Virgin media

ProStreet · 29 Mar 2022 at 08:29

Long story short.

Ordered virgin media in November 2021 broadband. Area manager said it would require digging up the road but he did the costings and said it would be done by the new year.

In December 2021, order was cancelled by the construction team due to it being over budget. Same time, area manager reloaded the order as he said it was in budget and they shouldn't have cancelled it.

In January 2022, 3/4 contractors of virgin media turn up over 3 days and dig up my private road and install cabling.

Few weeks past, call area manager who said that outside of my road, there was a patch of road that needed doing to connect my road to the box.

In March 2022, virgin media cancel the order saying its not in budget.

Called 50 times
Raised a complaint and it was closed immediately

Literally the most shocking service I've ever had. I had to find out myself about all the cancellations, they never sent any correspondence. Wasted so much time on this.

Not sure what to do in this situation.

omnomnom · 29 Mar 2022 at 08:37

Virgin Media are awful but “worst I’ve got a private road” post ever imo.

Ombudsman imo

Caged · 29 Mar 2022 at 08:45

"Private road" can also mean the garbage that house builders create and never finish to a standard suitable for adoption, it's not always a tree lined boulevard with gates on it.

ProStreet · 29 Mar 2022 at 08:55

Lol i didn't mean it to come across like that. It's literally just a road that is private for multiple houses.

visibleman · 29 Mar 2022 at 13:07

smeemi said:
Not sure what to do in this situation.

I'm not sure if there is a legal requirement for a provider to offer services, especially if you're already being serviced by someone else (i'm assuming you have a Openreach/BT line or similar?).
Although if there is a number of you that want VM then you could see if you can strike up a deal, ie - VM finish connecting the properties on the basis that you all take XYZ services from them for X months (i think it's now minimum 18 month contracts with VM).
Alternatively see if you could cover the cost of the connection and install, it won't be cheap but....

ProStreet · 29 Mar 2022 at 15:12

visibleman said:
I'm not sure if there is a legal requirement for a provider to offer services, especially if you're already being serviced by someone else (i'm assuming you have a Openreach/BT line or similar?).
Although if there is a number of you that want VM then you could see if you can strike up a deal, ie - VM finish connecting the properties on the basis that you all take XYZ services from them for X months (i think it's now minimum 18 month contracts with VM).
Alternatively see if you could cover the cost of the connection and install, it won't be cheap but....

Yeah, understand that there's no requirement but if they have dug up a private road on the basis that they will install services then decide not to afterwards, surely they have to make good.

visibleman · 29 Mar 2022 at 16:25

smeemi said:
Yeah, understand that there's no requirement but if they have dug up a private road on the basis that they will install services then decide not to afterwards, surely they have to make good.

Did they connect any of the properties or was it to purely to lay street ducting? And did they send out any "are you interested" type cards to yourself and neighbours?

As @omnomnom said, maybe the Ombudsman can offer some advice but it does sound like VM realised they couldn't make out of it considering the number of interested parties which is why, if you can get a load of neighbours to agree to take VM services then maybe you can put forward a case to VM to finish connecting properties - there have been a few cases of this happening (was a few threads on cableforums and VM forums).