Cuckoo, don't believe the hype!

stiggy6767

Posting on here for the first time as I feel the need to share my experience!  

I have been with Virgin for almost 30 years and frankly got tired of doing the "renewal price dance" every 18 months despite the actual product being very reliable and generally competitive. My last renewal price was triple what I had previously been paying!

Having done extensive research I conceded that I would need to swap to a BT fibre provision and based on great customer reviews (and a recommendation from MSE) I switched  to Cuckoo. They offered a great deal and seemed like a breath of fresh air during the sales process, I spoke to real people who seemed to be both engaged and professional!

Having set an installation date only 2 weeks from sign up I was ecstatic and optomistic!
However from the point where Cuckoo became reliant on BT Openreach to actually do the install it all went badly wrong!

In short 3 failed install visits, three days off work, too many phone calls and emails to count a great deal of frustration and stress and very poor communications and management from Cuckoo throughout.

Some 3 months later I eventually cancelled the contract (which took 5 attempts) and have received no compensation whatsoever.
To add insult to injury I posted several honest reviews on Trustpilot and these have been removed (presumably as a result of pressure from Cuckoo) because my posts allegedly breeched their guidelines!

I would suggest that you treat the reviews posted regarding Cuckoo with a degree of scepticism and caution as these are almost exclusively 5 star by reviewers who only seem to have reviewed Cuckoo, just saying...
Needless to say I have stayed with Virgin since having threatened to cancel and I actually ended up getting 4 x the broadband speed for the same price as I was paying previously!

ButterCheese

I am not surprised by your experience.  We have to do the renewal dace every time, as we have no other full fibre providers.  I wouldn't actually mind if their equipment and service was very good, but the VM routers are poor and we get about 5 drop-outs a week which only last a short time but that can be enough to ruin whatever you are doing.  It also can't even manage relaying a 350mb/s signal upstairs - we only get around 60mb/sec up there.  When you can buy a TP Links router which is 10x better for £38, you wonder what sort of racket all of these providers are running.  And of course you can't use one instead of the VM one because it doesn't work all the time unless you're an IT engineer

M25

stiggy6767 said:

Posting on here for the first time as I feel the need to share my experience!  

I have been with Virgin for almost 30 years and frankly got tired of doing the "renewal price dance" every 18 months despite the actual product being very reliable and generally competitive. My last renewal price was triple what I had previously been paying!

Having done extensive research I conceded that I would need to swap to a BT fibre provision and based on great customer reviews (and a recommendation from MSE) I switched  to Cuckoo. They offered a great deal and seemed like a breath of fresh air during the sales process, I spoke to real people who seemed to be both engaged and professional!

Having set an installation date only 2 weeks from sign up I was ecstatic and optomistic!
However from the point where Cuckoo became reliant on BT Openreach to actually do the install it all went badly wrong!

In short 3 failed install visits, three days off work, too many phone calls and emails to count a great deal of frustration and stress and very poor communications and management from Cuckoo throughout.

Some 3 months later I eventually cancelled the contract (which took 5 attempts) and have received no compensation whatsoever.
To add insult to injury I posted several honest reviews on Trustpilot and these have been removed (presumably as a result of pressure from Cuckoo) because my posts allegedly breeched their guidelines!

I would suggest that you treat the reviews posted regarding Cuckoo with a degree of scepticism and caution as these are almost exclusively 5 star by reviewers who only seem to have reviewed Cuckoo, just saying...
Needless to say I have stayed with Virgin since having threatened to cancel and I actually ended up getting 4 x the broadband speed for the same price as I was paying previously!

Lots of words but exactly what was the technical problem?

If you were moving from a 30 year cable service (I assume) to the OpenReach FTTP (I assume) there could always be a problem as it's an entirely new service and that problem or problems could've been sitting there for decades.

You will have to buy a new dress for the next Virgin Media dance.

My best advice would be to get an FTTP line ordered 6 months in advance and stick with BT for the first contract. Then you are free to move around the entire broadband market.

iniltous

FWIW there is no such thing as BT Openreach , it’s Openreach , BT have nothing to do with your issue.

If your address was  known to be potentially problematic in being served with FTTP (a 1960-1990’s house with buried copper cables for example ) then your chosen ISP will have known that and should  have told you that the first date given is advisory , and especially when moving from Virgin (a totally separate network) if a guarantee of no break in service is essential, then not giving notice to Virgin until the new service is up and running is advisable, even if it means paying Virgin an ‘out if contract price’ for a short period and paying for two services during the notice period, that’s a choice , what’s more important, the cost or being on line .

Openreach (not BT ) survey every address before they build their FTTP network, some problems are hidden and can’t be foreseen, like if your address were served by a duct , but that duct is blocked , obviously that will only come to light on the day of the installation so sometimes a delay can’t be predicted, but in  areas that are known to be problematic, individual houses are flagged as two stage installations, the first stage date  is the ‘preparation’ stage date  , this  isn’t a contractual date and you shouldn’t expect service to be provided at this point , it’s the date when the mitigation to get around the problem is put in place .

You can check your address here if you are interested (KCI2=two stage installations) 
https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressHome