, I call up and check they're still on schedule - "yes sir, the engineer is still out on jobs, he has 3 jobs left on his schedule" I am told that the engineer works until the day's work is completed. 18.15 - nothing. Call VM they attempt to contact engineer on mobile - straight to voicemail, leave a message on his PDA asking him to contact me to give me an ETA/update, customer services man tells me to ring back in an hour if I've not heard anything. An hour passes and nothing. I call back on the hour, every hour trying to find out what's happening. At 20.30, I am informed that he has one job left (which is mine) and should be with me at any time. An hour passes and still nothing, I call back and I appear to have hit the indian support office, they cannot do anything for me and tell me to ring back tomorrow. I ring this morning and there are no notes on the account, so the customer services man cannot tell me anything, he apologises and tells me to ring on Monday as the installation dept is not open on Sundays. I managed to get the name of the engineer and his manager out of one of the customer service people Saturday night along with his manager's phone number.

I give the number a try this morning, spoke to someone (a colleague of the manager - who turned out to be an office based manager and not an engineer's manager) who was a bit miffed that I had been able to obtain their number. She checked on the case for me and said that the job had been 'closed out'! I explained to her this definitely was not the case as I was looking at a reel of cable sticking out of the mud in my front garden as I spoke to her. She couldn't help as there were no managers around etc she has passed the issue on to the relevant managers along with a note to contact me ASAP on Monday to discuss this.

So here I am, Sunday 21st with no internet (having signed up to VM 2 months ago). I will be getting onto them first thing tomorrow morning. I am exasperated to say the least! Does anyone have any tips for when I speak to them tomorrow morning, I need this connection up and running as soon as humanly possible.

P.S. Sorry for the essay!

Cheers,

Mike

fireman328
21-02-2010, 14:56
Par for the course,dont get your hopes up for Monday either.

MovedGoalPosts
21-02-2010, 15:06
Virgin Media do need to overhaul their systems. It's bad enough being let down once but to be rebooked and for that to then fail is appalling. I fail to see why they cannot put a note on the job sheet that says a job is now priority because it was previously missed.

Good luck with your call tommorrow. If you don't get any sense out of VM post again with an update. Cable Forum may be able to offer some additional assistance.

fireman328
21-02-2010, 15:34
It is all about customer care and they dont care.

ekim
21-02-2010, 16:06
Thanks, will post again once I get off the phone to the installations dept tomorrow morning.

To be honest I knew what to expect when I signed up (sadly), although I hoped I'd be one of the very few lucky ones who get off to a good start. If I could get a half decent speed through ADSL I wouldn't even consider VM. It's a real shame that they have no competition in the home fibre connection market, that would surely shake them up!

Cheers guys,

Mike

ekim
22-02-2010, 12:43
Update - after speaking to various people this morning and keeping on top of them, I *appear* to have had a breakthrough. I have been promised an engineer shortly after 5pm TODAY. Not going to hold my breath, but keeping everything crossed! Will update again with news later this evening.

Cheers,

Mike

saabmania2
22-02-2010, 20:04
hi,
have you had a reasult today?? did you get it done?

ekim
23-02-2010, 14:31
I'm very pleased to report that I now have internet! Chased at 6pm to find out where he was, told that he had to finish other jobs before coming to me. Chased at 7pm ish, same info again. getting on for 8pm, was getting pretty worried, call back and convince the customer service agent to call the area manager whose name I had, no answer. She starts to reel off the "I'm very sorry but you have to ring again tomorrow" when I ask her to try the guy's number again - success. I ask to be connected to him so as I can speak with him and within about 5 mins of holding the customer services lady informs me that the manager is getting a team together and will definitely be with me tonight (didn't get to speak to the manager in the end). About 10mins later I had an engineer on my doorstep, 1/2 hr later I'm up and running. Just glad to be able to say the saga is over!

saabmania2
23-02-2010, 20:07
thats good news at least you got sorted in the end :-)