Moved house, no broadband for two months - Virgin Media keep cancelling.

WillG02

We moved house on the 24th August 2020, and one of the things we knew we needed to sort out straight-away was the broadband. I am writing this thread on behalf of my mum and my brother, and we are all in the same predicament. My mum's job in the NHS involves travelling to houses around the community as a phlebotomist, and at the end of the day she needs to log reports and review work on her Laptop. She has only recently been given a Laptop, and so far she has been able to do the logs at the Office, but it is not ideal and she would much prefer to be able to do it at home, she spends all day driving around with very little time to have a break so it doesn't give her much time to do it at the end of the day.

My job is a work-at-home admin contract job, which requires me to use the Internet constantly. I have been having to use and pay for more mobile data constantly - before accepting the role, Virgin were due to arrive and then cancelled, but we were optimistic and assumed they would come as soon as possible. We looked at other options, however other providers such as Sky are not providing a Superfast service which we would prefer since all 3 of us would be using it not only for work use, but for streaming TV and gaming.

Several days after moving in we contacted Virgin to ask for their Broadband, phone and TV package  It was the fastest in the area for a good price, so we thought it was the best option. This was late August. They told us they would be installing the package at the beginning of September, around the 2nd September. The engineer arrived, and he said that he couldn't install it because the cable currently in place was too old and the whole wiring infront of the house would need to be replaced because it was too old - the previous owners has only had Sky since the 1990s. We were fine with this, and he told us that by the 22nd September they would have the work done and would be able to come and fit the Broadband. 2 days before the 22nd September we received an email once again cancelling on us after waiting for the month, and my mum phoned up Virgin and said we were in a desperate situation. By this point we had spent over £50 collectively on extra Mobile Data just to have some sort of connection whilst we had no broadband. We threatened to cancel, because we had already been let down once. The Virgin employee we spoke to on the Phone offered us a 15GB sim in the mean-time for no charge, and also told us that as compensation we could have a better package for no extra cost (200mb/s instead of 60) - on the condition that we had to wait another month, to the 22nd October. We thought this was a fair compromise, and they promised on the Phone that it would be installed on this date.

Two days ago, we received confirmation that they would be arriving today, Thursday the 22nd October, to install the Broadband between 8am-1pm. I work at home, so I was staying at home waiting for them to come. 4pm goes by, nobody has arrived to fit the Broadband. My mum comes home and phones Virgin again to ask what is happening. They then tell her that "as far as they could see, we were not coming today, and the engineers have noted that there is more outdoor work to be done which means your service will not be starting today." We are furious. It has been two months now, we have no Internet - we have spent over £100 now between all three of us in Mobile Data on the promise of having a better package if we waited for the engineers to install the new cabling. They have had two months now and yet again we have been let down. Several times we have seen people outside working for Virgin fitting cabling outside our house, and just the other day we saw them fit new cable in and close up a hole outside our house - so we cannot understand how two months later it is still not done. Not only that, they did not even have the courtesy this time despite cancelling twice before to let us know they weren't even coming.

They have said that they will Phone us back within 24hrs and hopefully be able to get us in contact with the 'engineers - though whether they actually will, or if this was just something they said to keep us in check for the time being we do not know. What can we do about this situation? Sorry it is long, but it has been two months now without Broadband and we cannot wait any longer. It is costing too much money in Mobile Data and we have already spent too much - and Virgin could well tell us to wait another month, before letting us down once again.

littleboo

What speeds can you get from Openreach based suppliers?