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-   -   Still waiting for an installation date a month later (https://www.cableforum.uk/board/showthread.php?t=33681257)

tt2011 20-09-2011 14:11

Still waiting for an installation date a month later
 
We moved on Aug 17th and have now been without TV, internet or a home phone for over a month. Virgin gave us the install date of 31st August but never checked the cables and so on installation day the engineers took 5 minutes to say the 'wrong' cable was present and another team was needed. They never showed up. We spoke to the movers team at Virgin and they now claimed that the cables were damaged by 3rd parties doing works on the water or gas pipes in the road.

The actual engineering/installation team are impossible to get hold of by telephone, either the call is not answered or when i got the movers team to call them, they replied with:
"We are waiting for authorisation to do the work".

Sounded feasible. A week later, I chased and was told that the work had been authorised and would be completed in a minimum of 3 weeks.

I'm not the most patient person and so after 2.5 weeks of inaction (i.e. no-one digging up the road I called back to find out how progress was going, only to be fed the same line I was given over 2 weeks previously:

"We are waiting for authorisation to do the work".

This now means that we have been lied to at least once, but also that we have no idea if this work will EVER take place.

This situation is dreadful and very unprofessional, we are now a month without vital services and our area has very limited mobile coverage so we are pretty much cut off whilst at home.

Latest update from a very honest member of the Install team have twice asked contractors to dig and photograph the damage so that virgin can claim back the costs from whomever did the damage. Twice they have received photo's of ... a tarmac path with no markings. they didn't even dig.

Anyone had anything similar and found a way of speeding things up or know someone within the organisation that could help?

Cheers

Ken W 20-09-2011 15:42

Re: Still waiting for an installation date a month later
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by tt2011 (Post 35302372)
We moved on Aug 17th and have now been without TV, internet or a home phone for over a month. Virgin gave us the install date of 31st August but never checked the cables and so on installation day the engineers took 5 minutes to say the 'wrong' cable was present and another team was needed. They never showed up. We spoke to the movers team at Virgin and they now claimed that the cables were damaged by 3rd parties doing works on the water or gas pipes in the road.

The actual engineering/installation team are impossible to get hold of by telephone, either the call is not answered or when i got the movers team to call them, they replied with:
"We are waiting for authorisation to do the work".

Sounded feasible. A week later, I chased and was told that the work had been authorised and would be completed in a minimum of 3 weeks.

I'm not the most patient person and so after 2.5 weeks of inaction (i.e. no-one digging up the road I called back to find out how progress was going, only to be fed the same line I was given over 2 weeks previously:

"We are waiting for authorisation to do the work".

This now means that we have been lied to at least once, but also that we have no idea if this work will EVER take place.

This situation is dreadful and very unprofessional, we are now a month without vital services and our area has very limited mobile coverage so we are pretty much cut off whilst at home.

Latest update from a very honest member of the Install team have twice asked contractors to dig and photograph the damage so that virgin can claim back the costs from whomever did the damage. Twice they have received photo's of ... a tarmac path with no markings. they didn't even dig.

Anyone had anything similar and found a way of speeding things up or know someone within the organisation that could help?

Cheers

It sounds as if you are getting the run around and no one taking responseability!

Have you tried reporting it on the Virgin support site? http://community.virginmedia.com/

MovedGoalPosts 20-09-2011 16:27

Re: Still waiting for an installation date a month later
 
The other suggestion would be to email neil.berkett at virginmedia.co.uk (the ceo's office) as they seem to have the clout to get people to actually get off their backsides.

tt2011 23-09-2011 13:33

Re: Still waiting for an installation date a month later
 
Virgin has subsequently claimed to have authorised the work and will take place in 4-6 weeks. the call centre muppet that was dealing on this occasion would not even read the notes from the previous call (2 days earlier).

However, in those 2 days apparently they have received photos of the damage. Bear in mind there has still been no digging of any kind. Perhaps they can do this without lifting the road, but the previous call centre lady claimed that they COULDN'T and would need to dig.

Hence this is going nowhere again. I have no intention of letting them off and will insist that all works get done even if it takes until next year.

Next I will email the CEO as suggested to see if the upper management know or care about how customers are treated. I just found out that Virgin is basically the latest reincarnation of Telewest and NTL. I have professional dealings with both companies 10 years about and they were a mess then. Nothing's changed then.

tt2011 10-10-2011 12:35

Re: Still waiting for an installation date a month later
 
Open letter to Neil Berkett, CEO:


Dear Neil

Isn’t it a shame when a customer feels so aggrieved with the service provision, or lack thereof, that he takes it upon himself to contact the company’s CEO directly. In my case I have been through all the normal channels, including speaking to various Customer Service Agents who have contradicted themselves (or lied) on different occasions and attempted to make a complaint through the online channel which has just been ignored.

I won’t go through the whole complaint with you as you will probably care less about my situation than your Call Centre employees. But I will just point out that my wife and I are still without TV, Telephone or Internet for more than 7 weeks due to in part to the bungling of Virgin Media itself and also to the lack of contract Virgin has its over 3rd party suppliers. This I am told by your Customer Services department and I am sure you will echo the sentiment as you are far too busy to deal with any of this, that is of course not your fault. Well I sorry to inform you that it is your fault. As the CEO, you are responsible for every success and every failure. You may have grown your subscriber base and increased profitability in the short term, but you have failed dismally in changing the inherently work-shy, incompetent culture that was ingrained in both the NTL and Telewest organisations. I fear that as soon as the Virgin Media services are no longer state-of-the-art (when available) then your organisation will go the same way, and probably get bought by Sky.

I do not expect to hear back from you, in fact I expect that your secretary will actually screen this email so that you don’t have to waste your own time. But I do hope that whomever reads this email will at least pass this email on to someone in the organisation that cares about such complaints and might actually do something to help the organisation keep customers in the future.

Yours Sincerely


Virgin Media Customer

MovedGoalPosts 10-10-2011 13:02

Re: Still waiting for an installation date a month later
 
Rather than a rant online, which makes you feel better but is unlikely to be seen by anyone who will give you a result, did you actually email the CEO address given, with a proper outline of the problems you are having?

tt2011 10-10-2011 13:19

Re: Still waiting for an installation date a month later
 
yes

tt2011 29-10-2011 11:25

Re: Still waiting for an installation date a month later
 
name removed@virginmedia.co.uk

from the CEO's office seems to be the one that deals with all the unhappy customers that contact Neil Berkett. I get the impression he's a very busy man! On the brightside he convinced the construction teams and installation teams to fix the problem and guess what ... not a single inch of road of tarmac has been touched. Our service was installed yesterday, although customer services didnt seem to know about it. All works fine. So much for '100 metres' of construction work needed. What a complete joke, these guys are.

Trying to negotiate some compensation, but seems unlikely. The call centre muppets wouldn't even give us a new Tivo box, even though they now come FREE to new customers. This really smacks of a company desperate to get new customers/cash in but really don't give a damn after that. Have they never heard of the keeping your customers being easier/cheaper then getting new ones?

Edit Rob: Please don't post publicly email addresses of those who are not customer facing


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