Print Thread
Livequeen
The original installation appointment was booked for booked 15th April between 1-6pm...However I Received a telephone call around 4pm to inform me that the appointment had been cancelled due to a need for a key from the local housing office (London Borough of Southwark) for access to roof. I was told it needed as the site manager knew the area well and that roof access was definitely required to complete my installation. A new appointment was booked for following afternoon which allowed time for me to arrange to collect the key.
Tues 16th April
I discovered that my 2nd line which was used for dial up access had been disconnected despite my having been assured at the time of placing my order for Broadband service, that this line would not be taken out of service until the broadband connection was installed and active. I had made it quite clear that I required this second line to remain in service until I had alternative internet access via the broadband connection.
Becoming concerned at the non arrival of any engineering staff I telephoned Virgin Media @ 5:15pm to confirm installation and was told no problem they can arrive up till 6pm.
So I waited until after 6 pm and placed another call only to be told that someone should have contacted me to inform me that the installation had again been cancelled, this time due to a lack of availability of technicians. At this point I expressed that I was unhappy at the situation, especially as I had spoken to their staff only about 90 minutes previously with no indication from them that there was in fact any problem. I did manage to speak to a supervisor who said that someone would call me back to discuss the situation, no such call was received.
Thurs 17th april..AM
I again spoke to several people concerning the inability of VM to complete the work, I was again promised some one would call me back. However I became fed up with waiting, especially after the failure of their staff to call back as promised the previous evening. I decided to call their Head Office where I spoke with someone in the complaints Dept. who said they would look into the problem, indeed she was very helpful. Whilst on the phone to her I received a call on my mobile from the VM installers, I therefore told the lady I would call her back
The caller assured me that full installation would be completed on Sat 19/04/08 and I chose an am appointment I called back the lady in head office and told her the news but also said I was not happy with how I have been treated. She then told me that though I was on the system no worksheet was issued and it would be looked into. I raised the question of the broken appointments and was told that Virgin have a standard practice of paying �10 where they break an appointment, I reluctantly agreed to this despite the fact that there seemed to have been little or no effort from Virgin staff to sort out the situation, and that I had to do all the "progress chasing".
Sat 19 april......
I still had possession of the council key. A staff called at my home and asked if the installers had been I told them that no-one had called. He then told me he was here to lay the cable, however when I offered him the key for access to the roof space he told me that it wasn't required for this job as there was an accessible cable run outside of my home which they would be hooking up to. So it would appear that the original appointment was cancelled for no good reason. Having finally got to the point where the cable was laid, I again contacted your office to confirm when I could expect completion of the work as promised. Can you imagine my anger at being told at this point that no job had been issued for this? I asked for an explanation of this but was offered none. I was again told that someone would call me back to discuss the situation, and again this call was not made. When I again telephoned to raise a firther complaint about this I was curtly informed that that there was no obligation for site manager to call me back. By now I was starting to realise that Customer service - or even basic civility - is not something that Virgin Media considers to be important. so a FOURTH appointment was booked, this time for Weds 23rd April..
Mon 21st april............
I again rang their Head Office to discuss this whole sorry saga, I explained how stressful it has been for me and how I have wasted so much time for this installation, and was promised a call back. Surprisingly, this phone call was returned as promised and was told it was being passed to installation complaints and someone from there would call me. Later that morning about 10:45 I recieved a call and was told my installation work was on the system but no work sheet was issued and the installation might not go ahead as arranged. I told the gentleman that I could not accept this, and wanted some confirmation of the status of this job which was by this time already 7 days overdue..I was then told the person I needed to speak to (site manager?) was not in until tues 22nd, it then began to dawn on me that no one is running the show which would explain the shoddy unacceptable service I have received so far.
I think it is important that Virgin realise there seem to be some serious failing within the running of the installations division, and that these should be looked at to prevent other customers being messed around in such a cavalier fashion. It would seem that the right hand never communicates with its opposite number, that there is no correlation between the outside (cable laying) works and the works required within the customers home. If it really is necessary to have 2 different teams involved, then surely there should be parallel job cards raised to ensure that BOTH aspects of the job are issued at the appropriate time, this would seem to be a basic requirement, their current system is at best chaotic, where no one seems to have overall responsibility for an installation request, and thus the Customer - the lifeblood of their business- has No-One to call to account for multiple failures of VM to complete the work in a timely and convenient manner.
As we are now at 3 appointments that VM have either broken of failed to adequately provision staff to complete the contract, I feel that compensating me by �10 for each occasion is completely inadequate, further I feel that I am owed a full and proper explanation for the manifold problems encountered, and some sort of apology for someone at a senior management level.
SInce then a lot has happened lots of calls stil getting nowhere. As because from 28th of April the systems where going down due to upgrade of customers accounts I could not have my bb installed...Strange i thought wtf has upgrading accounts got to do with my installation.... it was explained if the install was done they could not verify modem..
after ringing again after 5th may i recieved a call to make an appointment so i booked an am appointment from 8am-1pm on the 9th may.
9th May
I waited in anticpation and come 1pm guess what ? no one arrived. Now i am fuming and making calls to VM I even wanted to speak to the person on staff who was the most helpful and was told I cant ....they apologised and I told them i have had to many apologises and i was at boiling point...
I must admit how the hell i was not swearing my head off @ anytime during this mess up surprised me but I could not hold my temeper.
I manage to get through and this nice member of staff who was really trying to help me called me back.
He could not understand what the hell was going on, he looked into it and assured me some one will def call that day.
I must admit my outstanding bill was now wiped clean.So in told i was given �20 credit for 2 missed appointments and my bill wiped clean which was a total of about �87
5:30 hurrah someone arrived and I was promply told he would be back the next day as the job would take him into overtime.....
10th May.
early that morning as good as his word he called back and the installation was done...........hurrah you may cheer but theres more...........the modem would not lock
I had now convinced myself that BB was still a pipe dream.....
he had tried several modems with no joy he said he would be back later that day...
He had since found out and so did i that there was a network problem and he told me to leave modem on.But he would be back monday to change the modem.
12th May
Well today my modem still wont lock even though there is no problems in my area so i had to ring the 0906 no. Ouch @ 25p min.
They talked me thorugh a few things but nope still wont lock dont worry i was told i wont have to pay for the 6 min call and 10p connection charge and they will send an engineer out tomorrow
I told them that I have not even started using BB after waiting for almost 3 weeks cant someone call today nope..........................
I will wait in again tomorrow morning and see what occurs I am so disappointed with the treatment I have been given has anyone else got a similar story.
Edited by Livequeen (Mon 12-May-08 13:55:31)
