Virginmedia installation

Odd thing happened, someone apparently applied for VM cable to be installed at my address.
I have lived here since the Falklands War with no lodger.
First thing I knew about it was VM engineer turning up to do the in house stuff.
He pointed out a cable had already been put in under my lawn and a box on the house, I had not noticed as its not a very much maintained front garden.
Now a week later a £120 cheque has arrived here for the mystery bloke, from VM Payments in Bradford.
So is this some kind of subtle scam?

So did you let the guy in to install then?

No I can't bear that bearded bloke or his Pickle. it was wonderful when that hurricane trashed his private island.

I told the installer to sling his hook he seemed miffed that I didn't want VM and hadn;t asked for it

In reply to a post by Frodo54:

No I can't bear that bearded bloke or his Pickle. it was wonderful when that hurricane trashed his private island.

You realise VM has nothing to do with the beardy bloke anymore? It's owned by the Yanks.

In reply to a post by Frodo54:

No I can't bear that bearded bloke or his Pickle. it was wonderful when that hurricane trashed his private island.

I told the installer to sling his hook he seemed miffed that I didn't want VM and hadn;t asked for it

his pickle!!

In reply to a post by flilot:

In reply to a post by Frodo54:

No I can't bear that bearded bloke or his Pickle. it was wonderful when that hurricane trashed his private island.

You realise VM has nothing to do with the beardy bloke anymore? It's owned by the Yanks.

Although they do pay him to use the name.

In reply to a post by Dean83:

his pickle!!

Same name, different company (Cross&Blackwell, Princes Group own them nowadays).

In reply to a post by MCM:

In reply to a post by Dean83:

his pickle!!

Same name, different company (Cross&Blackwell, Princes Group own them nowadays).

Different name too.

In reply to a post by MHC:

In reply to a post by MCM:

In reply to a post by Dean83:

his pickle!!

Same name, different company (Cross&Blackwell, Princes Group own them nowadays).

Different name too.

My thoughts entirely ..... Branson and Branston for clarity.

In reply to a post by Frodo54:

Now a week later a £120 cheque has arrived here for the mystery bloke, from VM Payments in Bradford.
So is this some kind of subtle scam?

Presumably a refund because they failed to install on the expected date?

Maybe you should have let them install it and he could have paid the monthly bills .

(Not really!)

In reply to a post by flilot:

You realise VM has nothing to do with the beardy bloke anymore? It's owned by the Yanks.

Exactly. Don't they also own F1? But that could change with this partnership with Telefonica to create a "national connectivity champion".

(I hope they replace some of the old green boxes with new ones and sort out the rust!)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52570593

https://www.nationalconnectivitychampion.co.uk/

(edits to fix typos!)

Edited by jchamier (Wed 30-Sep-20 20:23:06)

(I hope they replace some of the old green boxes with new ones and sort out the rust!)

Here's hoping that any new boxes are supplied with doors. It's easy to spot the VM boxes amongst the assorted street furniture around here. The ones without doors are the VM cabinets.

The new Lightning build is far more shoddy than the 90s cableco build.

In reply to a post by MCM:

Here's hoping that any new boxes are supplied with doors. It's easy to spot the VM boxes amongst the assorted street furniture around here. The ones without doors are the VM cabinets.

The bigger cabinets here with doors seem okay. I'm thinking of the small tiny cabinets which have lift off / hinged covers, they are never locked closed.

Here's a blurred example a few streets away from me (easy to see at edge of this car park), streetview is from 2012:
https://goo.gl/maps/EAQkUaVg6PHRvP5g8

In reply to a post by partial:

The new Lightning build is far more shoddy than the 90s cableco build.

I think that depends on the area.

One thing which really gets my OCD going (alright two lol)
1) Two small cabinets placed within half a metre or so of each other. Why couldn’t they have used one larger one. Looks terrible.
2) There seems to be some really tall cabinets knocking around they are much taller than the old coax cabinets. Couldn’t they have made a wider shorter cabinet or contradictory to the above i know use two. These tall ones look so out of place no matter where they are.

2 questions spring to mind.

First - if it was to the "bloke" that had ordered then why did they open the letter to be able to see there was a cheque for £120 - it is illegal to open someone else's mail even if it is sent to your address, although I know it sometimes happens by accident.

Second - why would VM send a cheque? Surely any refund these days would be direct to the bank account used to sign up?

I may be wrong but something seems off here.

In reply to a post by ian72:

2 questions spring to mind.

First - if it was to the "bloke" that had ordered then why did they open the letter to be able to see there was a cheque for £120 - it is illegal to open someone else's mail even if it is sent to your address, although I know it sometimes happens by accident.

Second - why would VM send a cheque? Surely any refund these days would be direct to the bank account used to sign up?

I may be wrong but something seems off here.

Unfortunately Virgin Media live in the 1970's when it comes to refunds. They are indeed sent via cheque, no matter how much you protest and tell them you want BACS.

For reference the cheques will be custom sized (so you'll know if they are legit) as they are a bit bigger than one from a bank.

They are from/headed with RBS London Corporate Service Centre with the sort code at the top of 16-04-00 and have the signature box full with yourname and the amount over and over again. If you are still not sure it's legit you will notice that the piece of paper they send it one is significantly larger than the cheque and has a peferation for tearing, however what you'll also notice is that the paper will have been folded in such a way that when you tear it it's far more likely to tear on the fold leaving the perforation in place and snipping the top of the RBS and Virgin Media logo off.

Edited by gary333 (Thu 01-Oct-20 09:53:37)

Thanks, what a backwards company - I haven't had refunds by cheque for years (although I believe Inland Revenue send tax rebates this way but they are never kind enough to send me one).

In reply to a post by ian72:

Thanks, what a backwards company - I haven't had refunds by cheque for years (although I believe Inland Revenue send tax rebates this way but they are never kind enough to send me one).

I agree, it's infuriating.

The way I know the above details is i've had a cheque sitting here for months for a massive £1.06. Because the cheque isn't standard size it wont scan on the Halifax app, and i'll be dammed if I am going to spend more than the cheques worth getting to a branch to cash. Though, don't want Virgin to win this battle so at some point when doing something else in the area will claim my spoils.

Plus Op won't be able to cash it in anyway.
Unless the name on the cheque matches theirs.

Inland revenue can refund by BACS, just had one

And that was well naff ! around here we had 2 guys onsite with them all the time to fix cables has they cut them .