Virginmedia phoneline problem

Heinz57

Heinz57

Heinz57

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Joined
27 May 2008
Posts
409
Sorry if this is the wrong sub-forum, but I didn't think it came under 'internet'.

My grandmother is with Virgin media (phone/TV/internet). Since the autumn the quality of the phone line became very poor, she spoke to Virgin who said they'd investigate (which they didn't). By Christmas the phone line was completely dead and Virgin finally looked into it, the cable to her house was damaged and they said they'd fix it on Jan 17th.

They didn't turn up, they said they'd tried ringing the house but got no reply (of course not, the phone line is dead as they know...). They contacted her on her mobile yesterday to say it would be another 8-12 weeks before they can get an engineer to replace the damaged cable.

I was wondering whether this is acceptable, do they not have a duty of care? My grandmother is 90, has cancer and a heart condition, she therefore carries one of those alarm things - but it uses the landline. My grandfather is very poorly and spends all his time in hospital or a 24/7 nursing home, there is every chance they might need to contact my grandmother in an emergency.

Fortunately she has good neighbours/friends and we're only 20 mins away, so between us, them and AgeUk she's checked usually checked on multiple times a day. We've set her up with a simple Doro mobile, but she struggles to make out going calls, although she can receive them okay.

I wouldn't worry if she was younger or in better health, but I don't think it's acceptable to leave someone in her situation without a working landline. Is there anything at all which we can try to get the process sped up? Having spoken to Virgin several times now they simply could not care less, despite her situation, disgusting customer service. Presumably they don't expect her to pay for her phone during this time too!
 
I would make an official complaint, IIRC land lines are meant to be fixed within X days as they are seen as far more important than internet provision.


I would also when contacting VM point out that she is elderly. vulnerable and in ill health as from memory phone companies are meant to take it into account and if need be give it a much higher priority for repair once they are aware of the issue.
I hate to say it, but a contact via twitter may actually get a faster/better response than by phone as it's public and is handled by a UK based CS team from memory (as opposed to the phone support)

At the very least I'd expect them to provide some form of call forwarding to a mobile free of charge so that she can be contacted via her home number whilst the landline is down.

I can't believe that any company would think 8-12+ weeks reasonable for a landline fix, I'm pretty certain OFCOM doesn't given it's not specialist hardware but cabling.
 
Thank you, that's some very useful advice. I'm glad I'm not alone in thinking they're taking an unreasonable amount of time.

We've even considered looking into switching to a BT provider as getting reconnected to the Openreach network might be quicker at this rate. (Perhaps this would be better in the long run considering this mess anyway).
 
8-12 weeks ???? Where does she live ? Some remote island or something ? 8-12 days is more reasonable and frankly it should be under a week. You do need to be escalating this beyond the first level of call centre monkey. It sounds like the canned response of someone not wanting to deal with the issue at all.
 
TBH I was without a landline with BT for 3 months, after some plonka had run into a telephone pole & broken our connecting line.
Which is why I'm with Virgin now, but in fairness I've had good reason to complain up to Virgins CEO level too.
 
Werewolf said:
I hate to say it, but a contact via twitter may actually get a faster/better response than by phone as it's public and is handled by a UK based CS team from memory (as opposed to the phone support
Click to expand...

Thanks, this was good advice. Contacting them through Twitter got a response within a few hours.

However, there is nothing they can do. Repair work in our area is contracted out to a third party who refuse to prioritise my grandmother as they are backlogged.

They've advised us to switch to BT as it'll likely be quicker and have offered to refund her last few months VM bill and waive the cost of ending her contract early.

Not really ideal, it's sad they have so little control over their own network.
 
virgin sucks my phoneline has been dead for like a year.

too lazy to phone them up, hate the call centres they use, really terrible call quality, terrible accents you can barely understand.


if you didn't get offered money off your next bill you should phone retentions and demand it for the amount of time the phone hasn't worked and how long it takes them to fix it.
 
My experience with virgin:

-cross line issue (i dont use my landline phone) - engineer comes out told it's fixed still get charged.
-second engineer comes out says it's actually fixed - still charged.
- ring up to get money back- told I'm making calls even though my landline phone is unplugged. Then one guy suggests my 18 month old is making the calls.
-end up blocking my line as I don't need it just need the fibre. Still get a charge on the 3rd month for call I didn't make, and cannot make as my line is now blocked !
- call to complain- no outcome as told I wasn't given a complaint number.
- second complaint with number this time. Call back as I didn't get an outcome. Complaint number doesn't exist.
- told I would get 10 quid compensation- never happens.
- call to leave and end contract- told fine- but I've called a few days too early as I have to call exactly 30 days before end of contract. Told he will call back and cancel at 30 dsys before end of contract.
- doesn't call back. Call complaints again. Told I want to cancel. Said that guy made it all up and I can cancel 60 days notice. Cancellation apparently put through.
- nothing in post or email. Call back nothing has happened. Told it has happened.
- I call again because I've lost all trust. Not happened.
- refuse to get off phone until someone has confirmed and sent me email it has happened.

Good luck op! Your reason seems much more important that mine. My advice is if you do decide to cancel refuse to come off the phone until you've received an email and they have categorically confirmed that they've done it and taken their full name down.
 
I think we'll just take the free cancellation at this point.

BT can offer similar (excluding TV, which isn't needed anyway) for £25p/m instead of £58 and they reckon they can get it installed on 14th Feb, so there seems little point staying with VM who are going to take at least 2 months...
 
BT installed the phone line as promised and all is working again. Going back to ADSL is a bit painful, but it's also a lot cheaper and it's only used by guests anyway.

Virgin phoned the same day to say they would fix the problem next week. They had changed their story and said another utility company was doing work in the area so they could not (we haven't see any roadworks around and they had said it was only a cable on her own land that needed replacing, nevermind...). Told them it wasn't necessary and we were cancelling, which caused a lot of fuss. Thankfully they eventually found that the Twitter CS guy we'd spoken to had made a note on the file saying we could leave without paying a termination fee /rest of the contract. I'm not sure we'd have got anywhere if he hadn't though, they really don't want you to cancel. (Tough, my aunty died whilst the phone line was down and it took 2 weeks for her immediate relatives to get through to tell my grandmother (aunty's next nearest relative) because they didn't realise she had no phone, so I don't have much sympathy for Virgin now).
 
Virgin are rubbish, they employed 3rd party contractors to install cable on my street, made a right mess, took them over 6 months to put it right. still not as nice as it was before.

They cracked a load of stone flags and put tarmac there instead.
 
I thought this was resolved! Nope.

Received another bill and when we rang them, they claimed no-one had cancelled the contract. Fortunately I have the time/date/name/reference for when I cancelled it so the fight goes on. I don't like to accuse people of lying, but at this stage, they simply are.
 
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